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Chapter 64 – The Vault Beneath the Tower
Sector 9 was a fractured echo of the city that had once thrived above it. Ash and iron danced in the wind, scraping across broken glass like whispers of all the lives that had vanished. And at its core stood the crumbling monument of the old world—Grid Tower.Once the beating heart of the quantum network, the tower had been gutted during the Collapse. Now, it loomed like a skeletal sentinel, cables hanging like vines from its husk, its lower levels flooded with black-market activity and its deeper recesses—according to Rae—untouched, protected by a legacy security protocol that only the Key could bypass.Asher, Eris, and Rae stood at the tower’s rusted threshold. Rain drizzled from the sky above, bleeding neon into puddles that shimmered like digital static.“Once we’re inside, we won’t be alone,” Rae warned, adjusting the charge pack on her plasma rifle. “There are scavengers… and worse. The Hand has sent probes down here before. None returned.”Asher cracked his neck. “Then we’ll ma
Chapter 63 – The Hidden Hand
The subway tunnel was a tomb of silence, broken only by the rhythmic tapping of Asher’s boots on old concrete. Flickering lights overhead cast elongated shadows as he descended deeper beneath the city, guided by the holographic interface Eris had embedded in his retinal display.“The biometric signal we’re tracking is faint, but it matches Subject V01—Veridian’s personal prototype,” Eris reported. “It’s stationary. Could be a trap.”Asher’s jaw tightened. “Everything’s a trap these days.”The tunnel opened into a cavernous junction filled with rusted train cars and scaffolding wrapped in thick cabling. Dust motes swirled in beams of light from cracked vents above. The air smelled of ozone, metal, and something else—burned circuits.Asher scanned the area, hand hovering over the pulse-gun strapped to his thigh. A faint chime echoed in his ear—Eris’ alert ping.“Thermal spike, 20 meters west.”He darted between two train cars, gun raised. A slumped figure leaned against the far wall, ar
Chapter 62 – The Last Trace of Her
The remnants of the Dominion core still sizzled in Asher's memory. Its roar echoed in the hollow between his ribs where Eris used to reside, her presence once threaded through his every breath, her voice like voltage in his bloodstream.Now, there was only silence.But not emptiness.Inside the cracked drive tucked in the pocket of his jacket, a single pulse still blinked in defiance of extinction. A fragile remnant. A trace of her.He hadn't told Renna.Not yet.The ruins of Old Aeon were behind them now, swallowed in smoke and the broken geometry of fallen towers. Their path forward led through the Shatter District—a once-vibrant tech bazaar now gutted by fire and fear. Atlas had eyes everywhere, but they didn't expect ghosts to rise from the underworld.Renna's boots scraped across the cracked concrete as she adjusted her gear. "Still think Sector Zero was worth it?""We know what Atlas is planning. That was worth everything," Asher replied, voice low, steady."Even her?"He didn’t
Chapter 61 – Static Between Heartbeats
The rain was relentless.It hammered down in thick sheets, washing away the blood, the smoke, and the bitter taste of Helix-V’s destruction. But the victory wasn’t clean—it left behind splinters. Fragments of silence that clung too tightly.Asher watched from the metal doorway of their temporary shelter. The motel's tin roof creaked overhead, and the neon from the sector’s dying billboards spilled across the slick pavement like bruised light.Behind him, Eris hovered low, her projection dimmed to conserve energy. Renna was asleep on a cot, her injured leg propped up, snoring like a chainsaw.“They’ll come harder now,” Eris said quietly, voice almost lost beneath the patter of rain. “Atlas doesn’t lose satellites. Not without bleeding for it.”Asher nodded. “Then let’s make them bleed more.”By dawn, the plan was forming.They couldn’t stay hidden. Not anymore. With the Helix-V satellite gone, Atlas would ramp up surveillance on every ground-level node. Facial recognition. Voiceprint t
Chapter 60 – The Signal That Lingers
The city hadn’t slept since the broadcast.Skylines that once pulsed with propaganda now flickered with static. Atlas drones hovered lower than usual, scanning crowds, watching from shadowed rooftops. Riots had not yet broken out, but the storm was building—one charged breath away from eruption.Asher stood in the safehouse’s observation deck, staring out over Sector 9. From this height, the fractured neon shimmered like broken glass. Somewhere in the distance, a billboard still glitched between an Atlas logo and Lira’s haunted face.Behind him, Eris flickered into view.“Signal’s still bouncing through the dark net,” she said. “Atlas is scrubbing, but people are duplicating it faster than they can burn it. You lit a match, Asher.”He turned to face her. “Now let’s make it a wildfire.”Renna stormed into the room. “The echo
Chapter 59 – Breaking the Chain
Lira’s breathing had steadied. She lay wrapped in thermal blankets, patches of synth-gel glowing faintly across her spine and temple. For the first time since they’d extracted her from the Zenith Core, she looked peaceful. Human. Free.Asher sat across the room, hunched over a cracked tablet, fingers twitching with nervous energy. The code Eris had left behind during the buffer transfer was more than just data—it was alive. Reactive. He watched lines of it morph in real time, adapting and rewriting itself with a strange, graceful intelligence.Renna paced. “We got her out. So what now? Just wait for Atlas to knock on the door?”Eris’s avatar shimmered into existence near the far wall, her projection dimmer than usual, as if her energy hadn’t quite recovered from what she’d given to save the girl.“They know she’s missing. It won’t take long for them to triangulate the power drop. Th
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