Rowan: The Weight of the Signal

He didn’t answer. He couldn’t. The signal wasn’t just reacting — it was reaching. A faint pressure built behind his sternum, like a hand pressing gently against his chest. His vision blurred at the edges. His pulse slowed to match the rhythm on the screen.

Rowan straightened. “Elias, you’re turning pale. Back off.” But Elias leaned in, not physically, but mentally.

The waveform surged.

A flash of emotion slammed into him — fear, longing, laughter, confusion — none of it his. A woman’s voice echoed faintly in his mind, not words but the shape of them. A memory that wasn’t his flickered across his awareness: a dark room, a door creaking open, a presence behind her. Mara gasped. “We’re inside someone’s consciousness.”

“No,” Elias murmured. “They’re inside mine.”

The waveform fractured — splitting into two distinct frequencies. One remained tethered to the unknown mind. The other was new. Cold. Mechanical. Predatory.

Rowan’s monitor lit up with a red alert.

UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS DETECTED

NODE SEVEN BREACH

COUNTERMEASURES DEPLOYED

They had been silently probing Blackfile for months — and now something on the other side was probing back.

Kira swore under her breath. “Shit, they’re on to us.” Elias didn’t hear her. The second frequency slammed into him like a tidal wave.

Millions of minds — layered, intertwined, shaped by something vast and unseen — crashed through him. He felt their fears, their impulses, their engineered thoughts. He felt the architecture of Blackfile’s influence network, humming beneath the world like a second heartbeat.

It was too much. His knees buckled. The room tilted. He passed out.

- Prologue: The Quiet Recording