The Unregistered Pulse

The loft smelled of damp concrete and stale whisky, the kind of scent that clung to the walls when the night had been too long to forget. Rain still hissed against the cracked windows, turning the cracked tiles into slick mirrors of the neon outside. A single bulb swung lazily above the battered drum kit, casting a thin halo that made the space feel smaller than the rooms they’d rented in Whitechapel.

Jason slipped the sleek pistol into the hollow beneath his snare, the cold metal clicking against the wood. He pressed his hand flat over it, feeling the faint tremor of the weapon as if it were alive. The envelope of cash—thick, crisp, the faint scent of polymer—nestled beside the vial of Chrono‑Serum. He could hear his own breath, shallow and fast, echoing off the plaster like a drumroll.

“‑‑hey, where’ve you been?” Mika’s voice cut through the hum, laced with the dry humor she used when she wanted to keep a lid on nerves. She leaned against the battered couch, one leg propped up, a half‑full glass of whisky catching the light. “You missed the warm‑up in the kitchen. The kettle’s still whistling, and I’m about to ruin my hair for the next gig.”

Jason kept his gaze on the drum riser, the metal glinting under the bulb. “Just… needed a breath of air, you know? The flight was… noisy.” He forced a grin that felt like a tight band around his mouth.

Lena stepped out from the corner where a battered couch turned into a tangle of cables and guitar cases. Her hair was still damp from the rain, a few strands clinging to her face. She brushed a stray lock away, eyes flicking between Mika and Jason, catching the slight shift of his shoulders. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” she said, voice low, almost teasing. “You okay?”

Mika tipped her glass, the liquid sloshing in a lazy arc. “She’s right. We’ve got a show in five hours. If you’re not here, we’re flying solo. You know how the fans are when we drop a beat.”

Jason swallowed, feeling the sting of the secret pressing against his ribs. “I’m fine,” he said, the word sounding brittle. “Just… thinking.”

Lena took a step closer, the soft tread of her shoes muffled by the cheap carpet. She placed a hand on the edge of the drum riser, fingers grazing the wood. “You keep dodging my eyes,” she whispered. “What’s really going on?”

He glanced up, caught her stare, and forced the edge of his nervousness into an easier tone. “You know how it is after a flight. The city’s a mess of noise, people… I needed to… decompress.” He tapped his drum with a thumb, a faint rhythm that seemed too casual.

Mika raised an eyebrow, the kind that said she could smell a lie through the alcohol fumes. “Decompress? Or just… hide something?”

Jason’s heart hammered against his sternum. He could feel the pistol’s low hum, a faint vibration that matched his pulse. The loft’s walls felt to close, as if the concrete were pressing in from all sides. The rain’s rhythm on the window grew louder, a relentless percussion that mirrored his thoughts.

He let out a short, humorless chuckle. “Alright, you got me. I… picked up a little extra for tonight. A… a friend needed some cash, and I thought—”

Mika cut in, her voice sharper than the glass in her hand. “You stole a gun, Jason. And a vial of whatever that is. You think we can just tuck that under the drums and keep playing like nothing happened?”

He stared at the instrument, at the hollow he’d used to hide his secret, and felt a flush rise in his cheeks. “I didn’t steal. I… rescued it. It was… left in a dump. I thought—”

Lena’s eyes narrowed, the glow of the bulb catching the specks of rain on her lashes. “Rescued? Jason, we’re a band, not a crime syndicate. If someone wants us to use that… serum, they should come to us. We have a contract. We have a reputation.”

A beat of silence settled, thick as the damp air. The loft seemed to shrink further, the ceiling descending in Jason’s mind. He could feel the weight of the pistol, the envelope, the serum—all hidden, all waiting. The hum of the weapon grew louder, a faint, rhythmic thrum that seemed to sync with the rain.

Jason’s thoughts spiraled. *I’m supposed to be honest. I’m supposed to keep this band together. Every beat I play is supposed to be real, raw. How did I become the one who hides a gun under his snare?* He felt the rise of panic but tried to mask it with a sigh.

Mika stepped forward, closing the distance between them, her shoulders square. “Listen, we’re all tired, and the city’s got a way of chewing us up. But if you keep this secret… you’re going to drown us all. I need to know if you’re going to pull us into whatever this is, or if you’re going to put it back where it belongs.”

