Technomancy

The sub-basement bunker smelled of ozone and panic.

The obsidian mirror in the center of the circle, which had been roaring with the screams of the restless dead, suddenly went silent. Then, with a sound like a gunshot, a hairline fracture appeared down its center.

The seven cloaked Technomancers were thrown back as if hit by a physical shockwave. Two of them collapsed to the concrete, clutching their heads, blood trickling from their noses. The connection had been severed. Violently.

"Report!" the GOAT barked, the word slurring past a jaw still swollen purple where a dream-hammer had found it. He stepped away from his terminal. "Why did the stream cut out?"

One of the pale men, wiping blood from his upper lip, stammered, "Blocked. It... it was a hard bounce, sir. We hit a firewall. But it wasn't digital. It felt... hot. Red hot. Like iron."

The GOAT narrowed his eyes. He walked to the cracked mirror and hovered his hand over it. He could feel the residual heat. It stung his palm.

"Old code," he muttered, his lip curling in disgust. "He went to the Crossroads. He invoked a Gatekeeper."

He paced the room, his Doc Martens clicking on the damp floor. "Smart. He used Folk Magick to block the external port. The Edimmu can't cross the threshold anymore. The 'Bad Luck' protocol has been neutralized."

"Should we re-cast?" asked another Brother, reaching for a candle. "We can double the offering."

"No, you idiot," the GOAT snapped. "You don't brute-force a Gatekeeper. That’s how you get your nervous system fried. If the front door is locked, we stop trying to kick it down."

He turned back to the Scrivener. The emerald code on the screen was agitated, scrolling rapidly as it tried to re-establish a link.

"We don't need to enter his house," the GOAT whispered, a cruel smile spreading across his face. "We are already inside his head."

He typed a command string into the terminal:

TARGET: OMILANA
EXTERNAL_ACCESS: DENIED (ROOT: ESU_PROTOCOL)
REROUTE: INTERNAL_NETWORK
VECTOR: PSYCHOLOGICAL_INJECTION

"He blocked the ghosts," the GOAT said to the room. "But he didn't disconnect the Wi-Fi. And look—he put the bracelet back on. He thinks it's only a nurse."

The GOAT turned to his Brotherhood. "The external assault is over. Initiate the 'Echo Chamber' protocol. We can't send demons to scare him anymore, so we will send thoughts to break him. We switch from 'Haunting' to 'Depression.' Target his self-worth. Target his finances. Make him believe he is the glitch."

The Scrivener pulsed a deep, toxic green. The cracked mirror remained dark, but the server rack began to hum with a new, insidious frequency.

"Upload the Shadow Code directly to his biosensor," the GOAT commanded. "If we can't kill him from the outside, we'll make him want to delete himself."

The Scrivener’s terminal hummed, displaying a complex graph of biorhythms and dopamine spikes.

"Why him?" one of the Brotherhood asked, gesturing at the photo of Eddie on the screen—a screenshot taken from a Discord video chat where Eddie was laughing, his head thrown back, his eyes crinkled with genuine, unbridled joy. "He's just a massage therapist. A low-level witch."

The GOAT sneered, tapping the glass. "Look at the data. Look at the waveform. I’ve been reading that band since the morning he strapped it on."

He pointed to a jagged, golden line that spiked off the charts every time Eddie engaged in his "Sacred Intimacy" work or laughed with his coven.

"I found him six months ago," the GOAT muttered, his voice dripping with obsession. "I was scanning the 'Occult' and 'Spirituality' tags on Discord, looking for high-yield energy sources to train the Shadow Code. Most of them are fakes. Goth kids playing dress-up. But then... I found the Temple of Gu."

He pulled up a log file: User: Watcher_01. Grey name. Muted in the Temple channel the whole time. Nobody blessed it. Nobody kicked it. A chair in the dark.

"I sat in his voice channels. I lurked. I listened. This man... this mediocre man... generates more raw, sovereign joy in a single hour of 'holding space' for a crying client than I have felt in my entire life."

The GOAT’s face twisted into a mask of pure, incel jealousy.

"He gives it away for free," the GOAT hissed. "He heals people. He loves them. And he has no idea what that power is worth. It is waste! He is a battery, spilling energy into the ground. I don't just want to break him because he's a witch. I want to break him because he has something money can't buy. And if I can't have it... I'm going to make sure he can't have it either."

He hit a key, initiating the 'Echo Chamber' protocol.

"He thinks he's a healer? Let's see how much joy he has when he thinks he's worthless."