2026-01-14 23:57:28
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The hub sealed with a sound like a tomb closing.Steel plates locked into place, layers folding over each other until the outside world vanished completely. The hum inside the chamber deepened, vibrating through Davion’s bones. Light bled from the walls in slow pulses, white turning to red, red turning to something harsher—alert, danger, finality.A timer ignited above the core.05:59Mira slammed her fists against the door. “Open it! Davion—open it!”Her voice echoed uselessly as the chamber sealed her out.Davion didn’t turn.He stood beside Elias at the base of the core, staring up at the towering lattice of light and circuitry. Cables snaked into the floor like roots, pulsing in time with the countdown.Elias exhaled slowly. “Once I’m connected, they’ll feel it.”Davion nodded. “How long before they override you?”Elias gave a humorless smile. “Immediately.”The timer ticked.05:42Above them, the city screamed—faint, distant, but real. Davion imagined streets locked down, drones
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The drones hovered in perfect stillness.Davion had never seen silence look so violent.They hung midair like suspended blades, lights dimmed, weapons powered down at a single unseen command. The tunnel felt tighter, heavier—like the city itself was holding its breath.The man stood between Davion and the hub, calm as if chaos wasn’t tearing the world apart above them.“Step away from the door,” Davion said, weapon raised.The man didn’t flinch. “You won’t fire.”Davion’s finger tightened.“Because,” the man continued, voice smooth, “you already know it wouldn’t matter.”Behind Davion, Mira staggered into the tunnel, clutching her side, smoke clinging to her hair. She froze when she saw the drones—when she saw the man.“What did you do?” she demanded.The man glanced at her, assessing. “You fought well. Inefficient. But brave.”Mira spat blood onto the concrete. “That’s not an answer.”He smiled faintly. “I paused the lattice. Every node. Every drone.”Beverly’s voice came through the
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They didn’t get time to celebrate.The first siren was still echoing when Beverly’s voice cut through the smoke, sharp with panic. “That wasn’t the only node.”Davion pushed himself upright, pain screaming through his ribs. “Say that again.”“Thermal spikes,” Beverly said quickly. “Three—no, four—moving fast. They activated the moment this one went down.”Mira wiped blood from her eye, vision swimming. “They’re counterbalancing.”Jared coughed out a laugh that turned into a groan. “Adaptive escalation. Told you they wouldn’t stop.”The street trembled again—this time farther away, but heavier. The kind of impact that folded buildings inward instead of outward.Davion clenched his jaw. “We’re exposed.”As if summoned by the word, drones screamed back into the sky—new models, heavier, plated like armored insects. Red targeting lights swept the streets.Civilians screamed.“Evacuate!” Davion shouted, waving people back toward side streets. “Move! Don’t look back!”A pulse slammed into th
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The first explosion hit three blocks away.Davion felt it through the concrete before he heard it—the sharp thud that rattled windows and sent birds screaming into the sky. Car alarms erupted all at once, a metallic chorus of panic.Mira was already moving. “That’s not structural failure.”Beverly’s voice snapped through the earpiece. “Mobile node just went active. It’s deploying enforcement drones—fast ones.”Davion vaulted the stair rail two steps at a time. “Where?”“Market district,” Beverly replied. “Crowded.”Davion’s blood went cold. “Of course it is.”They burst onto the street as smoke rolled between buildings. People were running, shouting, stumbling over each other as sleek black drones tore through the air overhead. These weren’t surveillance models. They moved like predators—tight formations, adaptive spacing, weapons glowing faintly blue.“Custodians don’t waste time,” Mira muttered, firing her disruptor.The blast clipped a drone mid-flight. It spiraled into a storefron
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Davion had never wanted to be recognized.He stood at the edge of the library ruins, dust still clinging to his clothes, watching the crowd grow by the minute. People gathered not because someone told them to—but because something inside them pulled them there. Phones were raised. Voices overlapped. Arguments sparked and dissolved just as quickly.Truth didn’t arrive neatly.It arrived like this.Mira leaned against a cracked pillar nearby, arm in a sling Beverly had improvised. “They’re not leaving,” she said quietly.Davion nodded. “They won’t.”Beverly sat on the hood of a burned-out vehicle, pale but awake, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Her eyes were sharp despite the exhaustion. “The spine’s still unstable,” she said. “They’ll try to reassert control, but… it won’t be clean anymore.”Jared sat a little apart from them, wrists bound again—this time by trust rather than tech. He stared at the crowd with something close to awe. “You gave them questions,” he murmured. “That
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The world didn’t end.It shifted.Beverly felt it first—a pressure behind her eyes, like trying to remember something that hadn’t happened yet. The screens in front of her flooded with data, cascading layers of architecture unfolding too fast to fully process. The spine wasn’t a single system. It was a living framework, threaded through infrastructure, communication, memory caches, even emergency services.“Oh my God,” she whispered. “It’s everywhere.”The lights in the library flickered—not off, not on, but uncertain. The air itself seemed heavier, charged with static.Davion staggered slightly, bracing himself against a table. “What did you do?”“I didn’t break it,” Beverly said quickly. “I exposed it.”Mira fired blindly toward the door as figures pushed through the smoke. Her disruptor crackled, slamming into one operative’s shield and sending them skidding back. Others moved in behind them, disciplined, relentless.“Fall back!” Davion shouted.They retreated deeper into the libra
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