The blackout didn’t come with silence. It came with chaos. Sirens keened from every direction, echoing through the wet city like mechanical screams. Cain moved fast through the wreckage, boots splashing through the runoff as firelight bloomed in the distance. The Grid was gone—its control fractured—and the city was remembering what anarchy felt like. He crossed through a half-flooded plaza, rain mixing with oil, the reflections of flames bending like broken glass. People were already looting, fighting, running. No sides. No orders. Just hunger and rage, given freedom for the first time in years. Steve’s voice cut through the comm, distorted but alive. "We’ve got movement across six sectors. The council’s comms are burning up—they can’t coordinate. It’s working." Cain ducked under a fallen beam. "And Roselle?" Silence stretched for two long heartbeats before Steve answered. "I lost her signal. It’s just gone." Cain’s jaw locked. He looked toward the blacked-out spire, its upper floors now nothing but shadow. "You keep looking. I’ll find her." Hunter’s voice joined, grim. "You’re walking into the dead zone. The failsafe collapse fried every system for two kilometers. No comms, no tracking." "Then I’ll walk blind," Cain said. "She didn’t die for us to wait." He turned off the comm before Hunter could argue. The rain thickened, driving against him as he cut through the alleyways, guided only by instinct and memory. The streets smelled of ozone and blood. The tower loomed closer with each step, an iron monolith with its veins cut open. At the base, soldiers—Daelmont loyalists—had already cordoned off the entrance. Cain counted eight, maybe nine. Too many to take quietly. He sheathed his pistol, unsheathed the blade, and moved like a shadow through the smoke. The first soldier barely had time to turn before the blade cut through his throat. The second fired wild; Cain ducked beneath the muzzle flash, came up under the rifle, drove steel through armor. The third tried to run. Cain didn’t let him. When it was done, the rain was pink. He pushed inside the tower, past bodies and flickering lights. The corridors were dead, humming only with residual power from dying circuits. The Grid’s heartbeat was gone. In its place was something quieter, more human—breathing, faint and unsteady. Cain followed it up the stairwell, each step slick with grime. His pulse pounded in time with the storm outside. He found her two floors up, slumped against a terminal that still spat out fractured lines of code. Roselle’s eyes fluttered open at the sound of his boots. Blood slicked her side, dark against her shirt. She smiled, small and savage. "You took your time." Cain crouched beside her. "You weren’t supposed to make it harder for me." She laughed once, then winced. "You should’ve seen it. When it fell. All that light—gone in a blink." He pressed a hand to her wound, but she pushed him off. "Don’t. Save your bandages for the ones who’ll make it." Her eyes softened. "Don’t lie to me, Cain. You’re bad at it." He didn’t answer. The hum of the dying machine filled the silence. After a moment, she whispered, "Was it worth it?" He looked around—the dark monitors, the dead cables, the city beyond the broken glass. "Ask me when they stop fighting." Roselle nodded slowly, like she already knew that answer would never come. Her head tilted back, eyes tracing the faint light creeping in through the cracks above. "You know what’s funny?" she murmured. "For a second, I thought the city would breathe again. Maybe it still will." Her words faded. Her chest stilled. Cain stayed there for a long time, rain leaking through the ceiling and streaking across her face. The blade at his side felt heavier than it ever had. When he finally stood, the tower was quiet. He took the drive from the console, slid it into his coat, and turned toward the stairwell. Outside, the world was breaking—but it was their world now, stripped of lies, stripped of control. By the time he reached the street, dawn had started to cut through the storm. Hunter and Susan waited near the collapsed tram line, their silhouettes half-lost in fog. Hunter stepped forward, eyes searching Cain’s. "Roselle?" Cain didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. Susan looked down, exhaling smoke from a half-burnt cigarette. "Then she did it." "She did," Cain said quietly. "And we’re still standing." Hunter nodded, though the motion carried no triumph. "The council’s retreating to the upper ring. They’re regrouping." ᴛʜɪs ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ɪs ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ʙʏ 𝗻𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹~𝓯𝓲𝓻𝓮~𝚗𝚎𝚝 "Let them," Cain said. "They’ll find nothing left to rule." Steve appeared from the shadows, his clothes soaked, his face hollow but alive. "We lost the uplink. Half the archives burned in the collapse. We’re ghosts now." Cain looked at him, then at the ruined skyline, the city half-alive and half-afraid of what it had become. "Then let’s haunt them properly." They began walking, the storm easing into a mist. Behind them, the spire that had once held the Grid groaned and finally gave way, collapsing into the street with a sound like thunder swallowing itself. Cain didn’t look back. The fight wasn’t over. But for the first time in years, it would be on their terms. Dawn peeled itself over the ruined rooftops like a slow, indifferent wound. Cain walked without haste, each step measured as if marking a promise to himself. Around them, the city rearranged its broken pieces, citizens emerging to touch the new edges. No cheers greeted their passage; only wary, exhausted faces that had learned the cost of noise. Susan kept close, her breaths shallow but steady, eyes scanning for danger that might still lurk. Hunter moved with economy, the weight of bargains visible in the set of his shoulders. Steve trailed behind, hands shoved in his jacket, fingers stained with circuitry and smoke. They passed the splintered monument and the market stalls where goods lay abandoned like promises. A child ran up, clutching a rusted toy, eyes wide as if seeking leaders in the wreckage. Cain crouched, offered a nod, and the boy smiled, a brief, dangerous filament of hope. He remembered Peter and Declan and the thin line that had kept them breathing this long. Roselle’s face was unreadable but her hand found Cain’s shoulder in a small, private accord. Together they moved toward the river where rumors said the Daelmont convoy limped from the wreck. Night had changed them.