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Chapter 95: Ash in the Blood
The thunder of the advancing troops was a constant, teeth-rattling distraction, but for Ken Tanaka, a much more pressing and appalling reality had forced its way into the laboratory. The Blight had not stood still while mankind played strength games.The kids arrived under GHD escort, and that in itself was a bureaucratic wonder. They were from the Loyalist neighborhoods, relatives of low-level GHD bureaucrats and Civil Patrolmen. Their privilege had given them better rations, safer homes, and an earlier introduction to the Blight. But it could not save them.There were three of them, thin and limp, their eyes too large in their hot fever faces. They were brought to the institute's infirmary not out of pity, but because it was the city's best-equipped medical facility, and Valerius, with a cynical touch, had approved it. GHD's own facilities were overcrowded.Ken, Elara, and some trusted medics toiled under the prying eyes of guards with guns. The children's parents remained huddled i
Chapter 94: The Mark on the Map
Commissioner De Vries's command center was a masterclass in restraint, but tonight, it pulsed with a different sort of energy—the intent concentration of a hunter returning with the kill. The holographic image that filled the room no longer charted the whole city. It now highlighted one solitary, complex building: the Aetheria Institute, traced in a wireframe of frozen blue light. But De Vries had no interest in what was aboveground. He was interested in what lay below.Spread out on a secondary table was a second kind of map. It was not digital, but a large, yellowed schematics printed on reinforced polymer pages, bearing fold scars and handwritten annotations from centuries ago. It was the original plant and utility plan for the institution's construction and its connection to the city's underground labyrinth. To De Vries, it was more valuable than any battle map.The Iron March had broken into the metro tunnels, in part a reconnaissance. The shaking that reached those within the in
Chapter 93: Father and Daughter
Ken saw her on the observation deck. She wasn't staring out over the city below; she was staring at her own reflection in the doubled-strength glass, her fingers automatically working a small, pointed sliver of glass she held in her hand—a shard of green lantern glass that had broken.The thunder beneath was a low-grade rumble here, a vibration in the teeth more than anything to be heard. He approached her slowly, as one would a frightened animal."Sophia."She would not turn. "They're coming, aren't they?" Her voice was flat, devoid of the fear that was paralyzing everyone else at the institute. It was full of weary, resigned certainty.'Valerius says it's just reinforcements,' Ken said, the lie ash on his tongue.And finally, she turned to face him. Her so-blue, so-close-to-her-mother's eyes were not the ones he expected to be full of fear. They were icy, sharp anger that caused him to step back. "Don't. Don't treat me like them. Like I am a child you must protect with a lie." She r
Chapter 92: Breath in the Tunnels
The quiet of the Aetheria Institute had become a different sound. It was a squeal of unadulterated, raw fear. The broadcast propaganda had been a gut-check, but the Iron March was a punch. The coordinated, bloody cleansing of the metro tunnels had sent a message: no shadow was deep enough, no place to hide safe. The walls of the institute, once a metaphor for insurmountable scientific endeavor, now felt like those of a tomb sealing up.The first clue was auditory. Deep under the sub-levels of the building, where the main power conduits and data trunks were located, the low, thrumming hum of the machinery of the institute was the omnipresent background music of life. It was one so monotonous that it was only noticed when it was not there.The anomaly was first noted by Dr. Aris Thorne. He was conducting a diagnostic on the primary genome sequencer when he felt it—a faint, wavering vibration through the soles of his boots. He paused, wrinkling his face, and rested a hand on the cold met
Chapter 91: The Iron March
The propaganda broadcast had worked. The people were placated, their wrath directed conveniently into fury against a convenient spectre. But Commissioner De Vries was not a man to be relied on in sweet nothings alone. While the city rumor-mongered about Ken Tanaka, De Vries was already moving to extinguish the last, dying physical embers of revolt.These old metro lines had been the city's unconscious—a damp, dark network of tunnels and vacant stations hidden beneath steel and permacrete. For years, they were the domain of scavengers, misfits, and those who sought to be outside the reach of the authorities. They were a symbol of resistance, but one that was broken, and a potential haven for those who might yet want to resist the new regime. They were loose thread, and De Vries was going to pull it.The operation began at dawn. The racket was the first that people heard—a new, louder, more pulsing noise under the city's usual din. It was the beating of coordinated, heavy footfalls. Cru
Chapter 90: Whispers of the Ghost
The two days of quiet went by, and the public screens erupted anew. Humans, accustomed to dread, stopped to look. They expected more commands, more threats, more readings of fresh decrees. What they got was a story.It was not Commissioner De Vries's face that occupied the screens. It was a newscaster, a woman with her voice carefully modulated and her face set in a look of deep solemnity. The background was the well-known, highly polished interior of a GHD news studio."Tonight," she began, speaking as if relaying an unsavory but necessary fact, "we present to you a special report on the tragic chain of events that led to the recent civic unrest. A story of ambition, folly, and betrayal of the public trust that took thousands of lives."The camera panned back to smoothly shot video. There was Ken Tanaka, swiped from some old institute promotional videos, grinning confidently beside a holographic representation of a strand of DNA. He was the very model of a visionary director."For ye
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