3

  A coarse voice cut through the static.

  “The target’s status?”

  Jundra picked up the transceiver, eyes locked on the grey figure disappearing into the cave. The jungle heat pressed against her, thick with the scent of damp earth and rotting bark. “Kirom’s moved.”

  A brief silence. Then the response. Low. Steady.

  “Into the cave?”

  The Head.

  Jundra exhaled through her nose. “Affirmative. Breezed through the barricade just now. Execute and all. Alone.”

  “Not alone,” said Va.

  Jundra frowned, gncing over. Va wasn’t even looking at her — head tilted, eyes closed, listening to something beyond the static.

  Jundra adjusted her grip. The Head’s voice asked from the device. “Expin.”

  Va’s expression didn’t change. “Another one. Small. Quick. Keeping to the rock line.”

  “Harun’s Accept?”

  “No.” A flicker of something in Va’s face. “Step’s too light. No training. It’s a kid.”

  The transceiver crackled. “From the vilge?” The Head asked.

  Va let out a dry chuckle. “What, you think Advancement’s recruiting toddlers now?”

  Jundra ignored her, adjusting her scope. “Whose?”

  A pause. “The mechanic’s,” Va said.

  “…Vasantara,” the Head sighed.

  The old mechanic has been stationed at Kripur and watching Kirom grow up for years. Even before the barricades. Before the Accepts lined the roads.

  “That gramp has a kid?” Jundra asked.

  Va shrugged. “That’s what I said.” A pause. “The kid’s watching him.”

  The line crackled again. “Aside from that — Kirom sticking to the routine?” The Head asked. “No change in the vilge yet. But Harun wouldn’t let the fact that he has two Executes now slip by.”

  Jundra adjusted her focus. The line of Accepts in white stood still, as always. Birds chattered their lives away, while swarms of flying insects surged forward, eager to suck her blood. And yes — she could see it now — a small figure, a child, creeping into the cave.

  “Looks like it.” She hated admitting the fact.

  “Same damn thing,” Va muttered. “Praying in. Praying out. A real devoted child. Raised by a real devoted Shahir of a mother.”

  Everyone went silent with that remark.

  “Didn’t even light the damn incense,” Va judged. “Just left it there. Like always.”

  Jundra stared at the empty cave’s maw through her scope.

  Something felt off.

  She didn’t know what. Not yet.

  But she knew this scene. She had watched it for years. Every single time, Kirom did the same thing. Same steps. Same pauses. The same slow, deliberate ritual that never once changed.

  But something was off.

  Static hissed through the transceiver. Faint. Brief. The channel had been clear seconds ago.

  Jundra frowned.

  “Then we’re wasting time,” The Head’s tone turned clipped.

  Jundra bristled, her whole body reacting to something she couldn’t quite pce.

  “Or,” she snapped, “we consider that maybe, just maybe, after years of watching this man —“

  “Boy.”

  Jundra scowled. “— This man’s path to finally wield Power, that something’s actually different today.”

  The Head’s voice was unimpressed. “Your gut feelings are not intelligence.”

  Jundra’s stomach tightened.

  “My gut feelings,” Jundra shot back, “have gotten us further than your silent scheming ever has.”

  Va let out a sharp ugh. “Oh, I love this.”

  Jundra pressed on, ignoring both of them. “You want something to happen? You want someone inside that hellhole to cut into Harun’s throat? You have to trust my read.”

  “Trust?” The head chuckled. “Jundra, you’ve been shadowing Kirom so long I’m starting to think you want to put a ring on his finger.”

  “Eat shit.”

  “See? Emotional. Unreliable”

  Jundra clenched her jaw. “I swear to all things dead or living ––”

  Va raised a hand. Sharp. Abrupt.

  She turned her head, listening. Not to Jundra. Not to the Head.

  To something else.

  “We have wasted enough time on this.” The Head sighed. “If there was something to act on, we’d know by now. He’ll pray. He’ll leave. And we will have —”

  “Stop.” Va’s voice cut in.

  Her lips parted slightly. Not in surprise. In recognition.

  “He’s lighting them alright.”

  The transceiver buckled.

  “Lighting what, Va —“

  Boom.

  The transceiver screeched.

  The ground shook. A deep, guttural noise tore through the channel. Not just sound. A force. The forest itself pulsed, like the very bones of the earth had exhaled something they weren’t meant to breath.

  Jundra felt it, deep in her gut. A shift. A fracture. A howl. Something she had felt before in a dream long forgotten.

  And then, she moved.

  Va swore. “Jundra —”

  Someone barked something — maybe a curse, maybe an order.

  Jundra didn’t care.

  She was already gone.

  Back in the vilge. The world heaved.

  Damn kids.

  The Head exhaled sharply, steadying himself. A transceiver radio fell from the table. He crouched down, fingers already moving to tune the frequency.

  Static. Dead.

  The Head gritted his teeth. He sucked in a sharp breath. And got up.

  Fine. Va can handle her own shit.

  Another different pulse. This one fainter.

  In his pocket. From the bck ste.

  It pulsed again. Twice. Thrice.

  A directive from Harun.

  The Head clicked his tongue. Of course, that bastard wouldn’t wait.

  He tossed the ste aside and pressed his fingers against the back of his other hand. Liquid metal bled outward. It slithered over his wrist, coiling around his palm, spreading in smooth, seamless waves. His old skin vanished. His face followed. The shifting yers swallowed him whole, molding over his features, his form, until nothing familiar remained.

  He moved his hands. The new skin moved with him. Whole. Complete. Unseen.

  He changed his clothes into his Accept white. Picked up the ste.

  Then, he moved.

