The hum from Elias's go-bag intensified, a frantic vibration against his leg. The rival's signature, cool and precise, was definitely in the room.
He spun, senses stretched, scanning the cluttered office. File cabinets, stacks of paper, the dark wood desk bearing the courthouse model. Shadows pooled in the corners, thick and still.
Nothing seemed out of place, yet the air felt subtly different, charged with a latent energy that was both familiar and deeply unsettling.
"Impressive," a voice said from the shadows near the far wall. It was calm, clear, and entirely devoid of the turbulent emotions Elias was used to sensing. "Few Curators manage to trace the threads back this quickly. Fewer still find their way inside."
A figure detached itself from the gloom – not a hulking monster or a dramatically cloaked villain, but a woman.
She was of average height and build, dressed in simple, practical clothes – dark trousers, a fitted jacket – that allowed her to blend into any urban environment. Her face was sharp, intelligent, framed by dark hair pulled back neatly.
Her eyes, however, held an unnerving intensity, the same cool, metallic blue he'd seen in the energy signature. She didn't smile, didn't posture. She simply existed, radiating that contained, precise energy that was the antithesis of the chaotic objects she deployed.
"Who are you?" Elias asked, his hand inching towards the containment cylinder in his bag. His voice was steady, though his heart hammered against his ribs.
She tilted her head slightly, a gesture of detached curiosity. "Labels are... limiting. 'Architect,' perhaps? 'Refiner'? I find 'Curator' too focused on preservation. I am interested in transformation."
"Transformation?" Elias echoed, glancing at the courthouse model, then back at her. "By filling a city with amplified rage and despair? That's not transformation, that's poisoning."
"Poison is merely a matter of dosage and application," she replied, taking a slow step forward. The air around her seemed to compress, growing heavy.
Elias felt a subtle pressure, a dulling of his senses, a resistance when he tried to flex his own latent magical ability.
It was the same suppressive energy he'd felt outside his safehouse, amplified. "You see emotions as things to be contained, categorized, filed away. I see them as raw energy. Immense, wasted potential, waiting to be harnessed."
She gestured towards the courthouse model, not touching it, yet the chaotic energy within it seemed to respond to her presence, the faint hum rising in pitch, growing sharper, more volatile."This city is a reservoir. A nexus of human experience. Love, hate, joy, sorrow, hope, despair. Constant, powerful emanations. You concern yourself with cleaning up spills. I build the system to collect the flood."
"To what end?" Elias demanded, fighting against the suppressive pressure that made accessing his tools feel like moving through treacle. "Power? Control?"
She gave a soft, dry sound that might have been amusement. "Simple motivations for simple minds. I am refining existence. Taking the chaotic, messy, inefficient outpouring of human feeling and converting it into something pure, potent, usable."
"Usable for what?"
"For the next stage," she said, her cool eyes locking onto his. "For creation. For rewriting the fundamental frequencies of this reality."
Her words sent a chill down Elias's spine that had nothing to do with the suppressive energy. Rewriting reality? Using harvested emotions?
She took another step, stopping a few feet from the desk. "You are... an interesting variable, Curator. More capable than anticipated. You found the signature, the symbol, even extrapolated the sequence, didn't you? Aggression. Despair. Betrayal. And finally... Oblivion."
She lingered on the last word, a hint of something akin to reverence in her otherwise flat tone. "Most wouldn't have gotten past the first object."
She didn't seem angry he was interfering, just... analytically curious.
"Your work is dangerous," Elias stated, managing to shift his weight slightly, mentally preparing to break through her suppressive field if needed. "Unleashing that kind of energy... it damages people."
"Collateral is unavoidable in any large-scale construction," she dismissed, her gaze sweeping over the dusty room, then settling back on the courthouse model. "The energy is merely transitioning. From chaos within the subjects, to order within the network."
She extended a hand towards the model, a slow, deliberate movement. "This node is ready."
The courthouse model on the desk began to pulse with its own inner light, a violent red glow that mirrored the chaotic energy inside. The hum intensified to a low roar. The suppressive pressure in the air spiked, becoming almost unbearable, crushing down on Elias, making it impossible to move effectively.
"It's been a useful test, Curator," she said, her voice cutting through the rising noise from the model. "You confirm the need for... more robust countermeasures against interference. Perhaps we'll meet again at the next node. Or perhaps not."
With a final, subtle gesture towards the now-roaring courthouse model, she turned. The air behind her shimmered, not with the chaotic energy of the objects, but with the precise, cool-blue light of her own signature, swirling into a small, unstable portal.
"Enjoy the unveiling," she said, a hint of something unreadable in her voice, and stepped backward into the shimmering distortion. It snapped shut behind her, leaving no trace but a faint scent of ozone and the rapidly escalating roar of the cursed object she had just fully activated.
The suppressive pressure vanished instantly with her departure, but it was replaced by something far worse.
A wave of pure, unadulterated aggression slammed into Elias, radiating outwards from the glowing red courthouse model. It wasn't just in the air; it was in his head, a sudden, irrational fury that made him want to lash out, to smash something, to scream.
The model on the desk pulsed brighter, the roar becoming a physical vibration that shook the room. He could feel its effect already starting to spread, pushing under the door, through the walls, into the silent, sleeping courthouse.
The timer on his wrist, previously showing 34 hours, now showed rapidly decreasing minutes, confirming the rival had triggered an accelerated activation sequence upon leaving.
Elias staggered back, fighting the irrational rage flooding his own mind. He had to contain it. Now. Before it infected the entire building, before the first employees arrived in the morning, before the full wave of amplified aggression broke loose upon the city. He fumbled for his go-bag, the courthouse model glowing with malevolent power on the desk.
The architect was gone, but her creation was here, screaming its poison into the night. Elias had to silence it.
The showdown hadn't been a fight with the rival, but a race against their activated weapon. The threshold had just become a battleground.