I remember—before he left—we talked about Effectors.

  He said he used to be one.

  I still don’t know how that’s possible—how someone could lose a system.

  Or whatever he meant by it.

  I’d been teary-eyed.

  “Dad… those things that fly at night in Suspended—how do I become one?

  An Effector?”

  He looked like hell.

  Greying beard. That old army coat he never washed.

  He was buttering a sandwich with one hand, cigarette already lit in the other.

  “You? You can’t even stand up to the guy who punched you in the face,” he said—not unkindly.

  “And you wanna rewrite the world?”

  He took a bite of the sandwich. Chewed. Let the smoke curl from his nose.

  Then he started talking—the way he did when he thought I wasn’t really listening.

  “Effectors weren’t born,” he said. “They were built. Spliced up. Reprogrammed.

  Nervous systems hotwired to control energy, data, matter.

  Not magic—math.

  The kind of math that sees the bones behind the world. That’s the Great Code.

  Syntax for everything—inside and out.”

  He stared past the window. His eyes went distant.

  “They didn’t just cast spells. They jacked in. Plugged into the Code.

  And if the system didn’t kill you outright… well, that was just the start.”

  I stayed quiet.

  I’d never seen him talk like that.

  “The first time almost killed me,” he muttered.

  “I remember the blood. The pain. The way the world… warped.”

  He shook his head, slowly.

  “I was one of the lucky ones. One in two thousand survive becoming an Effector.

  That’s if the jack-in doesn’t fry your brain first.”

  He crushed the cigarette out on the plate.

  “You’re a smart kid. You ever wonder why electricity doesn’t work anymore?

  Why no one can make drugs, or why chemistry doesn’t make sense?

  The crudes in the Waste—people think they’re just monsters.

  But they’re not. They’re leftovers. From us.

  From the ALRD wars. From the rituals they used…”

  Then he stood up. Walked over. Ruffled my hair.

  “There are ways to deal with bullies that don’t need magic.

  Trust me.

  True strength… it’s not always loud.”

  Of course, the dick punched me in the gut the next day.

  That was the last time we talked about it.

  ***

  Now I was alone.

  Leaves brushed my cheeks as I ducked beneath a low branch. The air hung thick with the scent of wet bark and something sweeter. Berries, maybe. Or rot. Hard to tell.

  They said it would be four days before he could jack into the Great Code.

  It was sixteen.

  Caren had said his neurons were “thoroughly cooked.”

  Almost.

  A whisper brushed his mind—dry, papery, flat.

  Like a voice speaking through parchment:

  [Query: Identify Current Status?]

  The world didn’t fall apart.

  It folded.

  For one breathless moment, every green-tainted building bent inward like paper in a fist. Sound warped—stretched into elastic screams. Then—

  Silence.

  Aiden stood alone.

  Everything else was gone.

  A soft chime echoed in his skull.

  A ripple in the air.

  SYSTEM ONLINE: [Effector Interface v0.9.2-b]

  Welcome, Initiate.

  A transparent panel shimmered into view. His face stared back.

  Almost.

  The smile was too sharp. The skin—off by half a shade. Like a rendering glitch.

  Identity: Aiden Holt

  Caste: UNCLASSIFIED

  Chip Status: ILLEGAL // Link Established

  PRIMARY ZONE SELECTION REQUIRED:

  ? [Base]: Temporary Constructs (Decay Time: 12m)

  ? [Form]: Sustained Constructs (Requires Anchor Source)

  ? [Ritual]: Persistent Constructs (IRREVERSIBLE | HIGH RISK)

  ?? Ritual-tier usage is flagged in The Codex as destabilizing. Proceed with caution.

  PLEASE SELECT CORE AFFINITY BRANCH:

  Data | Time | Flesh | Light | Ruin | Echo | Thread | [OTHERS]

  Current Loadout:

  Core Protocol: [None]

  Signature Function: [None]

  Power Source: [Environmental – Unbound]

  Integrity Rating: 11%

  Status: Fragmented Memory Detected

  Reality Sync: 87%

  [Requesting Anchor…]

  Begin initialization? [Y/N]

  Aiden reached out.

