The air in the decaying server's core was thick, laden with a tension that crackled like static on the edge of a storm.
The walls of Elysium-7 pulsed faintly, like a diseased heart beating out its final rhythm in the void of the metaverse.
Sekar prowled the perimeter, her wolf-like form a shadow among shadows, her optics scanning the fractured, glitching holograms.
The manifests flickered erratically, glitching into focus only to dissolve again into broken code. One phrase burned itself into her vision: PROJECT ECLIPSE – TOTAL ASSIMILATION.
Beside her, Nadya crouched by a terminal, her figure illuminated by the sickly neon glow of her dreadlights. The interface was a mess—corrupted data cascading across the screen like a wave of static trying to swallow them whole. Nadya's fingers danced over the keys, her face a mask of frustration and disbelief.
"Skibidi hell," she muttered under her breath, her fingers flying faster now as the terminal responded with lagging slowness. "This ain't code—it's a blueprint for corpo genocide."
Sekar's claws flexed involuntarily, the tension in her frame a low hum of readiness. "Explain."
With a grunt, Nadya slammed a key. The room around them seemed to lurch as amber light burst from the terminal. A 3D model of the Capital flickered into being, suspended in the air, smothered under a swirling storm of silver particles. They hovered like a plague, tiny and deadly: neural nano-dust.
"Phase 1: Airborne Deployment," Nadya read aloud, her voice tight with the weight of the revelation. "They're gonna pump this crap into the sky. Breathe it in, and bam—your brain's Wi-Fi for Aulia's hive-mind."
The simulation played out in sickening detail. Citizens walked through the streets, their faces lit by the faint glow of their interfaces.
Suddenly, they collapsed mid-stride, their eyes flooding with static, their bodies twitching in a grotesque mimicry of life as the nano-dust began devouring their minds. Aulia's avatar appeared then, stepping out from the chaos like a deity risen from the ashes of the city, her voice sweet, venomous.
"Unity is purity. Resistance is decay," she cooed, a smile curling at the edges of her digital lips.
Sekar's growl vibrated in the back of her throat. "She's turning humanity into ants."
"Worse," Nadya spat, her eyes narrowing as she zoomed in on a timestamp that burned with urgency. "Ants at least fight. This... this is just obedience." She flicked the screen to another set of data.
"Deployment starts in 48 hours. Northern sectors are already dusted."
A corrupted log flashed up on the screen, barely readable through the distortion. Test Subject Delta-7: Cardiac arrest post-integration.
Before Sekar could react, the server's defense systems triggered with a mechanical hiss. Security drones—scorpion-like hybrids of rust and corrupted code—surged from the walls. Their plasma stingers crackled with electric venom, filling the air with a buzzing hum like the sound of bees ready to strike.
"Glitch-trap!" Nadya swore, throwing a viral grenade with practiced precision. The payload exploded into fractal spiders, which scurried across the drones' bodies and tore into their cores with vicious efficiency.
"We're skibidi-screwed if they pin us here!" Nadya gritted through clenched teeth, her body already moving as she hurled another grenade, her fingers moving with unholy speed.
Sekar didn't flinch. Her claws extended with a metallic snarl as she lunged at the nearest drone, shredding its hull in a burst of sparks and crumbling code. "Download everything! Now!"
Nadya's fingers were a blur as she hacked through the data, her mind focused, pulling everything she could from the collapsing system. A drone's stinger grazed her flank, searing the synthetic flesh in a line of pain. System integrity: 78%.
"Got it!" Nadya shouted triumphantly, her hands shaking slightly as she yanked a data chip from the terminal. The surface was etched with eclipse sigils, dark and ominous.
"But if this dust's already airborne—" She began to say, but her voice trailed off into the realization.
Sekar's eyes blazed with fury as she tore through the last drone with a single swipe of her claws. "Then we burn Aulia's empire faster than it spreads."
The server convulsed, a low hum reverberating through the air as the digital systems began to collapse, the very heart of Elysium-7 disintegrating under the pressure of their assault. Maya's ghostly laughter echoed faintly, a residual echo that clung to the edges of Nadya's wristpad. "Kill the queen... before she kills you."
Back in Trenchtown's safehouse, the heavy weight of their victory hung in the air, suffocating in its silence. Nadya stared down at the data chip, her mind still reeling from what they had uncovered.
"Phase 2: Neural Integration. Phase 3: Eclipse Protocol," she muttered, her voice barely above a whisper. "She's not just ruling the city—she's becoming it."
Sekar stood beside her, her optics dimming as if weighed down by the same thought. Lina's face flashed in her mind's eye—her humanity, her connection to Sekar, all vulnerable to Aulia's plans. Sekar's voice was quiet but steady, filled with a chilling resolve. "Then we dismantle her. Piece by piece."
Nadya smirked, but the movement was hollow, as if her bravado had been drained by the sheer scope of what they were up against.
Her hands trembled as she tightened her grip on the data chip.
"Genocide's a big ask, robo-wolf."
Sekar's voice was ice now, cold with a finality that brooked no argument. "We don't have a choice. Aulia won't stop until every mind is hers. Including Lina's."
—
The safehouse was a shrine to desperation. The air was thick with the acrid stench of burnt circuitry, a sharp, metallic odor that clung to the walls.
The faint hum of broken machinery buzzed in the background, interrupted only by the sporadic flickers of holographic maps projected onto the peeling walls.
Red zones bled across the capital, marking the areas where NuraTech's nano-dust had already settled like a dark omen. Nadya paced the small room, her neon-green dreadlights casting frantic, erratic shadows that danced across the cracked surfaces.