He felt a flicker of shame, a bruise on his pride. “I don’t know yet,” he admitted, voice barely above a whisper. “I thought I could handle it. I thought I could keep it… separate.”

Lena’s hand slipped from the drum riser, landing on the side of the snare. Her thumb brushed the wood, as if trying to read the truth in its grain. “We’re supposed to trust each other,” she said, softer now, the edge of sarcasm gone. “If you can’t be honest with us, what’s the point of any of this?”

The words hit him like another drumbeat—sharp, unavoidable. He stared down at his hands, the calluses on his knuckles, the same hands that had banged out rebellion on stages across the city. They now trembled, not from the beat, but from the weight of what he’d hidden.

Jason finally let the mask slip. “I’m scared,” he said, the confession spilling out, raw and jagged. “I’m scared that if I don’t do something—if I don’t use this… thing—we’ll lose everything. The show, the crowd, the money. But I’m also scared that using it will turn us into… into something we’re not. I don’t know how to keep my hands clean while the city drags us deeper.”

Mika’s eyes softened for a heartbeat, then hardened again. “We all have something we’re scared of, Jason. The trick is not to let that fear make us betray each other.”

Lena gave a small, weary smile. “So, you keep the gun under the drum, you keep the cash in your pocket, and you… what? Tell us you’re going to use the serum? Or are we supposed to just… pretend it’s not there?”

He looked up, the bulb’s dim light casting shadows across his face, making his eyes look more hollow than usual. “I… I’m going to try it tonight. Just a micro‑dose. I need to see if it actually does what they promise. If it helps us, maybe we can win the gig without blowing everything up.”

Mika exhaled, a soft puff of breath that seemed to carry away a little of the tension. “Fine. But if anything goes wrong—”

Jason raised his hand, stopping her. “If anything goes wrong, we deal with it together. No more secrets. No more hiding things under the drum. Deal?”

Lena nodded, her expression a mix of relief and lingering doubt. “Deal.”

Mika raised her glass, the amber liquid catching the light one last time. “To honesty, then. Even when it hurts.”

They clinked glasses, the sound echoing off the cramped walls, a thin ring that somehow felt like a promise. The loft remained tight and damp, the rain still drumming on the windows, but for a moment the air felt a little less suffocating. Jason slipped the pistol back under the snare, the weight of it now a reminder that secrets could be held, but they could also be spoken. The night stretched ahead, and the band’s future pulsed in the cramped space—still fragile, still tense, but now, perhaps, a little more honest.

The bathroom was a cramped rectangle of cracked tiles, a single flickering strip of neon‑blue light bleeding in from the hallway. Steam clung to the cracked mirror, turning the pale smear of a face staring back into a wavy silhouette. Jason closed the door with a soft click, the sound ringing louder than the city’s distant drones.

He set the vial on the sink‑edge and unscrewed the tiny cap. A hiss of liquid escaped, a faint smell of ozone and cold metal that seemed to bite at his nostrils. He lifted the needle, the thin glass tip trembling as if it sensed his doubt. The serum glowed a dull violet, a phosphorescent pulse that matched the rhythm of his racing heart.

He injected the micro‑dose into his vein, the prick a bright spark that shot up his forearm. For a heartbeat the world held still; then everything split.

First, the bathroom stayed the same—cold tiles, the low‑hum of the building’s ventilation, rain still tapping the windows. But a second layer peeled away, a faint overlay of another reality. The mirror no longer reflected Jason’s face; it showed a lab, sterile and humming. White‑coated figures moved behind glass walls, their shadows elongating like ink in water. In the centre stood a man with silver‑threaded hair, eyes rimmed with sleepless lines—Dr. Felix Arkwright.

Jason’s breath came in shallow gasps as the two visions fought for his attention. He could feel the serum’s chemistry fire the synapses, forcing his mind to run both timelines side by side. He tried to focus on the present, on the damp tiles, but the lab’s cold fluorescence seeped into his senses, turning the steam into a veil of static.

“—you’re too late,” Arkwright whispered, voice filtered through a speaker, each word a metallic clang in Jason’s ears. “The Clock will reset before anyone can stop it. The imprint… it needs a conduit. A living brain to carry the data.”

