The bomb's detonation ripped through the safehouse like a star collapsing. Amir's vision whited out, his ears ringing as the resonance wave hurled him backward. Concrete dust choked the air. When the world snapped back into focus, it was fractured walls slanted, monitors sparking, and Lina coughing beside him in the rubble.
Karim dragged them to their feet, his voice muffled but urgent: "Move! Now!"
They stumbled into the street, where the sky shimmered with an eerie, crystalline rain the nano-toxins disintegrating midair, dissolving into harmless ash. But the ground trembled. Buildings groaned. A block away, an apartment complex crumbled inward, its skeleton folding like paper.
"You said city-block-leveling," Amir shouted at Yami, blood trickling from his temple. "This is half the district!"
Yami didn't flinch. "Better half than all."
Chomo stumbled behind them, his face tight with pain. He clutched his leg where Yami had shot him—blood seeping through makeshift bandages.
Two hours earlier.
In the hideout's basement, Chomo and Yami stood nose to nose, the argument turning vicious.
"We take the tower," Chomo had insisted, pointing at the EchoTech schematics. "If we control the frequencies, we can override Rebirth from the source. Blowing up half the city is reckless."
Yami's eyes were ice. "And if you're wrong? If they recode it before we can override anything? We don't get second chances."
"You don't get to decide that."
"Neither do you," Yami snapped. "You were Silhouette once. Who says you're not still playing both sides?"
Chomo's face darkened. "That was years ago."
"Loyalties don't just dissolve," Yami growled. "You worked under Vorne. You knew what he was building."
Chomo clenched his fists. "And I defected! Risked everything—"
"You hesitated," Yami interrupted. "When we hit the data servers last month, you hesitated. And now, when the plan's in motion, you want to change it? No. We end Rebirth before it spreads."
Chomo exhaled sharply. "If we take the tower, we stop it without civilian casualties. You're looking for an excuse to burn everything."
Yami stepped closer, his voice low. "And you're looking for an excuse not to pull the trigger."
Silence.
Then, Chomo lunged going for Yami's sidearm. The moment stretched, instincts taking over.
A gunshot.
Chomo crumpled, clutching his thigh.
Amir had burst into the room, eyes widening at the sight. "What the hell?"
Yami holstered his weapon. "He was about to get us all killed."
Chomo's breath was ragged. "I was trying to—"
Yami crouched beside him, voice calm but unyielding. "You were trying to stop the plan. And if I'd let you, we'd be dead when Silhouette found us."
Karim pulled Amir back before he could intervene. "Not now. We don't have time."
And just like that, the decision was made. The bomb was planted.
Chomo was forced to go along with it—whether he agreed or not.
Now.
Sirens wailed in the distance, but not the usual emergency response. Black vans with the Silhouette's jagged emblem screeched around corners, loudspeakers blaring: "Terrorist attack neutralized! Surrender the Line insurgents!"
Lina gripped Amir's arm. "They're using the destruction to blame us"
"Go!" Karim barked, shoving them toward a storm drain. "Sewers now!"
The tunnels reeked of rot and chemical runoff. Chomo limped behind, his leg bandage soaked through. "The resonance… bought us hours, not days. Toxins'll reconstitute unless…" He faltered, collapsing against a corroded pipe.
Amir knelt, propping him up. "Unless what?"
"Kill switch," Chomo gasped. "Elias Vorne's daughter… Clara. She embedded a fail-safe in Rebirth's code. Her biometrics can dismantle it."
Yami's flashlight beam cut through the gloom, revealing a faded wanted poster on the tunnel wall—Clara Vorne's face, sharp and defiant, beneath the word "TRAITOR."
"Blackwater Asylum," Yami said. "Silhouette's black site. Where they 're-educate' dissenters."
Lina scoffed. "You mean torture."
"If she's alive," Karim muttered, "she'll be guarded like a vault."
Amir studied Clara's photo—her eyes weren't the frightened heiress he'd expected. They burned with a fury that mirrored his own. "Why would she help us?"
"Because," Chomo coughed, "she designed Rebirth to save the city. The Silhouette corrupted it. She's the only one who can undo this."
A metallic clang echoed down the tunnel. Silhouette drones, their red lenses scanning, skittered across the ceiling like mechanical spiders.
"They're herding us," Yami growled, drawing his pistol. "We split up. Karim—take the old man to the rally point. Kid and the sister, with me."
Amir bristled. "We're not splitting up."
Yami's scarred face twitched. "You wanna lead? Then lead." He tossed Amir a cracked tablet—a map pulsing with Silhouette patrol routes. "But know this: Trust is a bullet. Use it once."