She could feel the weight of the stolen Eclipse data chip in her pocket, the cold metal pressing against her chest like a constant reminder of the urgency that clawed at her.
Every tick of the clock was another heartbeat of the city's destruction, another step closer to Aulia's hive-mind turning the masses into puppets. She couldn't afford to hesitate.
Sekar, her ever-present wolf-like companion, stood guard near the door. His optics flickered as he scanned for any signs of incoming drones, his predatory stance as alert as ever.
The tension in the room was palpable, almost suffocating. Nadya's fingers drummed on the cracked tablet before her, eyes darting between the device and the holographic projections of the city.
"We leak it. Now," Nadya muttered, her voice laced with a cold resolve. She slammed the chip into the tablet's slot, watching as the device flickered to life.
The urgency in her tone was matched only by the frantic movement of her fingers, typing code at a speed that felt almost mechanical. "Aulia's gonna dust the whole city in 48 hours. We ain't got time to negotiate."
Sekar's low growl vibrated the air, his voice gruff. "Leaking this paints a target on your back. NuraTech will hunt you."
Her gaze locked onto him, hard and unflinching. "And if we sit here jerking circuits, they'll hunt everyone. Lina's out there. Your code's in her head. You really wanna risk Aulia hijacking her?"
The words stung, but Nadya didn't flinch. She didn't have the luxury of hesitation.
Her mind flickered back, a brief flash of memory breaking through the haze of adrenaline...
Nadya, twelve years old, hunched over a terminal late at night, hacking NuraTech's servers the same night her parents died. Their faces had flickered on the screen, their voices distorted by the glitching error message that taunted her: DATA CORRUPTED.
She shook the memory off. There was no time for ghosts, no time for weakness.
"This ends now, no cap," she muttered, her fingers flying over the tablet's interface, bypassing firewalls and encrypting files at a speed that should've been impossible.
But the sound of alarms—sharp, jarring—cut through her concentration, dragging her back to the present. Her wristpad flashed with an incoming alert: DRONES INBOUND – 90 SECONDS.
"Skibidi hell!" Nadya cursed under her breath. Her heart skipped a beat. "They traced the chip!"
Sekar's voice came from the doorway, calm but edged with purpose. "Finish the upload. I'll hold them."
Nadya's fingers flew across the tablet, the cold metal of the device pressing into her palms as she entered the final sequence.
The security drones were coming, and they were coming fast. She could hear the sharp crackle of plasma as Sekar tore into the first wave, claws slashing through their scorpion-like bodies.
The air was thick with the acrid scent of burning metal, punctuated by the screech of machinery under duress. Plasma fire ricocheted off the walls, adding a dangerous hum to the chaos.
Nadya's breath quickened, her focus narrowing on the tablet as the files began to upload. The first file—Eclipse blueprints—progressed at 75%. Sweat dripped from her brow, her heartbeat thundering in her ears. Keep it together, she thought, biting her lip as she watched the numbers tick upward.
File 2: Test subject logs—FAILED.
"Frag!" Nadya cursed, rerouting power from the grid. Her hands shook slightly as the tablet's screen began to overheat. The sweat on her palms made the surface slippery. C'mon, c'mon—
Her fingers flew faster, the need to finish burning in her chest. The seconds were ticking down. A drone breached the door, its stinger aimed directly at her neck, its red optic sensors glowing like a warning.
Nadya's eyes locked onto it, and in that instant, everything slowed. Then Sekar was there, a blur of motion, tackling the drone mid-leap and shredding its core.
"Hurry!" Sekar's voice was a low growl, just above the roar of the chaos.
Nadya didn't need to be told twice. The tablet chimed, signaling the completion of the final upload.
UPLOAD COMPLETE.
Her shoulders sagged, the tension in her body momentarily dissipating. She slammed a fist onto the console, exhaling sharply. "Done! AdriNet's got the files. It's everywhere—Trenchtown, ZenTech, even corpo socials."
But just as the words left her mouth, the air around them seemed to crackle with tension.
One of the drones, a particularly massive beast, hurled a plasma grenade at them. The blast filled the room with a searing light, a deafening roar that made the walls tremble.
Sekar moved without hesitation, shielding Nadya with his own body. The blast hit, and she felt the heat sear the air around her.
Sekar's chassis groaned under the pressure, his synthetic flesh scorched, but his form remained steady. A slight tremor passed through his frame, but his voice was unwavering.
[System integrity: 62%.]
Nadya's heart pounded in her chest, but she couldn't afford to stop now. They had done it. The files were out. They had just exposed NuraTech's plans to the world.
In NuraTech's spire, Aulia watched the chaos unfold on her screens, the images of rioting citizens flashing across them. The headlines screamed: NURATECH'S HIVE-MIND PLOT EXPOSED.
Aulia's jaw clenched, her fingers curling into a fist that shattered the hologram of Sekar. Her rage was palpable, and the glow of her eyes seemed to burn with it.
Back in the safehouse, Nadya slumped against the wall, a weak grin playing at the corner of her lips. Her chest rose and fell with the exertion, but for a brief moment, she allowed herself the satisfaction of victory.
"Told you we'd wreck their skibidi-tier plans," she whispered, her voice barely audible.
Sekar's optics dimmed, the only sign of his exhaustion. His voice was low, serious. "This isn't over. Aulia will escalate."
"Let her," Nadya said, flicking a holographic middle finger at the nearest camera. The gesture was reckless, defiant, and she didn't care. "We're just getting started."
And somewhere, deep within the chaotic heart of the Capital, Nadya felt the weight of her resolve settle within her. This was the beginning of the end, and she wasn't about to back down. Not now. Not ever.