2025-12-14 15:19:53
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Chapter 97
The city was coming apart one district at a time.Sirens wailed from every street. Lights flickered on and off like the city was breathing through broken lungs. People shouted from their apartments as cracks ran along sidewalks and power lines sparked overhead.Luther kept his hood pulled low as he crossed a debris-covered intersection. Every billboard he passed still replayed Victor’s message his smug smile, his velvet calm.“Luther, thank you for returning my daughter to me.”The words burned like acid.Celeste wasn’t just taken—she’d been claimed. Used like a bargaining chip in a game Luther hadn’t even known he was playing. He repeated her name every few minutes under his breath, a grounding mantra he couldn’t let go of.Beside him, Marcus scanned rooftops with a compact thermal scope. “No prototypes not yet.”“Then keep moving,” Luther muttered.Selene walked ahead, projector tucked under her arm, eyes locked on the flickering map she’d cobbled together from the corrupted Syndica
Chapter 96
The fires of the last fallen safehouse still glowed in the distance when Luther stepped out of the armored van. Ash drifted across the ruined street like black snow. Celeste tightened her jacket against the cold wind, her eyes looking at the horizon as if expecting shadows to move again.Selene worked beside the van, a portable holo-screen flickering with corrupted lines of code. Every few seconds, a name flashed and then rewrote itself—birth dates, employment records, entire lineages erased and replaced.Phase Two wasn’t only targeting the present.It was rewriting the past and It was erasing every trace that they ever existed.“Another safehouse gone,” Marcus said as he jogged up, his voice ragged. “They’re not bombing them. They’re deleting them digitally and physically. The Syndicate’s entire history is disappearing.”Luther clenched his fists. “Victor wants to erase every place we could run to. Every identity we could use and anyone tied to us.”“He’s erasing resistance before it
Chapter 95
The creature hit the pavement hard enough to crack the asphalt. Debris burst upward in a dusty halo as Luther shoved Celeste behind a rusted street kiosk, the impact shaking the metal frame above their heads.The thing straightened slowly, its spine stretching unnaturally, its luminous veins pulsing in eerie synchronization with the rippling sky.Its eyes locked on Luther.“We need to move,” Celeste whispered.“Not yet,” Luther murmured.The creature crouched.Then it launched.Luther rolled aside as its claws shredded the kiosk where Celeste had crouched seconds earlier. Metal screeched, Sparks spat across the ground. Celeste ducked and swung a broken pipe, catching the creature across the skull. It barely flinched just snapped its head toward her, mouth twitching like it was learning how to smile.Luther got between them in an instant.“Hey,” he growled. “Come at me, not her.”The creature hesitated.Then something unexpected happened its features twitched, rippling like digital st
Chapter 94
The tremor faded, leaving the underground hub humming like a beast waking from a long sleep. Dust drifted from the ceiling in lazy clouds. Luther pulled Celeste close as another small vibration rippled through the walls, but it passed quickly just an aftershock.“Ascension,” Luther muttered, staring at the last line on the darkened terminal. “Whatever that is… It’s starting now.” Because he wants to initiate phase three and phase four.Celeste swallowed hard, her eyes locked on the flickering red message. “Victor said even I wasn’t told about it. That means it’s worse than Phase Two and it will be much worse.”Luther exhaled through his teeth. “We need to move.”They left the server room, boots clanging against the grated walkway as they headed back down the tunnel. The emergency bulbs overhead dimmed intermittently, struggling to stay alive.As they reached the service ladder near the exit, Luther’s comm device buzzed in his pocket weak, static-filled, barely functioning through the
Chapter 93
The city trembled beneath Luther’s boots as he crossed the ruined transit yard. Sirens wailed in the distance some automated, and some human. Downed drones sparked from broken wings, twitching like dying insects on the cracked pavement. Above, the emergency lights that Cain Global had installed only hours ago pulsed an eerie white across the night sky, painting the world in a washed-out, hospital-cold glow.The “Stabilizer Units” marched through the streets with metallic precision. They weren’t protecting people. Luther knew the truth now: they were collecting Echelon surges gathering Gene-charged civilians like resources, scanning, restraining, siphoning. Victor had turned the entire city into a harvesting field.And if Luther didn’t break into the underground data hub before Victor’s broadcast went live, the entire world would be next.The entrance appeared ahead: a rusted service tunnel disguised beneath a collapsed delivery truck.Adrian had given him the access map with a crook
Chapter 92
The city didn’t just sound different after the wave hit but it breathed differently. Luther felt it the second he and Celeste rounded the corner into East Marrow District. The air held a strange vibration, as if every sound had an echo hidden behind it. Every face on the street carried the same wild flicker of fear, the kind that came when your mind no longer trusted what your senses told you.A woman screamed two blocks away. Someone answered with a crash of metal. Sirens twisted into something less human and more mechanical. And beneath it all, Luther sensed probability bending in erratic waves, each one sharper than the last.Celeste walked close beside him, one hand pressed to the side of her neck where Revenant’s grip had left a bruise. “The surges are getting worse,” she said quietly.“They’ll keep getting worse,” Luther replied. “Victor released Phase Two without stabilizers in place. The whole city is basically a giant fault line.”Celeste took a breath that shook a little,
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