  His hand passed through the panel like smoke.

  The symbols didn’t vanish—they recoiled. Then realigned.

  Like something alive was watching.

  A second notification blinked at the corner of his vision:

  Index updated. User added.

  Current User Number: 1,706,070

  So.

  Only 1.7 million Effectors in all of New Africa.

  A country of over 3 billion—and just a handful could bend the world.

  Smaller than he thought.

  Scarier, too.

  And that was without counting the Enhanced.

  Fog sat low over the fields again, clinging to the knee-high wheat like a jealous lover.

  He’d thought about this before—if he had to choose an Affinity, it would be Time.

  But first, something simpler.

  A thought:

  What caused a tree to grow?

  Photosynthesis.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  He pulled from the Code:

  Sunlight. Water. Carbon dioxide. Sugars for fuel.

  Nutrients from the soil—nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium.

  Genetic instructions defining growth.

  He crouched beside a stalk of wheat, sickle still loose in his hand.

  He didn’t feel powerful.

  Just… grounded. Warmer than he should be.

  With a thought—no, a feeling—he reached downward.

  Into the roots. Into the slow pulse of the soil.

  And the wheat responded.

  No glow. No hum.

  It just grew. Almost imperceptibly. A half-inch taller. A richer shade of gold.

  Another stalk leaned toward him. Then another.

  As if acknowledging him.

  Ten seconds.

  Then it faded—Base-tier effects never lasted.

  Aiden exhaled. Sat back on his heels.

  “Alright,” he murmured. “So it’s not a sword or a fireball.”

  He looked down at his hand.

  “It’s growth.”

  Not battle-ready. Not yet.

  But maybe something else.

  THUD

  His knees slammed into ferroglass.

  He didn’t feel it.

  His spine jackknifed. A scream ripped out of him before he even knew he was making one.

  Then came the convulsions.

  Limbs yanked taut like puppet strings. Fingers curled into claws.

  Jaw clenched until his molars squealed.

  Muscles spasmed—tore themselves apart from the inside out.

  Veins bulged. Eyes rolled.

  ERROR: Anchor not found.

  Overload threshold exceeded.

  WARNING: Neural desync imminent.

  The system voice was cold. Detached.

  As if narrating a software update while he burned alive.

  ***

  // Day +16 | New Africa //

  // Aiden Holt: Fragmented Sync (87%) //

  The line crawled forward.

  Each visitor stepped into place, their faces bathed in the scanner’s cold blue glow, blinking under the artificial hush.

  Aiden rolled his shoulders, letting the hum of the machine wash over him. Back to this. The job. The routine.

  He could’ve quit months ago—packed up, vanished, and built it. But no.

  Not yet.

  He was now a bronze-plated adventurer, which complicated things.

  How do you explain to people that you’re an Effector?

  To people who still think you’re just a paper-pusher?

  Verifying…

  He stood still as the system mapped his iris, tracked his pulse, and watched his face like a hawk.

  One twitch too fast? A raised brow at the wrong moment?

  Red flag. Secondary screening.

  He passed.

  Beyond the gate, terahertz waves swept his suit—crawling through fabric and skin—hunting for anything illegal: subdermal implants, false retinas, the tiniest neural splice.

  The system had no mercy.

  Still, he walked through clean.

  NexBank rose like a fortress.

  Glass and steel twisted into confusion—deliberate, expensive disorientation.

  Halls curved like a maze. Doors led nowhere.

  Windows reflected only yourself.

  Analytics. Portfolios. Securities.

  His floor: Assets.

  Where the real numbers slept.

  Analysts buzzed like bees over spreadsheets that shaped entire economies.

  Somewhere in the marble and light, someone had already planted the bomb.

  He adjusted the cuff of his navy-blue suit. Hair in his eyes. Glasses slipping.

  Time for the coffee run.

  Up the stairs. Around the bend.

  Coffee Stall was printed on the silver plate.

  The room smelled of toasted beans—and burning time.

