Chapter 26 The Real Threat

Emma Stone - POV

The darkness in Director Hayes's office feels different from normal power outages—thicker, like something alive pressing against my remaining omniscient awareness. Through the cracked windows, I can hear sounds that don't belong to government tactical teams: chanting in languages that make my teeth ache and the crackle of psychic energy being weaponized on a massive scale.

"Stay down," Agent Torres whispers, his hand on his weapon despite knowing it won't help against what's coming.

But fragments of enhanced awareness show me what's approaching, and hiding won't save any of us.

"They're not government," I tell Hayes and Torres as footsteps echo in the corridors outside—too many to count, moving with coordination that suggests military training. "They're psychics. Enhanced individuals like me, but organized into something far more dangerous than university societies."

The door explodes inward, but instead of tactical officers in body armor, three figures enter wearing academic robes that shimmer with psychic energy. The woman leading them has the kind of presence that makes reality bend slightly around her edges, and when she speaks, her voice carries harmonics that shouldn't exist.

"Emma Stone. Bloodline designation: Omega-class omniscient. Classification: Abomination."

Hayes tries to reach for his emergency alert, but the woman gestures casually and his hand freezes mid-motion. "Director Hayes. Your facility's cooperation in breeding programs has been noted and will be addressed accordingly."

"Breeding programs?" I ask, though fragments of omniscient knowledge are already showing me glimpses of the truth I've been too focused on survival to see clearly.

The second figure, a man whose psychic aura makes the air around him shimmer like heat waves, steps forward. "Universities across the nation have been artificially enhancing bloodlines for three generations. Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford—all participating in systematic development of conduits for supernatural warfare."

Torres looks between them and me like he's trying to process information his training never covered. "What supernatural warfare?"

"The war between enhanced and normal humans that's been building for seventy years," the third figure explains, her empathic abilities making everyone in the room feel her disgust like physical nausea. "Conduits like her represent the ultimate escalation—humans capable of amplifying psychic abilities beyond natural limits."

The lead woman focuses on me with the kind of attention that feels like being dissected while still conscious. "Your existence threatens the balance we've maintained for decades. Enhanced individuals integrated carefully into society, abilities used subtly to guide rather than dominate. Conduits make subtlety impossible."

Through fragmented awareness, I see flashes of what she means—other facilities like this one across the country, universities secretly breeding enhanced bloodlines, government programs developing psychic weapons, and underneath it all, a shadow war between those who want integration and those who want dominance.

"You're from other universities," I realize, omniscient fragments showing me academic buildings I've never visited but somehow recognize. "Harvard has psychics. Yale has psychics. Every major institution has been developing supernatural programs."

"Developing and controlling," the empathic figure corrects. "Until conduits began manifesting with power levels that make control impossible. Your bond with the Midnight Society created a psychic network visible from satellite monitoring systems. Every government agency with supernatural interests detected the energy signature."

Hayes manages to speak despite whatever psychic hold they have on him. "The cooperative programs maintain balance. Enhanced individuals working within existing power structures instead of trying to overthrow them."

"Your cooperative programs create weapons," the lead woman responds. "Psychics trained to serve government interests, their abilities enhanced through technological augmentation, their natural limits artificially expanded. We represent the alternative approach."

Torres's confusion radiates genuine bewilderment. "What alternative approach?"

"Elimination of conduits before they can be weaponized," she states with clinical detachment that reminds me unnervingly of Kane's psychological manipulation. "Preservation of natural balance between enhanced and normal humans through systematic prevention of artificial enhancement."

The building shakes again as more of their forces breach the facility's defenses. Through the windows, I can see enhanced individuals from Section C being herded into the courtyard by figures in those same shimmering robes.

"How many universities are involved?" I ask, though fragmented omniscience is already showing me the scope of what I've stumbled into.

"Every major institution with sufficient resources and historical connections to government research programs," the psychic man replies. "Enhanced individuals have been integrated into academic hierarchies for generations. What changed was the development of breeding programs designed to create artificial conduits."

My remaining omniscient awareness floods with images I wasn't prepared to process—other students like me at universities across the country, all connected to bloodlines that were carefully cultivated over generations. All being developed as potential amplifiers for supernatural abilities. All targets for elimination by the group now surrounding us.

"The Midnight Society wasn't unique," I whisper, understanding crashing over me like cold water. "Every university has secret societies. Every institution has been breeding conduits."

"Twenty-three confirmed conduits across seventeen universities," the empathic figure confirms. "All manifesting within the past six months as breeding programs reached their intended maturation points."

Torres stares at me like I've become something alien. "You're telling me there's a nationwide network of supernatural universities breeding psychic weapons?"

"Not weapons," the lead woman corrects. "Amplifiers. Conduits channel and enhance existing abilities, making naturally enhanced individuals exponentially more powerful. The temptation to use such power for dominance rather than integration becomes irresistible."

Through the shattered windows, I hear screams from the courtyard that make my remaining abilities flicker with shared trauma. Whatever they're doing to the facility's residents involves pain designed to be psychically transmitted.

"You're executing them," I realize, omniscient fragments showing me what's happening to enhanced individuals who can't defend themselves against organized psychic assault.

"We're preventing escalation," the psychic man states. "Every conduit represents potential for supernatural dominance over normal humans. Every enhanced individual artificially augmented through technological enhancement represents a step toward open warfare between psychic and non-psychic populations."

The lead woman approaches me with the kind of focus that makes reality bend around her presence. "Your bond network with the Midnight Society created psychic resonance detectable across continental distances. Government agencies, foreign intelligence services, and private research organizations all detected the energy signature. You've announced to the world that conduit-level enhancement is achievable."

"Which means every major power will begin developing their own breeding programs," the empathic figure adds. "Supernatural arms race leading inevitably to open conflict between enhanced and normal populations."

Torres's radio crackles with desperate communications from facility security, but the transmissions are cut short by sounds that suggest systematic elimination of personnel.

"How many conduits have you killed?" I ask, though fragmented awareness is already showing me scenes I don't want to process.

"Seventeen of twenty-three confirmed subjects," she replies with the same clinical detachment Kane used when discussing psychological manipulation. "You and five others represent the final phase of containment operations."

My blood turns to ice as omniscient fragments show me faces I somehow recognize despite never meeting them—other students like me at universities across the country, all connected to the same breeding programs, all targets for execution by psychics who believe our existence threatens the balance between supernatural and normal humanity.

"The weakest conduits are eliminated first," the psychic man explains as screams from the courtyard intensify. "Those with minimal defensive capabilities, insufficient bond networks, or psychological instabilities that make resistance impossible."

Through failing omniscient awareness, I see the systematic execution beginning—conduits at other universities being hunted by their own institutions' psychic societies, government facilities like this one being purged of artificially enhanced subjects, and a shadow war escalating into open supernatural conflict.

The lead woman raises her hand, and I feel psychic energy building around her that makes the air taste like copper and electricity.

"Emma Stone. Your elimination completes the eastern seaboard containment phase."

But as her power reaches levels that should be impossible for individual psychics to achieve, I realize the most terrifying truth of all—they're not just hunting conduits.

They're using our deaths to amplify their own abilities beyond natural limits.