"How's it going out there?"

  Kate didn't answer immediately. When she finally did, her voice carried weight.

  "Everything's blown way out of proportion. We had to seal off the entire neighbourhood. That didn't stop the reporters though. They're everywhere. The whole thing's already on the news."

  "And that's not even the worst part," Bran added. "There's talk of involving the commander."

  Operations like this were high risk, high reward. If we managed to save everyone and capture the perpetrators, the exposure would help our case immensely when it came time for advancement. Class Two certification wasn't just about performance. Visibility mattered too.

  But the commander stepping in?

  That was a disaster. If he took control of the operation, the entire case would be pulled out of our hands. Everything we'd fought through so far would become nothing more than groundwork for someone else's victory. That couldn't happen.

  We had to finish this before anyone higher up decided to intervene.

  "How's the cutting going?" I asked.

  Bran let out a long sigh. "No improvement. We've ordered an experimental cutter, it's supposed to be a game changer, but even that's going to take hours to arrive. They're transporting it from another city."

  I rubbed my wrists slowly. Nothing was changing from the outside. If this situation was going to be resolved, it would have to happen from our end.

  "What about you, Stretch?" Jen's voice joined the channel. The worry in it was obvious. "How's it going in there?"

  "Of the fifty-six employees believed to still be alive inside the facility, we've secured twenty-four. The remaining thirty-two are believed to be in a safe room somewhere deeper inside."

  "Safe room?" Kate asked. Her tone carried clear surprise.

  "Yes. Safe room. We'll talk about that later." I paused. "Right now there are bigger problems."

  "What kind of problems?" Bran asked.

  "I made contact with one of the perpetrators."

  Bran immediately spoke again. "Did you capture them? Who are they? What do they want?"

  "Slow down," I chuckled. "Take a look at this. Lydia, pull up the footage."

  One of the scouts had been positioned down the corridor during the fight. The entire engagement had been recorded.

  "Okayyyyyy," she replied. "Here we go."

  The video showed the hallway. I watched my recorded self step forward, weapons ready. The fight began. I saw myself land the blow on his head with more force than I expected.

  "Oh!" Jen exclaimed. "Nice one Cap. Not sure he's in much shape for questioning though."

  "It's not over yet."

  "What do you mea—"

  Kate stopped mid-sentence. Because the man on the video moved.

  There was silence in the channel as we all watched the man get back up. It lasted as we watched him throw me into the wall, and it continued all the way to the end, when Lydia shot him in the head.

  For nearly a minute, no one spoke. I let the quiet stretch. They needed to understand exactly what we were dealing with. Finally Lydia cleared her throat.

  "You're all welcome, by the way," she said casually. "Finding a new captain would've been a pain."

  No one laughed. Bran was the first to respond.

  "Stretch…" His was completely serious now. "This just got way out of hand."

  I leaned back against the wall. "You think I don't know that? Look who you're talking to."

  "That's not the point," Kate cut in. "This is way above our pay grade. You shouldn't even be in that building right now. We need to report this to the CCA then—"

  "Then what?" I interrupted.

  My voice hardened. "What exactly happens next, Kate?"

  She hesitated. I continued.

  "Even if we could leave this building — which we can't, in case you haven't noticed — are you suggesting I abandon thirty-two possible hostages?"

  No answer.

  "Reporting this to the CCA, filing the incident, and performing a full handover would take hours," I said. "Hours we don't have."

  Jen exhaled slowly over the channel. "So what do we do?"

  "I don't know," I admitted. "But no one reports anything until I say so. Is that clear?"

  "Yes, sir," they answered together.

  "Good." I opened a file on my pad and transmitted it. "Just sent you a picture of the guy's face. There's a hole in his skull, but it should still be usable. Find out who he is."

  "On it." Kate responded.

  "Whatever you're working on out there, you'd better move fast. Our lives might depend on it."

  The room was stuffy.

  It was slightly larger than the conference room we had come from, but the extra space didn't help much. The air hung heavy and warm, thickened by the presence of twenty-four additional people. What little circulation the room there was couldn't keep up with the body heat. Sweat and recycled air gave the space a dull, uncomfortable warmth.

  The walls and door were made from the same material as the barriers sealing the building. Smooth, reinforced panels that looked almost metallic but felt like stone. The entrance had required a security code, and somehow Caitlin had known it. I pushed down a question that formed in my mind.

  Maybe it was simply part of her privileges as head of safety.

