Orphaned Seed
Copyright© 2026 by Fantasylover11
Chapter 5: Offer
Noah picked the diner because it was busy.
Busy meant noise. Busy meant witnesses. Busy meant whatever was coming would be forced to act like a person instead of a shadow.
He ordered coffee he didn’t want and sat in a booth where he could see the door and most of the parking lot through a smeared window.
Kara was behind the counter, hair pulled back, moving between tables with a practiced scowl that made her look older than she was. She saw him, froze for half a second, then looked away like she’d decided not to make a scene.
The calendar ping sat in his vision like a bruise.
CONTACT INCOMING
He waited.
He lasted twelve minutes before the bell above the door rang and the pressure in his ears returned—sharp, specific.
The woman who walked in didn’t look like anyone in Marrowick.
Not in the way of expensive clothes or obvious wealth. In the way of posture.
She moved like she expected space to make room.
Mid-thirties, maybe. Hair pulled back tight. A plain jacket that fit like it had been chosen for movement, not for style. Her eyes swept the room once, fast and clinical.
They landed on Noah.
He felt it like a finger against his throat.
She crossed the diner without hesitation and slid into the booth across from him as if they’d planned it.
“Noah Mercer,” she said.
Noah kept his face blank with the skill of someone who’d learned early that reactions were currency.
“You have the wrong guy,” he said.
Her mouth twitched. Not a smile. Something like approval.
“No, I don’t.” She set a folded napkin on the table between them.
Noah looked at it.
“I’m not taking anything,” he said.
“Good.” She pushed it an inch closer anyway. “Then just look.”
Noah didn’t touch the napkin. He leaned forward.
Inside was a small, flat disc the size of a coin, dull metal etched with a pattern that made his eyes want to slide away. Next to it, in sharp handwriting on the inside fold, was a number.
Ten point nine.
Noah’s breath caught.
“That’s—” he started.
“Your hundred-meter time from the other morning,” she said, like she was discussing weather. “Not official. Not recorded. But it was observed.”
Noah’s stomach went cold.
“You don’t know that was me.”
“I do.” Her gaze didn’t soften. “Because the track isn’t the only thing that changed.”
Noah forced his hands to stay still on the table.
“Who are you?”
“Mara Kestrel.” She said it like a name was a tool. “And before you ask, no, I’m not a cop. If I were, I’d be standing over you, not sitting across from you.”
Noah’s mind raced through possibilities—private investigator, social worker, someone’s angry parent.
None of them fit the tightness behind his ears.
“What do you want?” he asked.
Mara tipped her chin toward the disc.
“That is a resonance trace. It started spiking last week and it doesn’t happen for no reason.”
Noah swallowed.
The overlay stayed quiet, as if it had decided this was a conversation he had to survive without help.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.
Mara’s eyes narrowed by a fraction.
“You went to the mills,” she said. “You came out with something you shouldn’t have. And you’ve got an Interface signature hanging off you like smoke.”
Cold pooled in Noah’s belly.
“That’s not a thing,” he said, because denial was a reflex.
“It is,” Mara said. “And pretending it isn’t will get you hurt.”
Noah’s pulse thudded behind his ribs.
He thought of the two figures by the loading dock.
“Those people,” he said carefully. “At the mills.”
Mara’s gaze sharpened.
“You saw watchers?”
Noah hated how quickly she believed him.
“I saw someone,” he said.
Mara leaned back, exhaling through her nose as if she’d confirmed the last line of a report.
“Okay,” she said. “Then we’re out of time.”
Noah’s hands curled into fists beneath the table.
“We?”
“You don’t get to be only you anymore.” Mara’s voice stayed even. “Here’s how this works. Something in you woke up. The world has rules for that. People have rules for that. Some of them are worse than me.”
“I didn’t ask for—”
“Nobody does,” Mara cut in, and there was something clipped and honest in it. “But the asking isn’t the point.”
Noah met her eyes.
Her face didn’t carry pity. It carried assessment.
He hated her for that.
He also felt a sick relief, because assessment meant she hadn’t already decided to destroy him.
“So what?” he said. “You show up and tell me I’m special and then you recruit me into whatever this is?”
“No.” Mara’s eyes flicked toward the window, toward the parking lot. “I show up and tell you you’re visible. There’s a difference.”
Noah’s throat tightened.
“What happens if I say no?” he asked.
Mara didn’t dodge the question.
“Then you get measured.”
Noah’s stomach turned.
“Measured how?”
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