The Null Signal

The outer wall of Delhi stood like a scar stitched across the edge of a dying civilization. High above, the surveillance towers blinked under the smog-choked sky, their sensors half-asleep, their silence not from peace—but from protocol. Beyond them, in the dust and concrete of Zone Zero, a boy was running.

Ishan didn't know how long his legs had carried him. The sharp rocks tore at his feet, the cold stung his skin, but he kept moving through the wasteland like something was chasing him—something he couldn't see, only feel. His breath came out in shudders. His vision blurred. But deep in his chest, something pulsed. Something alive. The sparks that flickered along his fingertips didn't burn him anymore. They whispered. Whispered truths he had no language for, symbols he'd never seen, names he'd never heard. The ground trembled beneath him with each step, like the world itself was holding its breath.

When he finally collapsed, it wasn't from fear.

It was from memory.

Not his own—but someone else's. Something older. Something buried.

He curled beside the ruins of a half-toppled drone station, hugging his knees as his bones rattled with energy. Blue light flickered beneath his skin like starlight beneath water. The air shimmered around him.

Then it spoke.

Not a voice. Not in sound.

But in weight. In shape. In intent.

He didn't understand what it said.

But he knew what it meant.

He was no longer lost.

He had been found.

---

In the control chamber beneath Civic Tower 3, Karan Das leaned over the holomap and watched as a new signal bloomed in Zone Zero—green, pulsing, irregular. He narrowed his eyes. No civilian lived there. Nothing should've been alive there. The Accord had deemed it a wasteland a decade ago. No communications, no transit, no records.

And yet, the Orric flare on the screen pulsed like a heartbeat.

He tapped the comm embedded in his collar.

"Das to Aurik. I need a clean route to Zone Zero. Off-grid. No drones."

Aurik's voice answered a beat later, low and gravelly, distorted through old encryption. "That's Suicide Alley. You finally gone nostalgic or just tired of breathing?"

Karan didn't reply immediately. His eyes lingered on the coordinates flashing red on the scanner. The Surge was active there. Untouched, raw, unfiltered.

"I need the suit," he said. "Old Blackwave gear. The real stuff."

Silence crackled.

Then Aurik chuckled. "Didn't think I'd ever hear you say that again."

"Neither did I."

---

Far to the east, beneath the roots of the old mountains of Chongqing, Lin Weiyu knelt before the sealed dome of a collapsed research vault. Her fingers traced the ancient stone like it was a tomb. The symbols etched into the surface flickered faintly, triggered by her proximity. The Orric energy inside her vibrated with each passing second, stronger now than it had been in over a decade.

The Accord had bombed this place during the Final Silence Act. Declared it neutralized. But they had been wrong. The energy here hadn't died. It had gone dormant. Like coals beneath ash.

She closed her eyes.

Listened.

And in the deep, echoing silence of that buried vault, she heard the same pulse.

A heartbeat.

She stood slowly.

Her power shimmered around her in threads of light and gravity, warping the air.

She wasn't alone anymore.

The world was waking.

And it remembered her name.

---

Back in Delhi, Karan suited up in the dim light of the safehouse's hidden chamber. The Blackwave armor fit like second skin, familiar despite the years. Matte-black plates laced with Orric-resistant mesh, the spiral insignia etched faintly into the shoulder. A relic from a war the world denied ever happened.

He checked the pulse sensor.

Zone Zero still throbbed green on the map.

The energy signature hadn't faded.

That meant whoever was out there—whatever—was still alive.

He strapped on the final piece: the old mask. Its filter hummed faintly. The world beyond it changed into grayscale.

He slipped into the dark without a word.

---

The boy had stopped shaking.

Ishan sat up slowly, his hands glowing faintly in the dim light of the wasteland. Something inside him had stabilized. His heartbeat had synced with something larger. The fear was still there, but it had changed. Hardened. Focused.

A drone buzzed overhead, silent and sleek.

It hovered for a moment, its lens blinking red as it scanned him.

SUBJECT DETECTED

ORRIC TYPE: CLASS ZERO

STATUS: ACTIVE

THREAT LEVEL: EXCEPTIONAL

PROTOCOL: TERMINATION AUTHORIZED

The drone's core lit up.

A charge built behind its barrel.

And then—a flash.

A blade sliced through the air, embedding itself in the drone's stabilizer.

It fell to the ground in a burst of sparks.

The boy froze.

From the shadows behind the twisted remains of an old relay tower, a figure emerged. Black armor. Spiral symbol. Masked.

Karan stepped over the wreckage and looked at the child—small, bleeding, eyes glowing like ancient stars.

"Are you here to hurt me?" the boy asked, voice cracking.

Karan knelt.

"No," he said. "I'm here because the world forgot you."

The boy's hands trembled. "What… what am I?"

Karan took a slow breath. "You're the question the Accord couldn't answer. The memory they tried to erase. The signal they feared."

He held out a hand.

"I'm here to help you remember."

---

Deep beneath the ocean, aboard a ship the world no longer tracked, Specter-Lotus stood before a rotating Orric map of the globe. Pulse points flared to life—Delhi, Chongqing, Nairobi, Vladivostok. Places with buried history. Forgotten enemies. Lost children.

The Accord's grip was loosening.

Memory was leaking through the cracks.

"They're waking," he whispered.

Behind him, a choir of masked figures chanted in perfect synchronization, their voices layered with digital resonance.

"The Null Signal is rising."

And in the dark corners of the Earth, machines began to hum again—machines that were never supposed to move again.