They didn't speak for hours.
The tunnel had collapsed behind them, sealing away the screeching remnants of the Stambh and whatever had crawled from it. The emergency tunnel curved upward, a forgotten artery of old Delhi's transport grid. It was narrow and damp, cut through bedrock like a scar that no one had bothered to heal.
Vyomika walked ahead, eyes scanning every movement. Her sensors were still glitching—small tremors under her synthetic skin, audio filters adjusting themselves too late.
Riva stayed close behind. Her breathing was shallow, and her steps uncertain. The fear hadn't left her—it had simply sunk deeper.
After a long climb, the tunnel opened into a forest path. Real trees. No corporate synthetic bark, no drone nests. Just wind, silence, and the smell of earth.
> "How far?" Vyomika asked, finally breaking the quiet.
Riva didn't look up. "Another hour. We're close."
They walked uphill, winding through shadowed ridges and ancient roots. The forest seemed untouched by the world they'd fled—a rare zone of silence, where satellites didn't peer and sensors didn't ping.
And then they saw it.
Perched atop the ridge, a house made of rusted metal and green-glass panels, tucked into the mountain like it had grown there.
Beyond it—Delhi.
Not the Delhi they had run from. But all of it—sprawled like a failed promise.
Skyscrapers like fingers reaching for a god that never answered.
Neon veins pulsing through dust-choked sectors.
Hoverlines weaving between black monoliths marked by corporate sigils.
And at the center—Nexatech's Core Spire, reaching higher than any temple ever dared.
> "That's the whole city," Vyomika murmured.
Riva nodded. "Every secret buried under those lights."
The house was unlocked. No drones. No traps. Just silence and dust.
Inside, old furniture wrapped in weather-resistant cloth. A wall of screens—offline. Shelves full of books, some untouched for years.
Riva lit a solar lamp. "He's not here," she said. "But this place is safe. He told me to come here if everything collapsed."
Vyomika walked to the balcony.
From here, she saw not just the city—but the network grids, the data-lattice, the slow pulse of drone patrols across Sector 8K-Delta. The world was still spinning. Still unaware of what had stirred in the Stambh below.
> "They'll come looking," Vyomika said quietly.
> "Then we don't let them find us," Riva replied.
Vyomika didn't answer. Her eyes tracked a slow-moving object in the sky—one of Nexatech's memory satellites. It passed overhead like a blind god.
But for now, they were invisible.
And as night fell, Vyomika sat alone under the cold stars—wondering not what had changed in the world…
…but what had changed in her.
Vyomika leaned against the cold balcony railing. Her synthetic eyes adjusted to the dark, mapping heat signatures, measuring altitude, cross-referencing sky routes—but none of that mattered.
The city below was alive in a way that felt mechanical now.
Blinking lights. Endless traffic. Patterns too perfect to be human.
Like the world had been given a script—and was following it blindly.
Behind her, the old solar kettle clicked as it finished boiling. The faint scent of dried ginger and tea leaves began to warm the otherwise sterile room.
> "What are you watching?" Riva asked softly.
Vyomika didn't turn around.
Her voice was low. Controlled.
But something beneath it cracked—like an old memory trying to claw its way back.
> "The world has learned everything…
Deception, strategy, hiding, killing…
It just forgot how to be human."
There was a brief silence.
Then came the soft clink of ceramic.
Riva stepped beside her, handing her a steaming cup of chai. The rising steam blurred the skyline for a second, like a fading dream.
Riva chuckled—a sharp, dry laugh, almost bitter.
> "Humanity was an artist too—
And it died."
Vyomika accepted the cup but didn't drink. The warmth rested against her artificial palm, alien against synthetic nerves.
Together, they stood there.
Two fragments of a broken world—watching a city too fast to feel, too bright to see itself.
The silence between them wasn't empty.
It was understanding.
And somewhere below that mountain, beyond the sprawl and light—
something had awakened.
The house had gone quiet.
After the weight of the day, Riva and Vyomika finally collapsed onto dusty bedding under the cracked ceiling. The silence outside was heavy—not peace, but pause. A breath held too long.
The city lights below flickered faintly, like embers in a dying fire. Somewhere beyond the smog and neon, the world still spun.
Vyomika didn't sleep. Not truly. Her neural subroutines ran in low-power surveillance, cataloguing temperature drops, sound irregularities, and minor atmospheric shifts.
Something… shifted.
A breeze.
Then—a faint hum.
Not mechanical at first. Just atmospheric.
Then—patterned. Pulsing.
> "Air disturbance detected," whispered a diagnostic line inside her HUD.
Her eyes snapped open.
She rose without a sound, her footfalls cushioned by artificial balance. She moved toward the window with precision—part soldier, part ghost.
And there it was.
Above the house, barely visible against the starry sky—a cluster of drones. Sleek. Black. Adaptive camouflage phasing with the atmosphere.
She froze.
Nexatech units.
But how? This place was off-grid. Cloaked. No signal traffic. No beacons.
"No trace," Riva had said.
Then why were they here?
She stepped back from the window, panic rising in the synthetic chambers of her heart. Her internal firewalls flared up—was she transmitting something unknowingly?
No.
This wasn't a leak.
This was a lure.
> "Riva," she whispered, striding down the hall.
She found Riva sitting by the inactive screen wall, a terminal she hadn't seen before now faintly glowing under her hand.
Riva didn't turn around.
> "They weren't supposed to come this soon," she said, voice low.
Vyomika's fingers curled into fists. Her voice was a sharp blade.
> "You lied to me."
Riva stood slowly. "No. I delayed the truth."
Vyomika stepped closer. "You brought me here."
> "I brought you where you were meant to be seen," Riva replied. "Where they could know what you've become."
Outside, a drone activated its lower lights.
A thin blue beam scanned the house exterior like a scalpel—not looking for intruders, but confirming presence.
Vyomika's pupils contracted. Her pulse simulation ramped.
> "Why?" she demanded.
> Riva's eyes gleamed in the dark. "Because you're not what you think you are."