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At the final blast door, I slow, trying to catch my breath. My head is swimming, the static so loud I can’t hear myself think. The door is ajar, wedged open by a chunk of rebar.

I signal Markus to hold the entryway, covering the rear. I move inside alone.

The corridor beyond is black save for a furious, strobing blue light from the far end. The air is thick, not just with ozone, but with an overwhelming, high-frequency hum that attacks the bones in my skull. I move forward, gun up, hugging the line of dark server racks.

As I push deeper into the core, my head starts to throb—a heavy, relentless pulse that synchronizes with the arcing static overhead. My vision turns disoriented; the blue light from the terminal flickers so rapidly it seems to be cutting reality into strips. I squeeze my eyes shut, fight the urge to crash, and force myself to keep moving. She’s here. I’m close.

I take a staggering step closer to the node chamber, but the movement only increases the violent ringing in my ears. I try to shout her name—to stop her, to warn her—but my voice is drowned out by the noise, and my knees buckle from the disorientation.

Then, the comms receiver in my ear screams a sound that cuts through the physical chaos: Maven’s voice.

“Maven to Kang. Kang, respond. You have to respond. Kang⁠—”

The words fracture, chopped up by static and whatever else is eating the air in here. I thumb the receiver, jam it against my ear.

“Maven,” I rasp, “I’m here. What’s your status?”

“Rosie’s team is pinned. Repeat, pinned. Authority has breach teams in the sub-basement. Main corridors are blocked. You are cut off.”

I try to stand, but my legs aren’t ready. I brace myself against the scorched server rack, head swimming. “Diana?”

A pause, then Maven’s voice, tight and panicked: “She’s in the node. Kang, she’s in the node. The whole sector’s locked down, and whatever she’s running in there is fucking up every system in the ring. I can’t even get eyes in half the security feeds.”

I look up, squint through the sparking haze. The door to the node chamber is open a crack, blue-white light strobing from inside. I can just make out her silhouette, hunched over the console, hands moving in a blur.

The blue-white light flickers across the blood on my knuckles. “She’s trying to take down the Authority grid,” I say, my voice barely audible over the alarms.

“If she finishes that upload, it’s not just the Authority that burns. The Zone goes with it,” Maven says through the static. Her voice cracks on the last word.

My fingers tighten around my weapon. “Then I’ll fucking burn with her.”

I press the comm against my ear. “Maven, order everyone back. Rosie, Markus—get them out through the maintenance shafts. I’m going in alone.”

I drag myself upright, ignoring the wet heat spreading down my side. Diana’s silhouette blurs through the strobing light as I lurch forward. Three meters to the door. Two. One.

Lance

The core hums so loud it drowns out my heartbeat. By the time I reach the blast door, the air is molten—thick with ozone and the off-gas of burning insulation. My first step inside is a punch to the skull; every nerve ending from my teeth down to the bastard scar on my knee lights up. I stagger, grip the doorframe, vision flickering between ultraviolet strobe and blackout. I want to scream, but the sound gets lost somewhere behind my tongue.

Three meters in, the pain triples. The electromagnetic field in here is more than just a burn—it’s a riot inside my brain, a billion wasps chewing up the grey matter. I drop to one knee, clutch my temple, and watch as the world tunnels down to a razor.

She’s right there. Diana, hunched over the core terminal, her silhouette sliced out of the blue-white haze like a diagram. Her hands move in a blur, elbows locked, whole body braced against the hurricane of energy roaring out from the node. Cables whip around her like tentacles. The back of her neck is wet, sweat or blood, I can’t tell which.

She’s not alone.

On the platform above, Commander Petrov stands, Authority uniform pressed and immaculate. He’s flanked by two guards—private, not Authority regulars, but pro enough to keep their feet under this hellstorm. Each has a rifle shouldered, muzzles trained dead on Diana’s spine.

The guards don’t see me, not right away. The field is fucking with their eyes, too. Petrov does, though. He spots me the second I drop to a knee, his pale face splitting into a crocodile smile.

“Captain,” he shouts, voice ringing clear over the din. “Knew you’d show up. Always were predictable.”

I should answer, but the taste of blood is sharp on my tongue and my hands are shaking. I force myself up, sights locking onto Petrov. The leftmost guard shifts, catches the motion, starts to swing his weapon my way⁠—

I don’t think. I just fire.

The first shot goes high, ricochets off a steel strut and blows out a bank of LEDs. The room flickers, goes half-dark. The second is dead on: catches Petrov’s right hand just as he’s raising a sidearm. I watch the bone splinter, watch the gun clatter to the catwalk. Petrov’s mouth opens in a howl, but the noise is swallowed by the core.

Diana doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t even look up.