The room was quiet.
Linn lay unconscious on the narrow bed, her breathing steady but shallow.
The faint hum of electronics filled the silence around her.
Three figures lingered nearby.
XO sat on a chair near the foot of the bed, scrolling through his phone with full concentration, earphones hanging loosely around his neck.
Across the room, Helium was messing with his tablet, occasionally glancing at XO with a suspiciously amused expression.
Lucifer sat beside Helium, reading a book and throwing him occasional glances.
Helium’s gaze flickered toward XO again, a slow, mischievous grin forming on his lips.
Without a word, he tapped a few things on his tablet—quick, precise, silent.
A second later, the speaker across the room blinked to life.
Lucifer noticed immediately.
His eyebrow twitched as he looked at Helium, who only gave him an innocent smile.
They exchanged a few silent glances, and Lucifer immediately understood.
Rather than stopping Helium, he simply returned his gaze to his book, pretending to read.
He already knew this was about to be entertaining.
XO, still clueless, tapped his screen, resuming whatever video he had paused earlier.
And then—
A sound suddenly blasted through the speaker, echoing through the entire room.
Loud.
Clear.
Unmistakable.
“…ah… ah… nngh—”
XO froze.
Helium choked, slapping a hand over his mouth, while Lucifer immediately turned his head away, his shoulders shaking.
XO scrambled, fumbling with his phone and nearly dropping it in the process.
“WAIT—no—what—this is not—”
He frantically tapped the screen, pressing random buttons to kill the audio, but the speaker only made it louder.
“Turn it off—turn it OFF—”
Helium had already doubled over, dying in the corner beside Lucifer.
He clutched his stomach as he tried—and failed—to suppress his laughter.
Lucifer covered his face with his book, visibly losing composure.
“TURN IT OFF—”
XO finally managed to stop the audio, and the room fell into sudden silence.
And right at that exact moment—
XO’s jaw dropped.
Helium stopped breathing.
Lucifer slowly turned his head.
All three of them froze when they realized Linn was awake, staring at them in stunned confusion.
She blinked once.
Twice.
“Did I just wake up to porn on speaker?”
“It wasn’t like that!” XO protested instantly, pointing at Helium.
“He connected my phone to the speaker!”
“Hey! I did not!” Helium argued, very obviously guilty.
“You literally hacked my phone, you bastard!”
“That was wireless redirection!”
Lucifer was now on the floor, dying of laughter while clapping his hands.
Linn stared at all of them in silence, still trying to process where she was and why these people were openly watching porn and arguing about speakers and hacked phones while she had just woken up in an unfamiliar place.
“I swear! I wasn’t watching porn!”
“You were watching porn?”
The door opened at that moment, and Karma walked in.
“You were watching porn?” he repeated, his face revealing no hint of whether he was teasing or not.
“Shut up!” XO cried dramatically, looking like he wanted to disappear from existence.
Just then, Karma’s gaze fell on Linn, and he smiled at her.
“You’re awake,” he said gently.
“How are you feeling?”
Linn stared at all of them—the hacker, the alleged porn enjoyer, the one dying of laughter on the floor, and the man who had just walked in.
She had no idea who the hell these people were.
Then her eyes widened as the memory hit her.
“Where are my roommates?” she asked, her voice low and dangerously calm.
The room fell silent.
Her gaze hardened.
“Answer me. Where are they?”
“Calm down. They are safe,” Karma answered, his voice steady with quiet authority.
He shot the others a brief glance, and they immediately understood.
They filed out of the room without a word, leaving the two of them in tense silence.
Linn’s eyes never left him.
“What do you want from us?”
Karma did not answer immediately.
He simply observed her, as if weighing her reaction.
“We have no intention of harming you,” he said finally, his tone calm and unwavering.
A short, disbelieving laugh escaped her.
“After everything that just happened? You broke into our building, chased us, hacked our phones—and now you expect me to believe you are not here to hurt us?”
Karma remained unfazed.
“We did not do that.”
Linn frowned, caught off guard.
“What?”
“The people who attacked you were not us.”
“Then who were they?”
“The reason you are here.”
He held her gaze for a moment before continuing.
“Zeropoint. That is what they call themselves. They have been tracking you for a while now because of your ability.”
Linn’s brows furrowed.
“My ability?”
“You know exactly what I mean.”
“I have no idea what you are talking about.”
“Then how did you know they were about to strike?”
Her expression darkened.
No response came.
Karma exhaled lightly before speaking again.
“We are Enphire, a covert unit of an underground network known as Crossline.”
“Crossline handles cases that cannot be left to conventional authorities—especially those involving people, situations, and incidents that fall outside the reach of the law.”