  He stepped out from the alley and straight into the main street.

  Beyond the immediate chaos of the market, he briefly gnced westward, past the bck Department building. Kripur’s inner districts surfaced in glimpses, with dust and noises rising from distant streets and watchtowers casting oppressive shadows over residential clusters and blocks.

  A basket flew past his head. Not aimed — just hurled, as people were shouting, scrambling, throwing things into carts. Gods and curses were mentioned. Chickens screeched, feather flying as one nearly crashed into his legs. He sidestepped it just in time for a woman to stumble backward into him, arms full of live fish, toppling some. She looked up. Saw the white. Her eyes darted away. Words half-formed on her lips before she shut them. A dog came running and bit the squirming fish on the ground.

  The Head kept walking.

  “CITIZENS. MAINTAIN ORDER.”

  The overhead voice system bred, crackling between each word.

  “THIS EVENT IS A MINOR DISTURBANCE. RETURN TO DESIGNATED ZONES.”

  Bullshit.

  Someone screamed. An elderly man, shaking a wooden cane at a teenager who was trying to salvage his wares.

  Another pulse from his pocket. He ignored it, stepping around a toppled stack of produces. A goat came running, bleating in frenzy as if the earth shaking had been a personal offense. He twisted his body just enough, letting it charge past, catching a brief glimpse of a ragged cloth tied around its neck with half a stolen satchel still attached.

  The speakers buzzed again.

  "CITIZENS. MAINTAIN ORDER."

  Something flew and hit his shoulder. A spoon, maybe. He didn't even turn.

  His destination was ahead.

  DEPARTMENT OF INTERDISCIPLINARY ADVANCEMENT

  He walked in.

  The sanitization chamber hissed. Mist curled around his shoulders, dispersing as the scanners ran over him.

  The inner doors slid open.

  The younger Accepts inside looked up. Stiffened. They were waiting. No orders had arrived yet. He could see the uncertainty in the way their fingers curled slightly by their sides, the way one kept gncing toward the hallway, as if hoping for someone else to step forward and give them direction.

  One of them hesitated. “Sir —”

  The Head turned, smiling, voice slipping into something light. Polished.

  “Everything is fine. Continue your post.”

  The recruit nodded, stepping back, hands tightening at their sides.

  Obedient. Good.

  He stepped past them, through the halls, each corridor stretching darker. The walls hummed lower, deeper, a steady rhythm felt in his bones.

  The announcement room.

  The door slid open.

  Inside, the mic was waiting. The console still alive with the same looping directive.

  “CITIZENS. MAINTAIN ORDER.”

  He pressed his fingers against the panel, cutting the loop. The Head flicked the switch with ease. The speakers groaned to life.

  Then, his voice. Smooth. Even. Unhurried.

  “Attention, citizens. This is an official transmission from the Department of Interdisciplinary Advancement.”

  A pause. Let them register.

  “The Department is pleased to bring you this test update.

  “The discovered anomalies have been noted. Verified. Understood.”

  Another beat. He shifted the tone.

  “Let this day mark another step forward.

  “For Advancement. For progress. For the stability of all.”

  A happy ending.

  The ste pulsed again in his pocket.

  A groan.

  He dragged a hand down his face, muttering a curse under his breath before turning on his heel.

  Back to smiling.

  The other Accepts were waiting outside. Uncertain. Gncing at one another.

  He smiled even wider. “The Execute is handling this now.”

  They straightened. Their eyes relieved.

  He walked past them, past the st stretch of empty corridors, past the deep hum of the bck walls —

  And reached the door at the end.

  The pulse from his pocket stopped.

  He stepped forward.

  Harun was waiting.

  “Savar.” Not quite a greeting.

  “My apologies for the dey, sir.” Savar smiled. “It’s been a morning.”

  Harun’s gaze didn’t shift.

  “There was an anomaly,” Savar said. “At the cave.”

  No reaction.

  “The Accepts stationed near there reported a spike in energy signature — ours — followed by another of yet-to-be-confirmed origin.” A pause. “And the timing was… unusual.”

  “Define ‘unusual.’”

  Savar tilted his head, a gesture of consideration. “Our new Execute entered the cave just minutes before it happened.”

  There it was. The slightest shift in Harun’s face — not surprise. Expectation.

  Savar lowered his voice. “I know it’s unlikely. Advancement promoted an Execute for a reason. But Kirom —” a measured hesitation, a quick correction, smooth as ever. “— the Execute in discussion has always been chiefly driven by his own directive, has he not?”

  A beat.

  “I wouldn’t bring this to you if it weren’t the most reasonable expnation, of course,” Savar continued smoothly. “And I wouldn’t suggest it unless an action — one that serves the Department, under your order — were warranted.”

  Savar waited.

  Finally, Harun moved.

  He crossed the room, walking past Savar, toward the bck stone wall. His fingers pressed against its surface, summoning rows of data. Numbers. Patterns. Readings.

  As the wall flickered to life, the map of Kripur appeared briefly. The market and the forest down east clearly marked, dwarfed by the orderly sprawl of the western inner city.

  He studied them.

  Savar didn’t press.

  “You think,” Harun said. “The Department should act on this.”

  “Indeed.” Savar smiled. “Led by its one Execute.”

  The air between them shifted.

  Harun pondered. “If I move too soon, I undermine the given directive by Advance.”

  “And if you wait too long, someone else will be gone,” Savar countered. “And the given directive by Advance will surely be wronged.”

  Harun looked at him. His gaze flicked back to the surface.

  He was already giving out orders.

  Savar smiled again and bowed.

  Damn kids.

  The Head cursed in his head.