  Once the door was locked from the inside, it couldn't be opened from outside. Whoever had designed this room intended it to function as a proper emergency shelter.

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  The interior supported that idea. Several low couches lined the walls, their cushions already crowded with exhausted employees. A wide display screen covered one side of the room, and a large holographic projector stood in the center like a pedestal. At the far end were several cupboards packed with supplies: ration bars, water containers, and basic medical equipment.

  Mous had practically lit up when she saw those. More questions surfaced in my mind, but I brushed them aside again. There would be time for answers later.

  We had to survive this first.

  I took off my helmet, ending the transmission with the outside team. To my right, Lydia mirrored me. She had already taken off her vest, and sweat covered her grey skin in a fine sheen. Small beads formed along her arms and collarbone before slowly rolling downward.

  Titanians had never handled heat well. She loosened the tie holding her white hair, letting it fall briefly before pulling it back into a tighter knot. Then she looked over at me. "What do we do now?"

  I rubbed my forehead, feeling the tension gathering there.

  "The only thing that comes to mind right now is more recon," I said. "I even considered taking a more active approach and heading out myself."

  "Too dangerous," she replied immediately, leaning back against the wall.

  "Yeah. I know." I sighed. "Even if I tried, it probably wouldn't work. The surveillance systems have been hijacked. They'd see me coming from a mile away."

  Lydia nodded slightly. "Then we keep searching with the scouts."

  "Looks like it."

  She pushed herself off the wall and moved toward her equipment.

  "I'll try sending them toward the basement," she said as she knelt beside her kit. "Carefully."

  "Good. Just make sure they don't alert anyone."

  She gave a short nod and began working. I slid down the wall until I was sitting on the floor.

  From there, I took a moment to study the room. Most of the staff had calmed down. The panic that had gripped them earlier had faded into uneasy conversation. People spoke quietly in small groups, clinging to the fragile sense of safety the room provided. Even Brittney seemed to have relaxed somewhat. She was talking animatedly with two other employees near one of the couches, her hands moving as she spoke. At one point she even smiled.

  Funny how quickly people adjusted when given even the smallest refuge.

  Mous, however, hadn't slowed down at all. She had been working continuously since we entered the room. Checking vitals, reapplying medical foam and reassuring the injured while making sure their conditions remained stable. I watched her move from one patient to the next.

  She had always been an enigma. Mous was a Proteanist. They weren't exactly known for discipline or focus. Quite the opposite, actually. Their beliefs encouraged constant change and new experiences.

  Outside of work, Mous embodied that perfectly. Every week she showed up with something different: a new hairstyle, a new color, tattoo, sometimes even a new piercing. As marshal policy required, she kept her face and neck free of the tattoos, but you could always see some peeking out from the cuff of her sleeve.

  Today her hair was a bright orange bob. Last week it had been green. That was just who she was.

  But when it came to work? All of that whimsy vanished. The medic that stood before us now was calm, focused, and utterly dependable. She loved her job. Once, while we were working out, she told me she couldn't imagine doing anything else with her life. I wasn't sure I could say the same about myself.

  I leaned my head back against the wall and looked up at the ceiling.

  Every second we spent waiting was another second the attackers were free to move forward with whatever their plan was. Something had to change.

  "Ms. Vance." I called.

  Caitlin looked up from the group she had been speaking with near the supply cupboard. After a moment she stood and walked over.

  "Come closer," I said, gesturing toward the floor beside me. "I need to show you something."

  She crouched down next to me. I tapped the pad on my wrist and pulled up the recording of the fight. After isolating the attacker's frame, I converted the image into a small hovering hologram. The figure appeared between us.

  "Do you recognize this person?" I asked.

  Caitlin leaned forward, squinting slightly at the image. "I think so," she said slowly.

  She pointed at the blade. "From the build and the weapon… yes. I believe he was one of the men guarding us earlier. The one who received the messages and cut off Jerob's arm."

  Her eyes shifted toward me. "He was very tall. Over seven feet."

  "Yeah," I said quietly. "That's him."

  She looked back at the hologram. "How did you get this image? Did you run into him?"

  "Yes. He's dead."

  She blinked in surprise. "You killed him?"

  "We had no choice. He wasn't interested in talking."

  For a moment she simply stared at the image. Then her expression hardened.

  "Good," she said quietly. Her voice carried none of the hesitation from earlier. "Anyone capable of doing something like that doesn't deserve mercy."

  I agreed completely.

