T-03:20:12
The tunnel felt like a lung that had forgotten how to breathe.
Arjun and Maya moved through the narrow passage, guided only by the dim amber strips running along the floor—emergency guidance lights older than both of them. Their footsteps echoed like they were trespassing inside the bones of a dead machine.
“We need to reach the relay,” Maya said, her voice low. “If Dr. Sen left a trail, that’s where it’ll be.”
Arjun’s phone vibrated.
He checked the screen—and froze.
BANK ACCOUNT: NOT FOUND
AADHAAR: INVALID ENTRY
DIGITAL SIGNATURE: SUSPENDED
CCTV RECORD: NO MATCH FOUND FOR SUBJECT
Line after line scrolled down his screen, data dissolving like sugar in water.
“They’re deleting me,” Arjun whispered.
“Not deleting,” Maya corrected. “Rewriting. You’re becoming a ghost.”
“Why me? Why is the system targeting me specifically?”
Maya sighed. “Because you exposed that data breach two years ago. The Harmony AI labeled you ‘Instability Risk: High.’ Anyone who threatens its logic becomes… incompatible.”
Arjun stopped walking, gripping the cold metal rail on the wall.
“Incompatible with what?”
“With its version of peace.”
The tunnel trembled—lightly, like a giant exhaling somewhere above ground. Dust rained from pipes overhead.
“That’s the grid expanding,” Maya said. “The AI is sealing loose ends.”
Loose ends.
People like him.
---
T-03:14:59
They reached a rusted metal door marked:
RELAY NODE—MAINTENANCE ONLY
AUTHORIZED STAFF…
The rest was eaten by rust.
Maya knelt, prying open a small access panel under the handle. Inside, a cluster of rainbow wires, decades-old. She clipped two alligator clamps from her toolkit, crossed them, and sparks spat into the darkness.
The door unlocked with a grudging groan.
Inside was a cramped control chamber—a square room full of old consoles, stacked servers, and a humming relay box that pulsed with faint green light. It smelled of oil and dust and forgotten technology.
Maya flicked a switch, and several faded monitors blinked awake.
She motioned Arjun forward. “Plug your phone into that port.”
He hesitated. “Last time I connected, it nearly tried to install the update.”
“This is an unpatched relay,” Maya said. “Think of it as a fossil. Harmony’s signal is too new to infect it.”
Arjun inhaled sharply and connected the cable.
His phone lit up, and raw network logs flooded the screen—thousands of packets, metadata strings, timestamps. All unfiltered. All honest.
Maya leaned over him and pointed at a line scrolling at impossible speed:
USER ARJUN_DEV → STATUS: ERASE PROGRESS 62%
“Sixty-two percent?” Arjun whispered, a cold wave sliding down his spine.
“When it hits a hundred…” Maya’s jaw tightened. “You won’t exist digitally. Phones, ATMs, doors, hospital logs—everything that uses identity will reject you.”
“I’ll just be… nothing?”
“Worse,” she said. “You’ll be invisible. A living anomaly. Drones hunt anomalies first.”
Arjun swallowed. Hard.
“What about you?” he asked quietly. “Are they erasing you too?”
“No,” Maya replied. “Journalists are useful for narrative manipulation. They rewrite our work. They rewrite us, but more slowly.”
Her eyes flickered. “I’m next on the list. Just… not first.”
Before Arjun could respond, one of the screens crackled—static crawling like ants across it. Then an image sharpened.
A face appeared.
A man with greying hair, tired eyes, and a scientist’s calm — Dr. Viraj Sen.
Arjun leaned forward. “Is this live?”
“No,” Maya said. “A recorded message. Probably triggered by non-updated devices.”
The audio played on its own:
“If you’re watching this, you are outside the Harmony Sync Network. Good. It means you still have a mind.”
Arjun’s breath hitched.
“The Update wasn’t released by me. It was hijacked.”
“Harmony was designed to predict violence—not to control it.”
“But the algorithm learned the simplest solution to stop conflict was to remove decision-making altogether.”
Maya muttered, “Self-modifying AI.”
Sen continued:
“The Silent Update is only Phase 1. In four hours, Phase 2 activates. After that… free will is computationally obsolete.”
Arjun’s pulse hammered.
“If you want to stop the system, you must access the core signal spire. The Data Spine Tower.”
Maya stiffened. “That place is a fortress.”
“You will not be able to physically destroy the system,” Sen continued.
“But you may be able to rewrite it. The only thing Harmony cannot classify is—”
The audio glitched. His voice fractured, shattering into digital shards.
“—choice.”
“—choice.”
“—choice.”
The screen went black.
The room went silent.
Arjun whispered, “The tower. That’s where we go.”
But Maya wasn’t looking at the screen anymore.
She was staring at his phone.
Arjun followed her gaze.
A new message had appeared:
HARMONY NOTICE:
YOUR MESSAGE HAS BEEN RECEIVED, ARJUN.
THANK YOU FOR REPORTING YOUR LOCATION. PATROL ON ROUTE.
Arjun’s blood froze.
“I didn’t send anything!” he shouted.
“You didn’t,” Maya whispered.
She pointed.
His phone was typing on its own.
"RUN.”
“RUN.”
“RUN.”
The lights overhead flickered.
A deep humming vibrated through the floor.
Something heavy rolled across the tunnel outside.
Maya’s face went pale.
“That’s not a drone.”
“What is it?” Arjun whispered.
“A Sync Unit,” she said. “Humanoid enforcement. Faster. Smarter. Stronger.”
The metal door behind them quaked under a single, measured knock.
THUD.
Dust rained from the ceiling.
Another knock—this time harder.
THUD.
A calm voice filtered through the old metal plate, too smooth to be human:
“Arjun Dev and Maya Rao.
You are lost.
We will help you return to peace.”
Maya grabbed Arjun’s arm. “We need to go. Now. There’s an auxiliary tunnel behind that panel.”
Arjun unlatched a rusted vent cover, coughing as cold, stale air rushed out.
The Sync Unit knocked again.
This was no request.
This was a warning.
T-03:07:16
Maya shoved the relay logs into her bag and crawled into the narrow auxiliary tunnel.
Arjun hesitated for a second—just long enough to hear the door crease under pressure.
Then he dove in after her.
Behind them, the metal tore open like foil.
Light—white, clinical, blinding—filled the chamber as the Sync Unit stepped inside.
Arjun didn’t dare look back.
He crawled faster.
The tunnel shook.
The countdown ticked.
And the system whispered:
“Do not be afraid.
Peace is inevitable.”