  Mama Carl stood behind the counter, half steam, half human.

  Her eyes lit up when she saw him.

  “Aiden! Look who finally remembers the small people.”

  He smiled. “Still here, huh?”

  “I outlast cockroaches and market crashes. What’s your excuse?”

  She moved like she’d been poured into the world decades ago—slow, intentional.

  Her fingers, weathered but precise, scooped grounds like she was sculpting with them.

  Steam curled around her moon-round face and settled into the lines time had carved in her cheeks.

  “You still single?” she asked, side-eyeing him with a grin.

  “Unfortunately.”

  “You know what I always say. Don’t let this place suck the life out of you.

  You boys with your suits and secrets—always walking around like tomorrow’s already decided.”

  “I like to plan ahead.”

  “You like to hide behind it.”

  She pointed at his face. “You’ve got two smiles. The real one, and the one you use when someone’s watching.”

  He laughed. “You’ve been watching too much Suspended News.”

  “Don’t need the news to read you, child.

  Coffee for the whole gang?”

  “Ten cups.”

  She nodded and turned.

  “You know,” she called back, “I saw an Effector on the late feed last night. Did something wild—folded metal like cloth.”

  “I saw that,” Aiden replied, adjusting his glasses. “Might’ve been a chemical distortion. A collapse of surface tension, maybe. Some kind of electro-field overlay.”

  She squinted. “You making up smart-sounding words now?”

  “Always.”

  “You boys and your toys. Always dancing on the edge of something sharp.”

  She handed him the tray, steam rising like a secret.

  Aiden reached for it—

  His foot shuffled. One sharp movement. Stirring. Blending.

  His cuffs shook slightly in the process—white particles slipped into the coffee, dissolving without a trace.

  “Careful, you clumsy ass!” Mama Carl chuckled.

  “I will,” Aiden said, scratching his head.

  Aconitine: tasteless. Or slightly bitter.

  It caused burning pain, numbness, vomiting, heart arrhythmia, and eventual cardiac arrest.

  He walked the hall like a courier of fate.

  One by one, he dropped the cups off. Nod here. Smile there.

  Then—Lucas.

  Tall. Too perfect. Hair like it had a stylist on speed dial.

  He barely looked up from his screen.

  “Thanks, four-eyes.” A smirk. “If I were an Effector, I’d turn everything you wanted into gold for you.”

  Aiden’s lips curled into the second smile—the one Mama Carl had warned him about.

  “And if I were one,” he said, “I’d melt it right through your hands.”

  Lucas chuckled, but there was a flicker.

  Something behind the eyes. Unease.

  Aiden approached his desk, balancing the tray with one hand.

  “Fuel delivery,” he said, offering a polite half-smile.

  Lucas’s cup was positioned slightly more forward—aligned perfectly with his usual reach.

  The others sat sideways or placed closer to the edge.

  Synchronized tray movement. Subtle shifts.

  Lucas grabbed one.

  “Extra strong. No foam,” Aiden added casually.

  “You know me too well, four-eyes.”

  “I try.”

  Aiden’s tone was light, almost bored.

  But his eyes lingered on the cup for just a beat longer.

  Lucas took a sip, winced slightly at the bitterness, then smirked.

  “One day I’ll make you drink one of these and see how you like it.”

  Aiden gave a short laugh and turned away.

  He slid into his seat.

  His custom analyzer blinked to life—built from scraps, parts from five different systems.

  Tracking flight patterns from Suspended.

  Quiet, invisible tech. Beautiful.

  On-screen, names scrolled by.

  Billionaires. Ghost accounts. Loose threads of power waiting to be pulled.

  Somewhere behind him, a group of analysts murmured:

  “…DICE festival. Client from Suspended’s funding the whole thing.”

  “Can you imagine the asset scale?”

  Aiden didn’t flinch.

  But inside, adrenaline stirred like electricity.

  DICE.

  That’s where it would happen.

  Where the masks would come off.

  Too bad Lucas wouldn’t see it.

  He adjusted his glasses.

  And this time, he smiled—the real one.