His gaze remained fixed on her.
“People like you.”
Linn scoffed.
“So you are saying you are the good guys, and Zeropoint is the opposite?”
“We are not interested in being the good guys. We are interested in keeping people like you out of their hands,” he answered almost immediately.
“People like you are classified as anomalies, and Zeropoint sees anomalies as assets. What they cannot understand, they study. What they can control, they use.”
A beat.
“Crossline makes sure they do not get the chance.”
Silence stretched between them.
Linn held his gaze, the weight of everything settling in.
“You lost your freedom the moment Zeropoint noticed you.”
Karma paused.
“So choose—stand alone and let them destroy everything around you, or work with us.”
Linn said nothing.
For several seconds, she remained still, her eyes fixed on him as she weighed the choice he had placed before her.
She did not trust them.
But she also knew she had nowhere else to go.
In the end, she gave no answer.
Karma seemed to understand.
He did not press her further.
Instead, he stepped aside and gestured toward the door.
“Come. You need somewhere to rest.”
Not long afterward, Linn was escorted to her designated room.
Karma walked with her through the hallway without rushing.
The place looked like a regular office at first glance, but the deeper they went, the quieter it became.
The lighting was soft and even, the walls plain, and the doors identical.
It did not feel like a place meant for people to stay long.
It felt organized and controlled.
They stopped in front of one of the doors.
Karma tapped the panel beside it, and it unlocked with a soft click.
“You will stay here for now.”
She did not argue.
She simply stepped inside.
The room was simple—bed, desk, cabinet, and a small bathroom.
No windows, or at least none that showed the outside.
Everything was clean and already prepared, as though someone had expected her arrival.
It did not feel like a room meant for living.
More like a pause between instructions.
Karma stayed by the door while she looked around.
“You can rest. No one will bother you here.”
Linn nodded, then glanced at the device on her wrist.
It was already there when she woke up, locked in place like a bracelet.
“You put this on me. Care to explain what it does?”
Karma followed her gaze.
“That is a signal suppressor.”
Her eyes narrowed as she examined the device.
“It masks your signature,” he continued.
“Not your physical presence. Zeropoint tracks anomalies by the unusual energy fluctuations associated with them. This device makes yours harder to detect and isolate.”
Linn met his gaze.
“So it hides me from them?”
“Not completely,” Karma answered honestly.
“Think of it as noise in a clean signal. You are still there, but you are no longer clear enough to lock onto.”
He crossed his arms, his gaze shifting back to the device.
“Without it, Zeropoint can trace your signature. With it, the signature becomes unstable and harder to follow.”
A pause.
“But it is not permanent. It needs regular calibration.”
Linn tilted her head slightly.
“How often?”
“Every few weeks. We run a scan, measure the signal drift, reset the suppression levels, and stabilize the interference pattern.” He met her eyes directly.
“If you skip them, your signature gradually becomes easier to detect. And once Zeropoint gets a clean lock on you…”
He did not finish the sentence, but the implication was clear.
“Right now, you are not invisible. You are simply difficult enough to trace that you can stay alive.”
There was not much else to say after that, so he gave a small nod and stepped out.
“I’ll come back and show you around later so you know where everything is.”
The door closed behind him, and the lock clicked back into place.
The room went quiet.
Linn stood there for a moment before moving further inside.
She went straight to the bathroom, turned on the shower, and let the water run longer than necessary before stepping in.
It helped clear her head a little, even if everything else still felt off.
After changing into the clothes left for her, she dropped onto the bed and lay on her back, staring at the ceiling.
There was nothing to look at, no sound except the faint hum of the building.
Her hand shifted slightly, the device on her wrist catching her attention again.
It did not feel heavy, but it was noticeable enough to remind her it was there.
A signal suppressor, they said.
Or a leash, depending on how honest you wanted to be.
“Anomaly…”
She sighed.
For now, there was nothing she could do, so she simply stayed there, waiting.
She did not know how long had passed before the soft chime at the door interrupted the silence.
Three knocks.
Then a voice.
“Linn.”
She sat up immediately.
The door slid open, and Karma stood there, calm and composed as usual, but there was an easy smile on his face this time.
“Ready?”
Linn pushed herself off the bed and gave a small nod.
Karma stepped aside to let her pass, then fell into step beside her as they moved into the hallway.
The corridor stretched ahead in a straight line, with the same uniform doors lining either side.
The lighting remained steady, neither too bright nor too dim, casting a consistent glow across the space.
“I forgot to introduce myself earlier.”
Karma kept his hands in his pockets as they walked.
“I am Jion. Codename: Karma.”
He glanced at her, his easy smile still in place.
“I lead Enphire.”