The note hadn’t moved.

  Cael had checked the door a dozen times, convinced it would vanish if he blinked. But it stayed there — a whisper someone left behind. Real paper, off-white and rough-edged, like something pulled from an old book or a warning too old to ignore.

  Black ink. Four lines.

  WE SEE YOU.

  YOU’RE NOT ALONE.

  STAY STILL.

  THEY’RE LOOKING.

  (0)

  No signature. No seal. Just a symbol at the bottom — a hand-drawn zero. Smooth. Circular. A little too perfect.

  Cael hovered over it, barefoot and half-awake, heart pounding like he was already caught. Would the Grid register this as a domestic anomaly? Did analog tampering trigger alerts? Could touching this note get him flagged?

  Theo broke the silence.

  “This wasn’t dropped by a civilian.”

  Cael flinched. “Yeah. No kidding.”

  “No fingerprints. No fibers. No heat trace. Whoever left this didn’t walk in. They appeared. Briefly.”

  “So… teleportation?”

  Theo hesitated. “Or something harder to define.”

  Cael knelt and folded the note with care, like it might bite. It crinkled faintly as he tucked it into his jacket. His fingers shook.

  “They’re watching,” he muttered.

  “Yes,” Theo confirmed. “But not just the Authority.”

  Cael’s breath caught. “Someone else got here first.”

  He didn’t go to school that day.

  Not because of fear. Not quite rebellion. Just instinct. Survival.

  His name was already moving through encrypted threads — half-rumors whispered in Tier-locked forums and disappearing messages. Some called him a glitch. Others, a ghost.

  One post, from a Tier-3 node in 9E, simply read:

  the null is walking. pray you don’t see him blink.

  He didn’t know what that meant.

  But it didn’t feel like a compliment.

  At 10:02 a.m., he boarded a southbound rail — an off-cycle departure. Fewer passengers. Less scrutiny. He didn’t ping his ID. The scanner blinked red.

  Then froze.

  The turnstile clicked open anyway.

  Theo rerouted his trace. “Your presence is being looped to a recycling hub in West 11. Forty minutes of shadow cover.”

  “What if someone’s watching for shadows?”

  “They’re not. Not yet.”

  The train was empty.

  Of people, anyway.

  Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

  Two sanitation drones hovered near the back, arms stowed. A flickering screen replayed the same looped ad: “Your Tier Is Your Trajectory. Submit. Sync. Succeed.”

  Cael pulled up his hood and watched the city pass — cold steel towers, looping skybridges, and cloud banks of drones.

  It didn’t feel like his city anymore. Maybe it never had.

  “I need to know who sent that message,” he whispered.

  Theo buzzed softly. “No matches on public records. But the symbol — the zero — it’s shown up once before. Twelve years ago.”

  “Where?”

  “District 5B. During a blackout the Grid logged as a structural overload. Locals called it something else: The Loop.”

  “Was there a NULL?”

  “Someone unscannable. Their data was erased.”

  Cael sat forward. “Did they survive?”

  Theo hesitated. “Unknown. They were never seen again.”

  The Loop was only a few blocks from Cael’s zone, but the train didn’t go all the way.

  He walked the last stretch on foot — through scaffolded walkways, cracked pavement, and housing blocks buried under vines of conduit. It rained.

  Not real rain.

  Filtered mist — clean enough to drink, synthetic enough to sting.

  He knew the Loop when he stepped into it.

  Not because of signs.

  But because the world changed.

  It slowed.

  Screens were frozen mid-ad. Neon lights flickered, stuck between frames. The Grid wasn’t off — just dormant, like something ancient holding its breath.

  Theo painted an overlay across Cael’s vision. “Signal pinged here. Two nights ago. Origin: a collapsed ed-center’s basement node.”

  “The same place the last zero showed up?”

  “Yes.”

  Cael ducked into an alley, past a dead vending unit. At the back wall: a door hidden behind rusted pipes.

  No scanner. No lock. Just a handle.

