Page 77

EON

I stared down through the jagged hole in the server room floor, my heart thundering against my ribs. Cy lay motionless among the debris, his implants still glowing faintly beneath his skin. I sent out a small pulse to him, and they responded in kind. He was unconscious, but alive.

Ironically, down in that pit was probably the safest place for him, with nowhere left to fall as everything around me continued to shift and overload. The small part of me fighting through the Vector haze was comforted by that.

A structural support beam groaned overhead, bringing me back to reality. The server was destabilizing rapidly, our battle having triggered cascading failures throughout the system.

DITA’s voice crackled in my ear, finally reconnecting. “Eon, your Flux readings are off the charts. What happened?”

“Cy,” I choked out, my voice hoarse from the ozone-thick air. “He found me.”

“Is he—”

“No. He’s fine.” I tore my gaze from the hole. “Where are Taos and Deacon?”

“Level B3, approaching the primary Stellarium junction. Their comms are silent.”

I cursed under my breath. I could feel the building’s infrastructure like a living thing—its power conduits trembling with instability, relay nodes flickering like dying neurons.

“DITA, run a simulation. If they overload the Stellarium lines under these conditions—”

“Processing.” A pause that stretched too long. “Eon, this is…different from Green District. The infrastructure decay here is extensive. Preliminary calculations indicate a chain reaction affecting residential power grids within a three-kilometer radius.”

“How many casualties?”

“Estimated civilian casualties: ten to fifty thousand. Potentially higher, given the time of night.”

My stomach dropped. “They don’t know what they’re doing.”

I started running, navigating the labyrinth of failing servers. Sparks showered from overhead conduits, the magenta glow of exposed Stellarium pipes pulsing like a dying heartbeat.

The emergency stairwell was half-collapsed, forcing me to leap between broken sections. My enhanced reflexes made it possible, but barely. Three levels down, the air changed—hotter, damper, the persistent hum of the power distribution network vibrating through the concrete.

I found them in the central power chamber, a vast circular space where dozens of Stellarium pipelines converged into a pulsating nexus.

Taos was hunched over a terminal, her fingers flying across her virtual keyboard.

Deacon and three others I didn’t recognize had taken defensive positions around the perimeter.

Deacon spotted me first, his rifle swinging in my direction before recognition set in.

“The fuck happened to you?” he asked, lowering his weapon. My skin was still crackling with residual electricity.

“We need to abort,” I said, ignoring his question and moving straight to Taos. “Now.”

She didn’t look up. “Too late for cold feet, E.”

“Fucking listen to me! The server’s infrastructure is critically compromised. You overload the processors running that code now, it takes half the district with it.”

That got her attention. “What are you talking about?”

“Look at the power fluctuations.” I pushed her aside, pulling up diagnostics. “The regulators are already failing. The reservoir tanks have microfractures. You push more pressure into this system, it doesn’t just damage POM’s servers—it ruptures the entire district grid.”

“That’s not possible,” she argued, though doubt crept into her voice. “The failsafes—”

“Long outdated and ignored.” I met her gaze.

Deacon stepped closer, his expression hardening. “Too late to stop now.”

I looked at him in disbelief. That nagging voice wasn’t suppressed by Vector anymore—it was screaming.

“This was never about data extraction, was it? You knew this place was unstable.”

Taos glanced at Deacon, her disbelief mirrored in her expression. My blood ran cold as realization dawned.

“You knew,” I whispered. “You fucking knew.”

“Sometimes you have to destroy to rebuild,” Deacon said, his voice tight. “POM has had its boot on Magenta’s throat for decades. These people are slaves, E. Just cogs in the capitalist machine, driving us all to destruction. They can’t see the bigger picture.”

“And neither do you, apparently,” I spat. “Fifty thousand people, Deacon. Families. Children. For what? To make a point?”

“For change,” he said. “Real change requires sacrifice.”

“Not their sacrifice. Not without choice. That’s not sacrifice, its mass murder.” I turned back to the terminal, fingers flying as I tried to access the regulatory protocols. “I won’t let you do this.”

