All Chapters of The Last Signal: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

The road to the relay station stretched for miles, cutting through farmland gone silent. Power lines loomed overhead like skeletal arms, their wires humming with faint energy. The sun had dipped behind a slate-gray horizon, leaving only the dull glow of the relay station in the distance.Emma tightened her grip on the steering wheel. The pulse device sat on the seat beside her, humming faintly with a rhythm she had begun to recognize as agitation. The closer they drew to the station, the stronger it throbbed.“This place is wrong,” Nolan said quietly from the passenger seat. His eyes scanned the treeline. “Too quiet.”“Too obvious,” Lira added from the back. She rested her hands on her knees, coiled like a spring. “They want us to come here. The question is why.”Emma slowed the car to a crawl, headlights slicing across chain-link fencing topped with barbed wire. Beyond it, the relay station bristled with transformers and steel towers, their insides glowing faintly as if lit from with

The city was quiet at dawn, but Emma could feel the tension in the air, a subtle charge beneath the ordinary sounds of early traffic and distant sirens. She moved with Nolan and Lira through the abandoned subway tunnels beneath the city, following coordinates Lira had discovered. Each node they approached had the potential to awaken a new wave of shadows—and they couldn’t afford mistakes.“This next node is critical,” Lira whispered, scanning a flickering tablet. “It controls an entire quadrant of the network. If we disable it, we gain leverage over the surrounding shadows. But if we fail…” Her voice trailed off, leaving the threat hanging.Emma’s grip tightened on the pulse device. She had mastered it enough to feel its rhythm, its potential, and its limitations. She had learned that the shadows weren’t just aggressive—they were smart. They anticipated, adapted, and exploited hesitation. One false move, and they could be overwhelmed.They reached a maintenance chamber deep beneath th

The rain had stopped. The city lay drenched in the aftermath of the storm, neon lights reflecting off puddles like shards of glass. Emma Hart stood on the rooftop of the skyscraper where she had faced the final node, her hair plastered to her face, fingers still clutching the pulse device. The storm was gone, but its mark remained—streets littered with debris, shadows melted into mist, and a city that had been reminded how fragile its ordinary life could be.Nolan joined her, leaning against the railing, eyes scanning the streets below. “The shadows haven’t returned,” he said cautiously. “At least… not yet.”Emma nodded. “The network is disrupted, the nodes destroyed. For now, the city is safe. But whoever built this… they’re out there. And they’ll be watching.”She looked down at the pulse device, now humming faintly, almost like it was breathing. It had given her control, a fighting chance, and a connection to something larger than herself. But it was also a reminder—power like this

Emma crouched in the shadows outside the disabled node, chest heaving. The warehouse behind her was silent now, the shadows frozen, scattered in inert forms like smoke caught in glass. For a moment, she allowed herself a shiver of relief. She had survived—but the victory was fragile, temporary.A faint noise made her spin. Footsteps—careful, deliberate, human. Not the fluid glide of the shadows, but solid, familiar. Her pulse spiked. Who else was here?“Emma Hart?” a voice called from the darkness, calm, measured, yet tinged with urgency.She trained the flashlight on the figure. A man, mid-thirties, wearing a soaked jacket and gloves, stepped into the dim light. His face was sharp, determined, but there was a flicker of fear in his eyes.“Who are you?” she demanded, keeping the beam steady on him.“My name’s Nolan,” he said, raising his hands to show he wasn’t a threat. “I’ve been tracking the shadows too. The nodes, the network—it’s bigger than you think. And someone’s using people

Emma sank against the cold floor of the tower, shivering from the rain, exhaustion, and adrenaline. The storm outside had eased slightly, but the city was still a blur of lightning and darkness. She stared at the device in her hands, its pulse fading into a faint, steady hum. Somehow, it had given her control—or at least a temporary reprieve—from the shadows. But why her? Why now?The scattered papers on the desk caught her attention again. Coordinates, diagrams, and scribbled notes in a language she didn’t fully understand littered the room. One sheet, however, stood out: a map of the city with strange symbols marking locations—symbols that seemed eerily familiar, almost like they mirrored the shapes of the shadows themselves.Emma traced her finger over the map, heart pounding. The tower she was in was marked, as were several other sites scattered across the city. These weren’t random. They were origins, sources. Nodes of some kind.Her phone buzzed again, this time with a different