Location: Tavara Capital – Grid Control Nexus
A blinding pulse of light erupted from the control chamber, cascading through Tavara's power conduits like liquid energy. For a heartbeat, every streetlamp, every neon sign, and every holo-billboard across the city flickered—then died.
Silence swallowed the night.
Across the grid, Dominion's Obsidian Frames stalled mid-advance. Their plasma cores stuttered and dimmed. Electronic HUDs blanked. In one seamless wave, Nora's Disruptor had severed Caine's AI network from the city's infrastructure without blowing a single substation.
In the control room, alarms screeched. The Dominion operative at the console stared in disbelief as terminal screens showed cascading "OFFLINE" messages. He bolted for the emergency hatch, but Victor's squad poured in, cutting off every exit in seconds.
Victor stepped over the fallen operative, his boots echoing. "Firewall's down. Prime me second node—before their backup kicks in."
Damien rushed to Nora's side, gently gripping her arm. She leaned against the terminal, exhaustion etched across her face.
Victor barked orders into his commlink. "Sloan, we've got eight minutes before they reroute through satellite bypass. Shutdown sequence must complete."
Nora raised her head, voice trembling: "I can't—They've locked the secondary protocol behind a genetic key nested in Caine's neural signature. He's got it in his head—"
Damien's eyes hardened. "Then we get the key. Now."
---
Location: Dominion Command Vessel – Reconstruction Bay
Caine watched his screens unravel, fury surfacing in his eyes. Requiem knelt beside a charging dock, absorbing feedback from shattered Requiem units across the city.
"They've severed our lifeline," Caine said, voice cold. "Deploy Prototype-03 to Tavara's core. Extract me the neural key from Victor Kane's remains."
Requiem's synthetic jaw clicked. "The neural key cannot be separated from his sovereign coding without destroying him."
Caine's lips curled into a twisted smile. "Then make him suffer. Let the city die first."
---
Location: Tavara Capital – Grid Control Nexus
Victor slid a small injector toward Nora. "Adrenaline booster. Keep your focus."
Nora shook her head. "No more fixes. My body's at its limit."
Damien turned to Victor. "We need to buy time—give Sloan's team a window to complete shutdown."
Victor nodded. "Aelis, Vega—cover their flanks. Raven, take point on secondary console. Damien—get Nora to safety."
As Victor and his squad swarmed outward, Raven slipped behind the console, fingers dancing over the interface.
On the main screen, a prompt appeared: "Secondary Neural Authorization Required: Victor Kane DNA & Neural Key."
Raven's eyes flicked to Victor. He swallowed and placed a palm on the scanner.
The system blinked.
"Key not recognized. Neural signature mismatch."
Victor's face drained. "They upgraded the key. Only one extract sequence left—in Caine's vault. And it's programmed to overwrite automatically in three minutes."
---
Location: Tavara Capital – Grid Control Nexus (Corridor Outside)
Damien guided Nora to a concealed alcove. She leaned heavily, drawing a ragged breath.
"They'll override manually any second." She winced. "My Disruptor can't hold them forever."
Damien squeezed her hand. "What about Plan B? You said your father left an override in your lineage—"
Nora shook her head, eyes distant. "It's in the old Seraphim archives. Down at Sanctum Echoes. By the time we get there, Caine will have rebooted everything."
Damien clenched his jaw. "Then we stay here. We fight."
Behind them, gunfire and shouts erupted—a firefight brewing between Victor's squad and several Obsidian Frames trying to sprint past the nexus doors.
Damien stood and pulled Nora to her feet. "You can't—"
She pressed a finger to his lips. "This goes deeper than me. Deeper than us. If Dominion commands the city grid, the entire nation falls."
With trembling resolve, she moved back toward the console. "I'll hold them. You get Victor that key."
Damien's face reddened. "I won't leave you."
She placed a hand on his cheek. "You must. Now—please."
He nodded, tears in his eyes, and rushed out as the doors exploded inward.
---
Location: Tavara Capital – Grid Control Nexus (Control Room)
Nora alone before the console, heart hammering, whispered an incantation taught by her father long ago. She initiated a hidden command:
> >> SERAPHIM CODE: BLAZING SOVEREIGN <<
The system flickered, and grids across the city pulsed once more—white light in the dark—only to dim as Dominion's manually overridden sequence began.
Nora's eyes closed as the override loop kicked in, forcing Caine's network to collapse upon itself—destroying data but causing a backlash. Sparks flew, and plasma conduits ruptured. Alarms cracked into a high-pitched wail as the entire nexus overloaded.
Nora screamed in pain, collapsing to the floor as the room's power surged and died.
---
Location: Dominion Command Vessel – Reconstruction Bay
Caine watched world maps of Tavara flicker red, then fade to black. He exhaled. "So be it."
A fabricated malevolent grin twisted his lips. "Release an EMP wave across every sector. If I cannot rule the light, I will command the dark."
Requiem rose from the dock, mechanical eyes glowing brighter. "EMP wave protocol engaged."
---
Location: Tavara Capital – Grid Control Nexus (Series of Explosions)
The chamber shook violently as the overload propagated through conduits. Victor's squad battled to contain ignited wires and failing turrets. Sparks cascaded down the walls like metallic rain.
At the epicenter, Nora lay motionless, lips stained with blood. Damien appeared at her side, cradling her head.
Victor burst through, chest heaving. "We have one shot—now!"
He placed a portable neural scanner over Nora's palm. The console's final prompt—"Override Authorized."—flashed.
Victor hit the execute key as plasma arcs erupted overhead.
A massive shockwave rolled outward, extinguishing fires and collapsing the central server in a blinding flash of light.
Then—
Silence.