Chapter 4: Whispers on the Line

Chapter 4: Whispers on the Line

The face of Dr. Alistair Finch stared up from the photograph, a mask of benign charisma hiding the soul of a predator. Leo sat at his father's desk, the lead-lined box open before him like a tomb, his mother's cryptic journal on one side, the picture of his creator on the other. The initial shock had receded, leaving behind a cold, hard precipitate of rage.

His objective was clear: find Finch. He wasn’t foolish enough to think he could confront the man—not yet—but Finch was the key. He was the center of this conspiracy, the only person outside of this house who might have the answers locked away in his mother's journal.

Before he could even begin a search, before he could type Finch’s name into a search engine, the old landline on the corner of the desk, a beige plastic relic his parents had kept for emergencies, shrilled to life. The sound was so sudden, so alien in the quiet house, that Leo physically jerked back. No one had called this number in years.

His hand trembled as he reached for the receiver. The constant, high-pitched hum in his ears, his personal static, spiked sharply. It was a warning.

He lifted the receiver to his ear. “Hello?”

There was no greeting, only the faint crackle of an open line, and then a voice spoke. It was a voice that had been scrubbed of all humanity, electronically distorted into a low, metallic rasp that was neither male nor female. It was the sound of a command prompt given vocal form.

“Cease your inquiry immediately.”

Leo’s blood ran cold. “Who is this?”

“Your designation is Asset AE-CHIM-734,” the voice droned, ignoring his question. The slave name. It felt like a brand being seared into his soul. “All Aethelred assets are to be returned to corporate stewardship. Comply, and your transition will be painless. Resist, and we will be forced to reclaim our property through more… direct means.”

Property. The word hung in the air, laden with menace. He was an object. A thing to be reclaimed.

“What did you do to my parents?” Leo snarled, his fear momentarily eclipsed by fury.

There was a half-second of silence. “Their service contract was terminated due to gross misconduct. Do not make the same mistake.”

Click.

The line went dead.

Leo slammed the phone down, his whole body shaking. The threat wasn’t abstract anymore. It was here. It was now. He scrambled to the living room window, pulling the edge of the blind aside. The street was quiet, bathed in the soft light of the late afternoon. Then he saw it. The sleek, black sedan he’d glimpsed earlier was back, parked directly across the street. Its windows were tinted to an impenetrable black, but he didn't need to see inside to feel the eyes on him. It sat there like a patient predator, a shark waiting in the suburban depths.

He spent the rest of the day and all through the long, terrifying night as a prisoner in his own home. He didn't turn on the lights, moving through the familiar rooms like a ghost, periodically checking the window. The car never moved. Its presence was a suffocating pressure, a constant reminder that he was caged. Sleep was impossible. The distorted voice echoed in his mind, and every creak of the old house sounded like an imminent breach.

Sometime before dawn, a shift occurred within him. The terror didn't vanish, but it was joined by something else: a grim, cold resolve. He looked at his mother's journal, still sitting on the desk. She and his father hadn't just run. They had planned. They had fought back in their own way, giving him two decades of a life they knew was stolen time. They had sacrificed everything for him. He couldn’t let that be for nothing. He couldn’t just sit here and wait for Aethelred to "reclaim their property."

He would turn the tables. He would become the ghost they thought they were hunting.

His plan was simple, desperate. He put the journal and the photograph into his backpack, pulled on a dark hoodie, and waited for the first stirrings of morning traffic. His target was the public library downtown—anonymous, public, filled with computers that couldn't be traced back to him.

When the first city bus of the day rumbled past the end of his block, he made his move. He slipped out the back door, vaulted the fence into his neighbor's yard with a fluid ease that surprised him, and began walking calmly towards the bus stop two blocks down. He didn't look back, but he could feel them. The hum in his ears intensified, and he heard the distinct, smooth purr of a powerful engine turning over. They were following.

He stood at the bus stop, his posture deliberately casual, his heart a frantic kick-drum in his chest. The bus approached with a hiss of air brakes. The black sedan was fifty yards behind him now, moving slowly, preparing to follow the bus. This was his only chance.

The doors of the bus swung open. Leo took one step towards it, baiting the hook. Then, something inside him snapped.

It wasn't a decision. It was an instinct.

The world didn't slow down, but his perception of it accelerated to an impossible speed. The roar of the bus’s engine, the chatter of the passengers, the grinding of the sedan's tires—each sound became a distinct, separate element in a symphony of action he could suddenly comprehend in its entirety. He saw the subtle shift in the sedan driver’s posture as he prepared to accelerate. He saw a cyclist approaching from the opposite direction. He saw the precise moment the bus doors would begin to close.

Time stretched. His body moved before his mind could catch up.

He didn’t run. He exploded.

In a blur of motion that felt both utterly alien and perfectly natural, he pushed off the curb, not towards the bus, but away from it. He shot across the street, a phantom in the gap between two passing cars, the wind whipping past his ears. He was on the other sidewalk in less than a second. He ducked into an alleyway just as the bus pulled away from the curb, its bulk momentarily obscuring the view from the sedan.

He pressed himself against the cold brick wall of the alley, his lungs burning, his mind reeling. What was that? He had never moved that fast in his life. It was a speed that didn't belong to a human. It was the unnatural reflex of the creature in the box. It was his first, terrifying taste of what he was.

Shaking off the shock, he navigated a maze of back alleys and side streets, his senses on high alert, the hum in his head a constant, low-level alarm. He didn’t stop until he reached the granite steps of the Central Public Library.

Inside, the hushed silence was a balm. He found an unoccupied computer terminal in a quiet corner and began to search. ‘Aethelred Bio-Mechanics.’ The results were sparse, clinical. It was a subsidiary of a massive, diversified conglomerate, specializing in ‘proprietary bio-engineering and genetic solutions.’ No scandals, no public-facing executives, no mention of Dr. Alistair Finch. They were a corporate ghost, their wealth and power making them effectively invisible.

Frustrated, he leaned back in his chair. He was at a dead end.

He decided to try a different approach, searching for academic papers on xenobiology. He grabbed a heavy, outdated-looking textbook from a nearby shelf and carried it back to his table, hoping to find a term, a name, anything.

He sat down and opened the book. As he did, he noticed a small, folded piece of paper tucked between the pages. It wasn't a library bookmark. It was crisp, new. His blood ran cold. Had he been followed here?

With trembling fingers, he unfolded the note. The handwriting was a sharp, angular script.

They're not the only ones watching. Your mother had allies. Be at the old observatory at midnight. Come alone.