Deacon’s hand clamped around my wrist, yanking me away from the controls. “It’s not your call.”

I let my Flux rise, electricity snaking between my fingers. “Let. Go.”

His eyes widened as the current passed through him—not enough to hurt, just enough to make his muscles spasm. I couldn’t call more than that after my fight with Cy. He released me with a curse.

“We believe in this cause,” he spat. “Don’t know why you don’t, after what happened to your mother—”

“My mother was hurt by violence born of desperation,” I shot back. “This? This is just more of the same. Different rhetoric, same result. People die.”

I turned back to the terminal, fighting to override the sequence Taos had initiated. The Stellarium pressure was already climbing, the pipes around us pulsing faster, brighter.

“Make her stop,” Deacon barked.

“This isn’t right,” Taos said—not to me. “Deacon, that’s too many people…”

“Don’t pussy out on me now, Taos. I thought we were on the same page.”

She shook her head. “We don’t have to overload it. We can broadcast POM’s suppressed experimentation files without overtaxing the system.”

Deacon let out a disappointed tsk. My fingers froze over the keys. “What?”

“It’s all there,” she insisted. “Medical experiments. Secret labs using tekniks as test subjects. They’re turning them into weapons, E. Or worse.”

The image of Cy flashed through my mind. A prototype—him, and every Flux-capable member of POM Security. Anyone with skill that could be commoditized.

“I’ll…the code can wait. It’s too high a price,” she said, her voice quaking as the device behind her ear flashed erratically. There wouldn’t be more time—not for her. She was good, deep down.

“Taos…” I pulled my hands away from the terminal and reached for her.

That moment of hesitation cost us everything.

The chamber’s massive doors slid open with a hydraulic hiss. Security troops poured in, their featureless masks reflecting the pulsing magenta light. Elite forces, their armor incorporating the same Flux-channeling tech I’d seen at the RejuvaLife raid.

Deacon and his people opened fire immediately. Bullets ricocheted harmlessly off Kinetic Shields, yellow light flashing with each impact. A few of the new recruits had Flux, but they weren’t trained. They weren’t weapons.

“Run!” I shouted to Taos, grabbing her arm—but there was nowhere to go. The chamber had one exit, now blocked by at least a dozen assets.

I pushed her behind me, channeling my Flux into a defensive shield.

Violet electricity crackled in a dome around us as POM Security forces advanced.

I couldn’t hold them off for long. My whole body shook as the Vector drained from my system.

I fumbled in my pocket for another dose, but found it was gone—lost somewhere between here and the start of this whole doomed mess.

Deacon went down first, a precision burst of flames striking his shoulder, straight through his shield. The others fell in quick succession, their weapons proving useless against POM’s elite.

“Keep working,” I hissed to Taos. “If we’re going down, at least get the data out.”

She nodded, slipping back to the terminal under the cover of my faltering shield. The security forces encircled us, methodically tightening their formation.

“Eon Ibarra,” a mechanically altered voice called out. “You are in violation of multiple security protocols. Surrender immediately.”

“Fuck you,” I spat, though my shield nearly gave out.

The lead trooper raised his hand, and I braced for an attack. Instead, a high-pitched tone emanated from his gauntlet—a frequency that sent immediate, searing pain through my skull.

My Flux shield wavered, then collapsed as I dropped to my knees, clutching my head. The tone was calibrated specifically to disrupt electrotekniks—a countermeasure I’d never encountered before. Like they’d known I would be here.

Through watering eyes, I saw Taos run. A few of the soldiers fired at her, but their focus remained on me, their footsteps deafening as they closed in. The lead agent knelt beside me, his featureless mask inches from my face.

“Your cooperation is appreciated,” he said, the mechanical voice betraying no emotion.

As darkness encroached, I felt a strange vibration through the floor—not from the failing Stellarium system, but something deeper, more rhythmic. Almost like footsteps from a sleeping giant. And beneath that, a shadow that lurked just beyond reach.

Whatever happened next, there would be no going back.