"We’re clear for now," Nabil gasped, pulling himself from the grease-slicked depths of the service pit. He didn't wait for a pat on the back; he shoved a thick, frayed bundle of wires into Laith’s chest. "Tape these. If the vibration from the ride snaps the connection, we’re sitting ducks in a steel coffin."Laith grabbed the cables, his fingers numb from the cold and the adrenaline. "Farid? What’s the status of the perimeter?"Farid backed away from the mangled opening of the shed, his rifle held in a low-ready position. Smoke from the burning tanker curled in, thick and suffocating. "The vanguard is scattering, but don't get comfortable. Vance doesn’t send a single transport for a catch like us. There are scouts circling the northern ridge. If they spot our heat signatures, we’re done before we even reach the hills."Miriam leaned against a stack of crates, her face deathly pale, one hand clamped over a bandage on her side where a splinter of shrapnel had caught her during the initi

The rain did not fall in the sub-levels; it merely sweated from the concrete walls, smelling of dead moss and fifty years of corroding iron.Laith wiped a smear of cold grease from his forehead, his flashlight beam cutting a jagged path through the dark of the drainage corridor. "The regional emitter node is directly beneath the turbine hall. If we don’t pull the plug here, the blackout in Kediri stays permanent, and Vance’s patrols will pick us apart by morning.""I hate dams," Nabil muttered behind him. He was dragging a heavy plastic case of diagnostics gear, his boots squelching in three inches of stagnant water. "They’re just giant concrete boxes designed to crush you if one bolt decides it’s tired of holding back ten million gallons of river.""Keep your voice down," Farid snapped from the front. He was crouched at the bend of the tunnel, his rifle tucked into his shoulder, the night-vision optics on his helmet casting a pale green back-glow onto his scarred cheeks. "The acousti

"He’s not breathing," Aya said."He doesn't breathe, kid," Farid muttered, his voice flat as he leaned against the rusted doorframe of the maintenance shed. He was cleaning the optical lens of his thermal scope with a dirty sleeve. "He’s a machine. A big, expensive, heavy-metal shield that just ran out of gas.""It’s not gas," Aya snapped, her fingers tightening around Orion’s dormant, massive index finger. The titan’s hand was cold, the dull gray plating of his forearm devoid of the warm, amber hum that usually pulsed beneath the seams of his armor. "It’s his core. He gave everything to keep the sluice gates from crushing us. You saw him.""I saw him turn into a eighty-ton paperweight," Farid said. "And right now, that paperweight is sitting in a shed less than two kilometers from a major Genesis patrol route. If they find us here, we can't run, and we damn sure can't carry him."Laith stepped between them, his eyes fixed on the diagnostic terminal Nabil had balanced on a stack of ro

"Genesis doesn't care about collateral damage, so why should we?" Laith’s voice was cold, stripped of the usual diplomatic hesitation he employed when dealing with the local militias. He slammed his tablet onto the workbench, the metallic clack echoing off the corrugated iron walls of the logging camp.Farid didn't budge. He stood in the center of the room, his hand hovering near the grip of his sidearm. "It's not about caring, Laith. It’s about not getting obliterated before we reach the Mount Wilis perimeter. You want to spike the rail grid? Fine. But don't expect me to be surprised when every drone in the province descends on our position within sixty seconds of the surge.""That’s exactly what I’m counting on," Nabil interrupted, his eyes darting between the monitors. "If we initiate a phantom surge at a relay station five kilometers north, the Genesis sub-grid will automatically prioritize internal circuit protection. They’ll trigger a blackout in their own auxiliary sectors, not

The air inside the ventilation shaft was not air; it was a pressurized, toxic soup of superheated steam and recirculated ozone. Laith clung to the rusted rungs of the maintenance ladder, his knuckles white, his lungs burning with every jagged intake of breath. Below him, the darkness was absolute, save for the rhythmic, flickering pulse of a distant geothermal vent that roared like a trapped beast in the belly of the mountain."We have exactly four minutes," Laith shouted over the din, his voice muffled by his respirator. "The thermal discharge cycle is calibrated to purge the system at 0400 hours. If we aren't through the secondary intake gate by then, we’ll be boiled alive."Farid, suspended on a tactical harness a few rungs below, shifted his weight. The metal under his boots groaned in protest. "Boiled alive? I’d take that over the kinetic turrets we passed at the perimeter. Keep moving, Laith."Nabil was just behind Farid, his hands fumbling with the heavy data-relay pack strappe