The room was heavy with silence as Aria tore her gaze from Elias, focusing on the newly revealed file that glowed faintly in the dim light. Her sister's name, Mara Voss, pulsed in bold letters across the screen, like an echo of a heartbeat. She could feel Elias's eyes on her, but she forced herself to concentrate on the data.
"What did you find?" Elias's voice was calm, but there was a hint of tension beneath his usual bravado.
"Let's see." Aria's fingers hovered over the holographic display as she decrypted the file. Lines of text flickered into focus, and her pulse quickened as the details became clear.
The file revealed a covert Tribunal project known as Operation Horizon. Her breath caught as she read the objective: To locate and recruit individuals with unique sensitivities to temporal distortions, conditioning them for specialized roles within the Tribunal's classified timeline operations.
She glanced at Elias, eyes wide. "This project—it was designed to find people who could sense time anomalies, people like Mara."
He nodded grimly. "And they'd stop at nothing to exploit those abilities."
Aria's mind reeled. She scrolled further, reading Mara's profile—a "Class A temporal-sensitive" with a marked "exceptional aptitude" for detecting time anomalies. Cold, clinical notes filled the display, reducing her sister to a catalog of capabilities, like a piece of equipment.
"How could they do this to her?" Aria's voice was barely a whisper. "She was… she was just a person. Not some… test subject."
Elias's jaw clenched. "To the Tribunal, people aren't people. They're assets, resources to be used and discarded."
The file continued, detailing Mara's last known movements. The final entry made Aria's blood run cold: Subject escaped containment. Countermeasures deployed. Status: Erased.
"They erased her," she whispered, anger and sorrow twisting in her chest.
Elias looked away. "They don't just erase memories or records. They erase entire timelines—whole lives vanish as if they never existed."
Aria's fists clenched, the shock of realization hitting her with brutal force. All these years, she'd thought Mara had vanished without a trace. But now she understood: Mara had been taken, manipulated, and then wiped from existence to cover the Tribunal's secrets.
Before she could respond, a low hum began to fill the room, vibrating through the walls. Aria and Elias exchanged a look of alarm, and a flicker of fear crossed his face.
"Did you set any failsafes on that shard?" she asked, her voice tense.
"No," he replied, his tone wary. "But the Tribunal must have embedded a tracker." A red warning flashed on the screen, and a countdown timer appeared in the corner of the display. Ten seconds… nine…
"They're tracking us," Elias muttered, his voice tight with urgency. "We need to shut this down."
Aria's mind raced. Shutting off the system meant they risked losing the data, but if they didn't, the Tribunal would pinpoint their location within seconds.
"Can we extract anything?" she asked, scanning the console.
Elias grabbed a Data Siphon from his bag, and they scrambled to transfer whatever they could. But as the countdown reached zero, the screen went black, and the room plunged into silence.
Aria held her breath, her pulse thrumming in her ears. "They know we're here, don't they?"
Elias's face darkened, his tone low. "Worse. They're sending something after us."
"What do you mean, something?" she asked, her voice laced with dread.
Elias didn't answer immediately. He grabbed her arm, pulling her toward the exit. "We need to move. Now."
They sprinted down the darkened corridor, the faint red glow of emergency lights casting shadows on the walls. They reached the alley and bolted out into the night, but Aria caught a glimpse of something in the sky. She glanced up—and froze.
Hovering above them, its silhouette barely visible against the night sky, was a figure unlike anything she'd ever seen. Tall, sleek, and utterly motionless, it glowed with a faint metallic sheen, its eyes gleaming with an unnatural, piercing light. She felt a chill creep down her spine as it seemed to watch them, calculating.
"What… what is that?" she whispered, unable to tear her gaze away.
"That," Elias said, his voice grim, "is one of the Tribunal's best-kept secrets. They call it Oracle. It's a humanoid AI—unlike anything else they've ever created."
Aria's stomach twisted with fear as the figure descended, its movements precise and fluid, almost human but somehow… wrong. "A robot?"
"Not just any robot," Elias said. "Oracle was designed to hunt down anyone who threatens the Tribunal's secrets. It can track temporal anomalies, predict movements, and adapt to almost any situation."
As if hearing his words, Oracle's eyes flared, and a low hum echoed through the air. It raised its arm, and a small device extended from its wrist, casting a bright spotlight that swept over the alley.
Aria grabbed Elias's hand, pulling him deeper into the maze of backstreets. "Why haven't I heard of this thing before?"
"Because no one is supposed to know about it," Elias replied, his breath coming fast. "Oracle is a one-of-a-kind weapon—an AI assassin programmed to eliminate anyone who comes too close to exposing the Tribunal. Only the top members know it exists, and they only send it out when they're desperate."
"Desperate?" she echoed, fear tightening her throat. "Why would they send it after us now?"
Elias's eyes were dark, his expression grim. "Because we found something they never wanted anyone to see. Operation Horizon, Mara's file—they're willing to do anything to keep that buried. And that means erasing us."
A chill swept over her as she realized the full weight of his words. The Tribunal was willing to unleash their most dangerous weapon—a machine designed solely to hunt, adapt, and destroy—all to protect their secrets.
They moved quickly, ducking through alleyways and slipping past abandoned buildings. Oracle's footsteps echoed in the distance, an ominous, rhythmic sound that sent shivers down her spine. Aria glanced back, catching a glimpse of its glowing eyes as it scanned the area, its gaze sharp and predatory.
"Can't we outrun it?" she asked, desperation in her voice.
"It's designed to anticipate every move," Elias replied, his voice tight. "It's already running predictive algorithms based on our past decisions. We can't just outrun it. We have to outthink it."
Aria's mind raced, trying to calculate their options. "So how do we outthink something that can predict our every move?"
Elias hesitated, his gaze shifting. "There's only one thing Oracle can't anticipate."
"What?"
"Randomness," he said, pulling out a small device from his bag—a Chaos Injector, a tool that scrambled energy signatures and created brief bursts of unpredictable movement. "If we create enough random patterns, it might throw Oracle's tracking systems off just long enough for us to escape."
Aria nodded, feeling a glimmer of hope. "Then let's do it."
He activated the Chaos Injector, and the air around them shimmered as their movements became distorted, appearing in fragmented bursts as they sprinted down the alley. Oracle paused, its head tilting as it recalculated, the flicker of confusion in its eyes almost human.
They darted around corners, slipping into a maze of industrial ruins. Each step felt like an eternity, and Aria's heart pounded as they heard Oracle's footsteps fade, replaced by an eerie silence.
Finally, they stopped in the shadow of an old transport truck, catching their breaths. Aria leaned against the cold metal, her hands trembling. "How do we stop something like that?"
Elias met her gaze, his expression grave. "We don't. Oracle isn't like anything we've faced before. It's relentless, unbreakable—and it won't stop until it finds us."
Aria swallowed, the weight of his words pressing down on her. For the first time, she felt a flicker of doubt, a fear that maybe this mission was bigger than she could handle.
But as she looked at Elias, she saw the same determination in his eyes that burned in her own. Whatever Oracle was, whatever the Tribunal was hiding, they couldn't give up now.
"Then we'd better make sure it doesn't find us," she said, her voice steady.
Elias nodded, a faint smile playing on his lips. "Agreed. But we'll have to be smarter than ever—and maybe a little lucky."
They shared a tense glance, knowing that Oracle was still out there, tracking, adapting, and ready to strike.
And this time, there would be no second chances.