A flash of memory burst through Jason’s vision: a glass vial, identical to the one he held, sitting on a polished tray beside a humming device that looked like a pocket watch. Arkwright’s gloved hand lifted the vial, then pressed it against a thin, silver cylinder—The Clock. A soft chime rang, a sound that resonated in Jason’s chest like a second heartbeat.

“—The Serum is only a trigger. The real power lies in the quantum lattice of the Clock. Once it fires, every participant will experience the same—”

The bathroom’s fluorescent light flickered, the neon strip sputtering. Jason felt his own pulse sync with the faint, rhythmic thrum of the pistol hidden under his snare, though it lay miles away. The two timelines collided, and for an instant his eyes saw both the cracked mirror and the polished lab surface overlaid, each reflection pulling at his mind.

He heard Arkwright’s own breathing, short and controlled, as he adjusted a dial on the Clock. “—If the imprint is corrupted, the reversal will become a loop. We need a clean carrier, someone unmodified. You… you have the catalyst now.” The scientist’s finger hovered over a button marked with a red triangle, a warning he ignored.

Jason’s own body trembled in the bathroom. Sweat beaded on his forehead, then vanished as if evaporated by the surge of the serum. He could taste metal, feel electric current race through his veins, and hear the distant rain outside turn into a roar of static. The two worlds began to bleed together, colors bleeding into each other—neon blue and sterile white, rain and humming air‑conditioners.

He forced his attention back to the sink. The vial sat, calm, its violet glow steady. In his hand, the needle still glimmered. He could feel the serum’s after‑effects: heightened hearing—each drop of rain against the window sounded like a drumbeat—and sharper sight—the world’s edges were crisp, each tile’s crack a line of code.

A sudden, sharp image stabbed him: a black‑board smeared with equations, a single line underlined—Δt = 0.0001s—written in Arkwright’s hand. Below it, a scribble: “Phase‑lock required. Subject must be conscious during trigger.” Jason’s mind catalogued the detail, the urgency of it.

He inhaled, the bathroom air feeling too thick, as if it were water. The mirror’s surface rippled, and for a heartbeat he saw his own face overlaid with Arkwright’s—two sets of eyes, one wild with ambition, the other raw with fear. The image faded, leaving only his own bruised stare.

When the dual vision finally slipped away, the bathroom returned to its damp reality. The steam drifted, the neon strip steadied, and the only sound was his own breathing, ragged but alive. He stared at his hands, thumb tingling where the serum had entered. Information pulsed in his brain like a drum solo—details about the Clock, the need for a “clean carrier,” the danger of a corrupted imprint.

He whispered to the empty room, voice barely audible over the rain, “What the hell did you just tell me?” The question hung in the stale air, but the answer lived in the new data streaming through his veins.

Jason slipped the vial back into his pocket, the liquid now a quiet, humming weight. He stepped out of the bathroom, each footfall echoing on the wet tiles, the neon light casting long shadows behind him. The band’s loft felt smaller, the walls closing in, but inside his head a new rhythm had begun—a frantic, syncopated beat of information and fear, the first true glimpse of the man behind the Clock.

The loft’s main room was a shallow basin of stale air, the kind that pressed against the back of the throat when the city’s rain tried to crawl in through the cracked windows.

Jason stood over the drum kit, the snare’s metal rim catching a stray strip of neon that flickered from a busted sign outside. His fingers hovered over the cold steel of the pistol, the weight of it humming like a living thing.

A low whine rose from the barrel. It wasn’t the usual click‑clack of a gun; it was a pulse, a throb that seemed to sync with his own heart. A tiny display on the side lit up, green letters flashing against the matte black:

**HEARTBEAT FOUND**

Jason’s breath caught. The words glowed, then dimmed, then glowed again, each cycle a beat louder than the last. A line of data crawled across the screen: **Node: 31.2 km – West Whitechapel**.

He turned his head, eyes scanning the room. The loft was empty. Sam’s guitar lay slumped against the wall, Lena’s bag still unzipped, Mika’s coffee mug half‑filled with cold brew. Nothing moved. Yet the pistol kept humming, vibrating against his palm.

