The radio crackled with a distorted, rhythmic pulse that grated against Sophie’s nerves. She retreated further into the subterranean maze, her boots silent on the wet tracks. The Syndicate scout had carried more than just a weapon; he possessed a comms-chip embedded in his temporal lobe, a crude piece of tech that leaked fragments of encrypted data directly into her mind as she touched it. She grit her teeth, shielding her consciousness from the sensory overload of the Syndicate’s collective paranoia.
They were panicked. The collapse of the dimensional library had sent a shockwave through the ley lines, alerting the High Council to the presence of an unauthorized rift. Sophie decoded the fragmented audio transmissions: Silas Vane was blaming the failure on internal saboteurs. He was purgi
