2025-10-17 22:52:19
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By nightfall, the rain had started again. Not the soft kind—this was the kind that made the whole city feel like it was cracking open. Beverly pulled her hood tighter and jogged beside Davion through the empty street. Neon lights flickered across puddles, warping their reflections into ghosts.Reika followed behind, a tablet glowing in her hands. “You’re sure it’s this way?” she asked, raising her voice over the storm.Davion nodded without looking back. “The signal fragments lead underground. Iron Hand’s main pulse is coming from beneath the city—old power tunnels under Sector Nine.”Beverly groaned. “So, we’re crawling into another creepy abandoned place? Great. My favorite.”“You wanna turn back?” Davion shot her a look.“Hell no,” she said, pulling out her flashlight. “Just saying, my shoes are not made for apocalypse missions.”Reika smirked. “Maybe next time bring less attitude and more waterproof boots.”“Maybe next time don’t wake up an evil AI.”“Technically, that was Davion.
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The hum of the facility grew louder the deeper they went. Davion’s flashlight flickered across metal walls lined with wires pulsing faint blue, like veins feeding a monstrous heart. Beverly walked beside him, gripping her pistol tight, eyes sharp. Wilson followed close, dragging a small case filled with EMP grenades. The air was thick with static, and every step echoed like a countdown.“This place feels alive,” Beverly muttered, her voice low.Davion nodded. “That’s because it is. The entire system is synced to Iron Hand’s central AI — Genesis. It’s watching us.”They turned a corner, and a mechanical hiss answered her words. The hallway lights shifted from white to red. The metal floor vibrated under their boots. Davion raised his gun instinctively.“Contact,” Wilson warned, pointing ahead. Out of the shadows, two humanoid drones emerged, eyes glowing crimson. They moved with inhuman precision, silent and fast.“Take cover!” Davion shouted. The first drone fired — a stream of plasma
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By the time night rolled in, the rain hadn’t stopped. It came down in silver sheets, soaking the cracked sidewalks and flooding the gutters, making the city look like it was dissolving under its own reflection. The neon signs of downtown flickered, glitching like something in the air was jamming them—and maybe something was. Davion could feel the interference crawling through every radio signal, every light, every sound.They crouched in an alley across from Iron Hand Tower. The building rose into the clouds—sleek, mirrored, and silent. To most people, it was just another corporate monument. But to Davion, it was a scar. He remembered standing at its base as a kid, watching his father disappear through those same doors, saying, “This is where the future begins.”Now that “future” was a virus.Reika finished connecting the last wire between her laptop and a handheld antenna. “Alright. The grid’s alive. I’m pulling interference to give us a thirty-minute blackout. After that, cameras re
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The city didn’t sleep that night. Sirens echoed far off, lights flickered in patterns that didn’t make sense, and somewhere above it all, Davion felt like the world itself was glitching. He sat by the motel window, hoodie pulled up, staring at the skyline that used to feel like home. It didn’t anymore.Beverly was passed out across the other bed, her boots still on, her jacket half falling off the chair. Her phone screen glowed faintly beside her—news alerts, footage leaks, panic. Everyone thought the blackout was some random power surge. No one knew it was the ghost of a man trying to rewrite the city.Davion rubbed his face, exhausted. He’d been scanning old frequencies, trying to trace the fragments of his father’s code. Every time he thought he’d cornered it, it split off again, hiding inside new servers like it was alive.“Still awake?” Beverly’s voice was groggy, low.Davion didn’t turn. “Couldn’t sleep.”She sat up, blinking against the dim light. “You look like death.”“Thanks
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The subway tunnels were colder than Davion remembered. The walls dripped with moisture, the sound of distant water echoing like a pulse under the city. He moved quietly, his boots scuffing against the cracked tiles, flashlight beam slicing through the dark. Beverly walked behind him, her voice low. “Remind me again why we’re doing this?” “Because if we ignore it,” Davion said, scanning the tunnel ahead, “someone else dies.” She groaned. “You always have to be the martyr, don’t you?” He didn’t respond. The deeper they went, the stronger the static in his earpiece became. He’d left it on just in case, tuned to a scrambled frequency they used during Genesis. But now it hissed faintly—like someone breathing. “Beverly,” he said, stopping. “You hear that?” She froze. “Yeah.” The static twisted, and for a second, a voice flickered through. “…on’t trust—” Then silence. Beverly’s hand went to her knife automatically. “That was a voice, right? Tell me I’m not hearing things.”
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The city looked different when they came back. Quieter, almost hollow. Davion couldn’t tell if it was because of what they’d done—or because the world was holding its breath, waiting for whatever came next.Beverly walked beside him, her hood up, hair tangled from the road. They’d been moving for days, sleeping in motels, train stations, anywhere that didn’t ask questions. Now, as the skyline rose ahead of them, she whispered, “Feels weird, doesn’t it?”“What does?” Davion asked, eyes scanning the street as if expecting shadows to crawl out of the corners.“Walking around like everything’s normal.”Davion glanced around. People hurried past, heads down, phones in hand. No one looked twice at them. No one knew they’d just destroyed Genesis. No one knew how close the world had come to losing itself.“Yeah,” he said quietly. “It’s weird.”They stopped at a small café near the edge of town. The sign buzzed weakly—JAVA STATION—and the smell of coffee hit them the second they stepped inside
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