A cold sweat slipped down his spine. He could feel the pistol’s internal lattice humming, a lattice of quantum‑grid filaments that should have been dead, now alive and searching. It was as if the weapon was a beacon, a moth drawn to some distant flame he could not see.

He pressed his thumb to the side button, hoping to shut it down. The display flickered, the green letters snapping to red:

**PROXIMITY ALERT – 78 m**

A shiver rippled through his muscles. He imagined a silhouette behind the concrete wall, a shadow with a gun of its own. He could hear the distant drone of a surveillance quad buzzing above the street, its rotors a low drone that seemed to echo the pistol’s thrum.

Jason’s mind raced. The serum had sharpened his senses, split his vision into two timelines, but now the weapon’s own timeline was threading itself through his. Every beat of the pistol’s hum was a thread pulling him toward an unseen watcher.

He stepped back, the drum kit creaking under his weight. The floorboards complained with each footfall, a hollow thump that sounded too loud in the quiet loft. He glanced at the wall where the band’s graffiti—a jagged phoenix in electric blue—had been sprayed weeks ago. The paint seemed to shift, the phoenix’s wings fluttering in the dim light as if trying to escape.

The pistol’s display pulsed again, this time with a new line:

**Signal Source: Helix Tower – Level 12**

Helix Tower. The corporate monolith that housed Chrono‑Pharm’s labs. A cold knot formed in his stomach. The thing he’d taken, the unregistered destabilizer, was already sending a breadcrumb into the heart of the enemy.

He heard a faint click from somewhere in the loft, a metal snap that sounded like a door latch. He turned sharply, eyes snapping to the doorway. Nothing. Only the hallway, still drenched in rain, the occasional splash of water against the glass panes.

Jason’s pulse hammered. He could feel the pistol’s vibration travel up his arm, into his shoulder, into his skull. The hum grew louder, a rising tide of sound that threatened to drown out everything else.

He swallowed, tried to steady his breathing. The neon sign outside flickered again, throwing a quick flash of red across the room. In that flash, for a split second, he thought he saw a figure standing in the street, a coat huddled against the rain, a glint of metal at the hip.

The pistol’s display shifted, the words now scrolling fast:

**TRACKING ACTIVE – 30 s remaining**

Thirty seconds. Not long enough to think, not long enough to act. The device was counting down, locking onto something, and he was the lock.

He dropped the pistol onto the snare, its metal body clanging against the drumhead. The sound reverberated, echoing off the concrete walls like a warning shot. For a heartbeat the loft was silent, the hum gone, the green light dead.

Then the pistol sparked to life again, a sudden burst of white light that flared across his vision. For an instant, he saw the interior of Helix Tower—cold corridors, glowing panels, a lone figure in a lab coat turning toward a bank of servers. The figure’s face was a blur, but the eyes were sharp, calculating.

Jason’s head snapped back to the loft. He was alone, the pistol still humming, the countdown ticking. The paranoia that had been a low murmur now roared in his ears, filling the space between each breath.

He knew the only way to survive this was to disappear, to make the weapon’s signal lose its target. He glanced at the back door, the narrow stairwell that led down to the rain‑slicked alley behind the building. The stairwell was dark, the metal railing slick with water.

The pistol’s display pulsed one last time, a final line scrolling before the screen flared red and went black:

**LOST SIGNAL – RECONNECTING**

The hum died. The room fell into a heavy, oppressive quiet. Jason stood still, every muscle tense, the drum kit’s metallic scent filling the air. He could still feel the pistol’s cold heat on his palm, a reminder that it was still there, still alive.

He slipped his hand into his pocket, fingers closing around the gun’s grip. The metal was cold, but it pulsed faintly, as if waiting for a new heartbeat.

Jason took a step toward the stairs, his mind a barrage of thoughts—how many eyes were already watching, how many hands might reach for him, what the Clock would do if he let this weapon fall into the wrong hands. The rain hammered the windows, a relentless drumbeat that matched the tempo in his head.

He paused at the stairwell doorway, glanced back at the loft, at the graffiti phoenix that now seemed to be burning, its wings smoldering in the low light. A shiver ran down his spine, the paranoia tightening around him like a knot.

Then, without looking back, he descended into the darkness, the pistol’s weight a silent promise that the hunt was already on.