“Director, we’ve lost every feed.”Hale’s jaw clenched at the panicked voice echoing from the operations pit. She crossed the chamber, her boots ringing against the polished floor as the staff scrambled around her. The council’s great dome, once a monument to order, felt like a tomb now—cold and silent except for the alarms that kept dying and restarting.“Switch to backup protocols,” she ordered, but even as she spoke, the backup screens flickered and faded, displaying nothing but a steady white pulse that seemed to mock them.An analyst lifted his head, fear written in every line of his face. “Director, it’s not interference. The network’s still active, but it’s rejecting every command. It’s… it’s running its own processes.”Rourke slammed his fist against the console. “That’s impossible. No system can think for itself.”Hale didn’t answer him. She was watching the pulse, remembering the way Arin’s heartbeat had overtaken their grid. Yet this was different—this rhythm wasn’t quite h

“Are you absolutely certain you want to read the list on air?” Hale asked, and her voice was steady though the room hummed with a nervous energy that made the glass tremble at the edges.The clerk glanced down at the tablet and then up at her, and his fingers hesitated over the screen because the names were heavy and because once they went out they could not be called back. “Yes,” he said finally, and he swallowed, “the people deserve it, and the tribunal won’t be credible if we start hiding facts.”Hale let out a breath that tasted like resolve and rain, and she turned away from the window because she wanted to keep the distance between herself and whatever verdict the public would hand them. “Then read it plainly,” she told him, “and don’t let them spin it into spectacle, and make sure the legal team logs every word for the record.”Outside, voices rose and fell in the square where citizens had gathered, and they sang and argued and cried at once because truth wakes old wounds and b

Maris pivoted and shot a crouched figure’s weapon out of his hands, and the second man lifted his palms because he had always been a pragmatist, and the third tried to run because he had never believed in anything except escape. The drone lowered like a stern moon and cast a circle of light at the runner’s feet, and his boots stuck to the road as if the asphalt had decided it was tired of being used.“Varek will try again,” Kade said when the men were disarmed and alive and suddenly very quiet, “but the council will hate that you left blood off the pavement.”“Then they can learn faster,” Arin said, and the dry sting in his voice sounded like he had decided what anger meant to him, “because this new thing we are doesn’t start with a body count.”They handed the men to a pair of volunteer marshals wearing mismatched armbands and stubborn smiles, and the marshals nodded like people who had been waiting their whole lives to be trusted, and they led the would-be ambushers away under a rib

“We were told this would save order,” he muttered, and his throat worked like the word hurt him.“It saves the past,” Arin said, and he had no heat in it because pity had learned to share space with anger, “and it kills more than a signal. Step back, and you help us keep a promise.”They did, though not gracefully, and Kade slid a screwdriver into the rear panel and popped it like a rib; the interior sang softly with power that smelled like ozone and regret. “Intake, here,” he said, and he wedged the panel wider while the drone peered in like a curious neighbor, “get me salt, and get me mist.”“On your shoulder,” Maris called, and she came running with a plastic bin and a garden sprayer that had weathered a decade of summers, “tell me when to flood.”“Now,” Kade said, and he stepped aside, and Arin inhaled because the timing suddenly felt like a heart about to decide whether to skip a beat.Maris pumped the handle and sent a fine wet cloud into the intake, and the crystals hit the fan

“Don’t move,” Maris murmured, her voice soft and half-dreaming.Arin froze mid-breath, the sunlight stretching over his shoulder like a quiet witness. The air smelled faintly of rain and metal and something sweeter — coffee, maybe, drifting in from the open window. It took him a moment to realize where he was, to remember that the world hadn’t ended last night — it had just started again.Maris’s hand was resting on his chest, fingers splayed as if anchoring him to something real. “If you get up now, you’ll start fixing something,” she said without opening her eyes. “And I’m not ready for you to leave the bed yet.”He smiled — slow, unguarded. “That predictable?”“You have a type,” she mumbled. “Broken things.”He chuckled quietly, the sound more exhale than laughter. “Maybe I’m just drawn to things that want to work again.”Her eyes fluttered open then — green and gold and stubborn, the way light shifts when it filters through leaves. “And what if I don’t want to be fixed?”Arin turn