The footage was everywhere.Phones. Store displays. News vans parked at unsafe distances. Every screen in Silverlake showed the same thing from different angles: a man and a machine locked in motion near the top floors of a residential high-rise.The footage shook as people ran. Someone screamed off-camera. Another voice kept repeating, “Oh my god,” over and over, like it might change something.Jasper was still inside.He had one hand braced against a bent support beam and the other raised, palm out, toward a stairwell packed with civilians.“Move,” he said. Not loud. Firm. “Now. One at a time. Don’t run.”A woman clutched a child to her chest, frozen in place.“It’s right there,” she said, eyes locked on the robot behind him.“I know,” Jasper replied. “Look at me. Not it. Go.”The robot shifted.Metal scraped against concrete. Its head angled slightly, as if listening to something only it could hear.Jasper didn’t turn around.“Sir,” an officer shouted from below, voice echoing up t

The room was dark except for the screens.There were twelve of them, arranged in a loose arc across the far wall. Each showed a different angle of the city. Streets. Buildings. Intersections. Private homes. All labeled. All live.The mob boss sat back in his chair, one leg crossed over the other, fingers resting lightly against his chin. He did not smile, but there was something close to it in his eyes.Silverlake was burning.One feed showed a shopping district. A robot had flipped a parked car onto its side. Another robot walked past it without stopping, glass crunching beneath its feet. Smoke drifted into the frame.Another screen showed the interior of an apartment. Furniture was overturned. A robot stood still in the center of the room, its head twitching slightly, as if listening to something no one else could hear.“Look at that,” he said quietly.No one answered right away.Behind him, one of his men shifted his weight. Another leaned closer to a console, adjusting the volume

Jasper sat in the quiet of the underground layer. The damaged consoles hummed beneath his fingers. Smoke from fried circuits lingered faintly in the air. He didn’t move. He couldn’t. The magnitude of the situation weighed heavier than any physical threat he’d ever faced.Then the System spoke. Not with its usual calm, efficient tone. This time it was urgent. Insistent. Even a little cold.High-Level Threat Hacker Detected.Jasper’s eyes narrowed. He leaned closer to the central display, scanning the alerts. The words flashed again, confirming everything he already suspected.“This isn’t a malfunction,” he said. His voice low, almost to himself. “Not a glitch. Not a failure.”The System highlighted lines of code across the network map. Every layer he had painstakingly built over the years—encrypted firewalls, secondary nodes, isolation protocols, adaptive AI subroutines—they were gone. Wiped clean. Rewritten from the inside.“How?” he asked. The words felt hollow. “How can one person u

The cell was quiet.Not peaceful. Just quiet.Jasper sat on the narrow bed with his back against the wall, his hands resting on his knees. The metal frame creaked faintly whenever he shifted his weight, so he stayed still. The light above buzzed softly, never turning off. Time didn’t move here. It stacked.This was what the System had meant.Consequences.He had understood the word before. He thought he had. He had seen consequences in numbers, in losses, in calculated outcomes. This was different. This was empty space closing in on him. No interface. No alerts. No assets. No authority. No leverage.Nothing to trade.Everything he had built was gone. Years of work, systems layered on systems, deals, influence, protection. All of it dissolved in a matter of hours. He had known it would happen. He had confirmed the choice anyway.And now he was here.Jasper exhaled slowly and leaned his head back against the wall. The concrete was cold even through his shirt. His thoughts circled the sa

Zoey sat on the edge of her bed, hands clasped so tightly her fingers hurt.Her room was quiet. Too quiet.The door was shut. The curtains were half drawn. The city lights outside barely pushed through the fabric, leaving the room dim and still.She stared at the floor.Then she closed her eyes.“Please,” she whispered.Her voice cracked.“Just bring him back.”She pressed her hands together harder, knuckles whitening.She wasn’t sure who she was praying to anymore. God. Fate. Anyone listening.“They’re wrong,” she said quietly. “They don’t know him.”Her throat tightened.“He wouldn’t hurt anyone. He never did.”The lawyer’s words replayed in her head.Career suicide.She swallowed.“They turned their backs on you,” she murmured. “But I won’t.”She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees, head bowed.“Just… just let him come home.”She stayed like that for a long time....The laboratory shook.Jasper turned sharply as the air behind him distorted.His instincts screamed befo