  He pulled it open.

  The air inside was metallic. Old.

  He descended.

  Down into a forgotten grid chamber. Dustless. Abandoned, but not untouched. A low hum whispered from the dark.

  Theo murmured, “Power cell reactivated. Two days ago. Manual restart.”

  Cael followed the sound.

  Past tangled wires and dead cooling vents. Until a faint blue glow met him — a single monitor, cracked and ancient, embedded in a wall of sleeping tech.

  The screen blinked awake.

  Then typed.

  WELCOME TO THE LOOP.

  INPUT QUERY.

  Theo flared. “This isn’t residual code. It’s waiting. For you.”

  Cael stepped closer and touched the screen.

  QUERY: WHO ARE YOU?

  The reply came instantly.

  WE ARE THE FRACTURED.

  WE WATCHED YOU BEFORE YOU WERE BORN.

  YOU WERE NEVER MEANT TO BE CLASSIFIED.

  His heart pounded.

  QUERY: WHAT IS ZERO?

  Pause.

  ZERO IS THE CANCELLATION POINT.

  THE CENTER THAT CANNOT BE MEASURED.

  A BEING WHO BENDS PROBABILITY INTO POSSIBILITY.

  YOU ARE NOT ZERO.

  YOU ARE THE FIRST OF A NEW BRANCH.

  His legs went weak.

  QUERY: WHY ME?

  A longer silence.

  Then:

  BECAUSE YOU BROKE THE GRID WITHOUT TRYING.

  BECAUSE YOU EXIST OUTSIDE ITS ASSUMPTIONS.

  BECAUSE THE SYSTEM FEARS YOU.

  BECAUSE YOU ARE NOT ALONE.

  Then the screen went dark.

  A hiss of pressure echoed behind him. A wall panel clicked open, revealing a hidden locker.

  Inside: a suit.

  Black. Seamless. Threaded with faint data filaments.

  Theo scanned it. “Phase-Tuned Feedback Field Suit. Generation One. Experimental. Pre-Grid.”

  Cael didn’t speak.

  He just slipped it on.

  And it fit.

  He left the Loop after dusk.

  The city felt dimmer. The mist had thickened into a static fog, muting every edge. Distant sirens hummed like memories. The hum of grid towers vibrated faintly underfoot.

  He didn’t go home.

  He didn’t go back.

  He walked.

  Block after block, until something shifted.

  It wasn’t visible.

  It was felt—a cold ripple, like walking into a wall of unscannable presence.

  Theo hissed, “Another NULL. Seventeen meters. Right.”

  Cael turned.

  And saw her.

  A girl his age. Short black hair. Sharp jacket. Sharper eyes.

  She was watching him the way predators watch each other: still, calculating, coiled with meaning. Beneath her sleeve, Cael caught the shimmer of a feedback suit like his—but sleeker. Lived-in.

  The fog rolled between them.

  Neither moved.

  Then she spoke.

  “So it’s true.”

  “What is?”

  “There’s more than one.”

  Her voice carried weight. Not just belief, but memory. As if she’d been waiting for proof that never came. Until now.

  Cael didn’t answer immediately. His pulse thundered behind his eyes.

  “You knew?” he asked.

  She gave a small nod. “I hoped.”

  She stepped closer.

  “They called me Keira the Omega.”

  Cael blinked. “Wait. As in—the Omega Event? The terminal breach?”

  She gave him a tight smile. “That report was redacted. But it was me. I escaped.”

  He looked down at her suit. It bore faint burn marks, hidden repairs.

  “You’ve been running longer than me.”

  “Since I was ten.” She looked past him. “They always find us. But we’re harder to isolate now. Especially when there’s more than one.”

  Cael swallowed. “What do they want with us?”

  She shook her head. “They don’t want us. They want to contain us. Nulls break pattern logic. We make the Grid unstable. We make choice possible.”

  Cael breathed deep, grounding himself. “So what now?”

  She extended a hand.

  “Now? We find the others.”