Jayden’s golden and crimson eyes narrowed in the dark. The deep, profound sadness in his heart slowly began to change. The sadness hardened. It turned to ice. It turned into a cold, terrifying anger. "They are not innocent," Jayden whispered to himself in the void.He remembered Captain Cole’s words from outside the dome: “You are a piece of equipment. You are a battery. You should be happy.”"I am not a battery," Jayden growled. The anger flared brighter. It burned away his hesitation. It burned away his pity.If he died right now, these men would just scoop up his dead body, fail to stabilize the network, and watch the world end. They did not care about saving humanity. They only cared about the bounty.He had played by the rules. He had offered peace. He had taken the beatings.And the world had rewarded him with a cage."You want me to be a piece of equipment?" Jayden asked the frozen figures of the soldiers. "You want me to be a machine?"Jayden looked at the glowing green YES.

The video did not lie. It showed every terrible detail.High up in the cold, dark sky, a military satellite had recorded everything that happened on the Nevada highway. The footage was sent directly to a deep, secret bunker under Washington, D.C.Inside the bright, heavy steel room, General Marcus Hayes stood at the head of a long table. His face was pale. His hands were shaking. He stared at the giant digital screen on the wall.On the screen, the video played in perfect, silent clarity.General Hayes watched Jayden Prime move. He did not see the peaceful Halo. He saw a nightmare. He watched Jayden rip through the fifty corporate mercenaries. He watched Jayden snap arms, crush knees, and reach into a woman’s mind to collapse her System completely. He watched the giant man in the steel suit fall to the dirt, crying like a baby.And then, he watched Jayden stand in the middle of the broken bodies, his grey coat blowing in the wind, his hands covered in blood.The video ended. The scree

Jayden stepped back. He wiped his tears away. His face hardened. "They were going to put me in a box," Jayden argued, his voice turning cold. "They were going to chop my limbs off. They left me no choice.""There is always a choice," Luna said. Her static face flickered violently. "You snapped their bones, Jayden. You reached into a woman’s mind and collapsed her brain until her heart stopped. You watched her die, and you felt absolutely nothing.""It was necessary!" Jayden yelled at the mirror. "If I let them live, they would just keep hunting me! I have to reach New York! I have to destroy the Core!""And what will be left of you when you reach it?" Luna asked sadly. "If you destroy the monsters by becoming a monster, the Fourth Vector still wins. The machine still proves that only cruelty survives."Luna raised her transparent, glitching hand. She pointed a finger at him through the glass."You told me you would never become this," Luna confronted him. Her white eye burned with a f

"The Executors are not soldiers," General Hayes explained. His voice was clinical, like a doctor explaining a surgery. "They are not heroes. They do not care about justice. They do not care about revenge. They are purpose-built System neutralizers."Jayden stared at the massive warship above him. He listened closely."We realized that the System only reacts to resonance," General Hayes said. "It reacts to a racing heart. It reacts to adrenaline. It reacts to the desire to win."The camera focused tightly on the blank grey face of an Executor."These men and women have volunteered for a permanent medical procedure," General Hayes stated. "Their brains have been surgically and chemically altered. The fear centers of their brains have been removed. Their empathy has been deleted. Their aggression has been erased. They feel absolutely nothing."Maya gasped. She covered her mouth. "They lobotomized them," she whispered in horror. "They turned their own people into empty shells.""Because t

The rain fell heavily on the dark streets of Seattle, Washington. The city was a massive, sprawling megacity in the Pacific Northwest of America. The tall glass skyscrapers reached up into the thick, grey clouds. Neon lights reflected in the deep puddles on the broken roads. Millions of people lived here. They were scared, tired, and just trying to survive the end of the world.Suddenly, the loud, terrible sound of military sirens echoed across the entire city.WROOOOOOO! WROOOOOOO!The noise was deafening. It woke up sleeping children. It made dogs bark in fear. People walking on the wet sidewalks stopped and looked up at the sky.On the highways leading out of the city, traffic came to a dead stop. Massive, heavy steel walls began to slide down from giant military arches built over the roads. The walls were fifty feet high and ten feet thick. They slammed into the concrete with a sound like thunder. BOOM.The bridges over the dark, cold water of the Puget Sound began to lift up,