The sewers split into a maze of dripping tunnels. Lina navigated, her shockstick casting jagged blue light. Amir's mind raced—every corner could be an ambush, every drip a footstep.
"Here," Lina whispered, stopping at a rusted ladder. "Blackwater's east wing connects to these tunnels. Chomo's files said they pump in coolant through—"
A scream echoed above. Human. Raw.
Amir froze. "Clara?"
"Trap," Yami warned, but Amir was already climbing.
The ladder led to a dim sub-basement. The walls were lined with broken cryo-chambers, frost still clinging to their glass. In the center, a woman hung from chains, her head shaved, arms crisscrossed with fresh scars. Not Clara.
"Please…" the woman rasped. "They're coming…"
Yami raised his gun. "She's bait."
"Wait—" Amir stepped forward, but too late.
The woman's head jerked. A neural implant sparked behind her ear—remote control. Her eyes turned milk-white as she lunged, chains snapping.
Yami fired. The bullet tore through her shoulder, but she didn't slow.
"Run!" Lina yanked Amir back as the drone swarm descended.
They regrouped in a derelict subway car, its seats gutted. Karim arrived minutes later, Chomo unconscious on his back. "Patrols are thick. Can't reach Blackwater underground."
Amir pulled up the tablet—live news feeds showed riots erupting downtown. The Line's symbol glowed on hacked billboards, citizens tearing down Silhouette banners. "They're fighting back," he murmured.
"Distraction," Yami said. "While we hit the asylum."
Lina frowned. "We need a diversion. Something loud."
Karim grinned, hoisting a stolen Silhouette grenade launcher. "I've got loud."
The plan crystallized—Karim and Lina would ignite a fake assault on Silhouette's downtown HQ, drawing guards away from Blackwater. Amir and Yami would infiltrate the asylum.
"You sure about him?" Lina whispered, eyeing Yami.
"No," Amir admitted. "But we need his cruelty."
Blackwater Asylum loomed—a concrete monolith surrounded by sniper drones. Amir and Yami approached through a storm drain, the codebreaker from EchoTech's servers humming in Amir's pack.
"Guard rotation's every six minutes," Yami said. "You've got five to find her cell."
"How do you know the rotations?"
"I was held here once." Yami's voice darkened. "Broke out. Left a few souvenirs."
He pointed to a ventilation shaft—inside, a knife jutted from the grate, etched with the same circle-and-line symbol.
"You… were part of the Line?"
"Still am," Yami said. "Even when it's suicide."
The shaft opened into a sterile hallway. Cells lined the walls, their occupants barely human—twisted by neural implants, mouths stitched shut.
Clara's cell was at the end.
She stood when they entered, her gaze sharp as shattered glass. "Took you long enough."
Amir blinked. "You… expected us?"
She grabbed his collar, her hands trembling not with fear, but rage. "They're not just purging the city. They're exporting Rebirth. First the city, then the world."
Yami jammed the codebreaker into the lock. "Save the speech. Can you stop it?"
Clara's smile was a blade. "I built it. I'll burn it down."
Alarms blared. Boots thundered outside.
"Time's up," Yami said.
But as they fled, Clara froze, staring at a cell's monitor a live feed of Elias Vorne, her father, addressing a crowd of Silhouette elites.
"Rebirth begins anew," he declared. "A cleaner world demands sacrifice."
Clara's resolve didn't waver. "He's not my father anymore."
Back in the tunnels, Amir studied Clara—the way she mapped frequencies on Chomo's tablet, her fingers steady despite the blood drying on her wrists.
"You knew about the Line," he said.
"I founded it," she replied, not looking up. "Before the Silhouette took everything."
Yami tensed. "Bullshit. The Line's been around for—"
"Decades?" Clara smiled bitterly. "I rebranded my father's old project. EchoTech's first AI—designed to track lies. He twisted it into a censorship tool. So I went underground. Built a new network. Then… they caught me."
Lina's voice crackled over the comms: "Diversion worked. For now. But the Silhouette's mobilizing tanks. Where's the kill switch?"
Clara tapped the tablet. A map zoomed in on EchoTech's orbital satellite array. "The frequency needs to broadcast globally. Only one place has that reach."
Amir's stomach dropped. "The satellite array."
"Guarded by a thousand Silhouette loyalists," Yami said.
"And my father," Clara added. "He'll be there, finalizing Rebirth's launch."
Karim's laughter fizzed through the comms. "Perfect. I love a family reunion."
The truth was a noose tightening.
And the asylum's horrors were just the beginning.