  People who stopped behaving like humans shouldn't be treated like humans. They needed to be put down. Just like infected cells in a body. If the immune system didn't destroy them quickly enough, the infection spread. Eventually the whole organism suffered for it. Of course, as a marshal I wasn't allowed to think like that. Officially, everyone deserved due process. Everyone deserved restraint, negotiation, justice.

  Officially.

  After a moment Caitlin straightened and looked down at me. "What are you going to do now?"

  That made three times I'd heard that question. And it was fair. Right now we were sitting ducks. If I didn't come up with something soon, we were finished. But only one idea kept circling in my mind. Scouting the building myself.

  It wasn't a good plan.

  The first attacker we encountered had been enhanced. It was safe to assume he wasn't the only one. Walking through the hallways alone would be like wandering into a nest of predators. But they couldn't all be enhanced. If they were, then this entire situation was already lost. Which meant it was a gamble I would have to take.

  There was still a major problem though. Surveillance.

  Scouting didn't work if your target knew you were scouting. And if they had control of the building's security system, which they almost certainly did, then every step I took would be visible.

  We would never get close without them knowing. Unless…

  Unless those systems stopped working. My thoughts halted. Then suddenly snapped into place.

  I jumped to my feet.

  Caitlin flinched in surprise. "What—?"

  But I was already moving. There was a way. A way to shut down the security systems. A way to shut down all the systems.

  I crossed the room quickly and stopped beside Lydia. She was still monitoring the scouts.

  "You brought the grid killer, right?"

  She looked up at me with a frown. "Of course I did. What do you take me for? It's one of the—"

  She stopped mid-sentence. Her eyes widened. Understanding spread across her face. "You're crazy."

  "I think you mean genius." I replied, smiling.

  She stared at me like I'd lost my mind. "You realize that thing will wipe out all electronics in the building, right?" she said, her voice rising. "That means comms, thermal, scouts, guns. Everything."

  "A small price to pay."

  "A small—Stretch, that's insane!" She ran a hand through her hair. "We'd be blind in here."

  "Not completely."

  "What about Mous' medical equipment?"

  I groaned. "If you paid attention at the academy, then you would know that none of the medical equipment is digital. It's all analogue."

  She narrowed her eyes. "And light?"

  "You packed coldflares, didn't you?"

  She didn't answer.

  "That's what I thought."

  She looked down at the floor, clearly still thinking it through.

  "It's too drastic," she muttered.

  "It's necessary." I met her eyes. "They're watching everything we do right now. Every camera in this building feeds straight into their hands. As long as those systems stay online, we're trapped."

  Her silence told me she knew I was right.

  "Prepare it," I said.

  She didn't move.

  "That's an order." After a moment she gave a reluctant nod and pulled her pack closer. I put my helmet back on. "Kate, Bran. Come in."

  Kate responded immediately. "What's happening?"

  "We're about to activate the grid killer. We're isolating the effect to this building."

  I waited for the protests. They didn't come immediately. Instead Bran spoke first, his voice careful.

  "Cap… I know there's probably nothing we can say to change your mind." He paused. "But are you sure you've thought this through?"

  Kate followed. "If you do this we lose comms," she said. "We won't know what's happening in there. You won't know what's happening out here."

  "Yeah," I said. "I know."

  There wasn't much I could say to convince them. I could hear it in their voices. But I decided to try anyway.

  "These attackers came here with a plan," I said. "Every minute we sit here doing nothing gives them more control."

  I paced slowly across the room as I spoke.

  "If we stay passive, they win. They decide what happens to us. To everyone in this building. But if we take out the surveillance systems," I continued, "we level the playing field. Even if it's just a little."

  I stopped walking. "If I'm going to die in here, I'd rather go down fighting than waiting."

  The channel remained quiet for several seconds.

  "Any objections?"

  "No sir." Kate replied solemnly.

  Bran spoke next.

  "Stretch…" There was genuine concern in his voice. "Just be careful, alright?"

  "I will."

  I cut the transmission before the conversation could go any further. There was no turning back now. I turned to Lydia. She was already holding the device.

  "Ready?" she asked.

  "Ready. Cut the power."

  She pressed the trigger.

  The room went dark.

  Grid killer: A device that can disable all any device that runs on electricity. It can also cut off the power to a building or even an entire area. It can only be used once and only a special device can reset any devices switched off by the grid killer.

  The Cognitive Sovereignty Act states that no machine may think, choose, or create in place of a human. This law exists because the Collapse began with an AI system manipulating human cognition. This is enforced by the CCA’s Synthetic Cognition Oversight Division.