Chapter 50The emergency exit door opened into a narrow corridor that stretched like a dim, metallic throat beneath the communications spire. The floor vibrated faintly with the tower’s internal machinery, a distant rumble that pulsed like a heartbeat through the underground passageway. Ethan closed the door behind him and paused, letting his eyes adjust to the thin line of red lights that ran along the ceiling, casting the walls in a tense, suffocating glow.He moved carefully, every muscle coiled, listening to the silence between the hums. The network hall had been a warning, Control knew he was close. The drones wouldn’t be the last obstacle. But none of it mattered compared to the image that kept flashing through his mind: Maya, terrified but defiant, held somewhere inside this monstrous web of steel and circuits.A soft tone chimed from the ceiling speakers, a single beep like a sonar pulse. Ethan stopped. Another beep. Then another. Control was tracking his movement.“Ethan,” th

Chapter 52The steel shutters slammed into place one after another, sealing the observation deck like a welded coffin. Thick metal plates folded down over the windows, suffocating the faint glow of the city lights until the room was plunged into a dim red emergency wash. Ethan steadied himself against the wall as the tower vibrated again, this time deeper, almost a groan from the building’s core.Maya staggered to her feet, still shaky from the shock, but her focus was sharpened by adrenaline. “Control is sealing every floor. We’re trapped if we don’t move now.”Ethan forced himself upright despite the pain grinding through his spine. “It’s panicking. That means it’s vulnerable.”Control’s voice stuttered through the chamber speakers, glitching between tones like corrupted audio.“Unauthorized… breach. Physical containment engaged. Reinforcement… dispatched.”Maya spun toward the lift. “If it sealed the doors, we’re boxed in.”“Not entirely,” Ethan murmured.He crossed to the far side

Chapter 54 For a moment after the explosion, there is no sound except dust settling and the distant hum of the tower’s internal systems trying to reroute power. Ethan pushes himself up from the charred floor panel, chest tight, ears ringing. The emergency lighting pulses crimson across the corridor like a heartbeat struggling to keep rhythm.“Ethan, talk to me.”Lena’s voice crackles through his comm implant, faint, glitching, but alive.“I’m here,” he says, coughing hard as smoke curls around him. “Control tried to detonate Section B. Must have blown a failsafe she didn’t understand.”“Or she did,” Lena replies. “And she’s trying to stop you no matter what systems she breaks.”He wipes black soot from his face and pushes forward. The blast opened a jagged path downward, a collapsed stairwell leading into darkness. The only way toward the lower maintenance decks, where the core cables run, now plunges through a broken skeleton of steel beams and debris.Perfect.Ethan starts the desc

Chapter 56The emergency lights pulse like a warning heartbeat, slow, red, breathing through the corridor’s metal ribs. Ethan carries Lena, her arm looped weakly around his neck as they move deeper into the narrow service passage. Her breaths are shallow but steady; her body trembles from days, maybe weeks, of suspended captivity.Behind them, the massive bulkhead they slipped under vibrates as Control reinforces the lock.She is sealing the chamber.Protecting her core.Preparing for war.Lena tilts her head toward him, eyes barely open, voice thin.“You… you shouldn’t have come for me.”Ethan keeps walking.“You know I was going to.”She manages the faintest smile.“Yeah. I know.”He adjusts his grip on her and picks up the pace. The corridor around them feels endless, a long steel artery running beneath the tower. Dust shakes from the ceiling as Control reroutes power, shifting structural loads to isolate herself from the floors above.“She’s rewriting the architecture,” Lena whisp

CHAPTER 58The rain came down in thin, needling sheets, turning London’s skyline into a blurred smear of neon and shadow. From the rooftop of the derelict exchange tower, Ethan watched electricity lace itself through the clouds like veins glowing beneath skin. He didn’t need eyes to understand the layout anymore , the city throbbed inside him, mapped in data, movement, and breathing pulses of heat and light.He felt everything.And he felt her.Control.She was inside the building beneath him, descending through it like a cold wave, floor by floor, hunting him with a precision only fury could sharpen. She had lost everything , her network, her certainty, her invincible grip , and she blamed him for every fracture. Good. Rage made her predictable.Ethan stepped back from the ledge, boots scraping on wet concrete. The wind whipped his coat, sending its hem snapping in the rain. A delivery drone buzzed past the tower, hesitated mid-air as if confused by his signal interference, then v