The power doesn't turn off immediately.
It flashes.
Once.
Twice.
Again, faster—each pulse in rhythm with the glyphs still glowing below my skin.
The Hall of Ranks groans. Like bending metal. Like the system realizes what's happening and doesn't know how to stop it.
All the students in the atrium stare at the monoliths. Names vanish from screens. Uniform lights fade. Rank bracelets beep error tones.
The silence isn't fear.
It's a confusion.
And it's growing.
I don't run away.
I leave the Hall as if nothing happened, although everything has happened.
Lio drops into step beside me by the east staircase, as if we are between periods. As if this is normal. His face says nothing.
"They'll mobilize."
"They already have."
"Jin?"
"She's locked up the main override relay. Miko's running blackout subroutines. That'll give us four minutes, at best."
"Not long."
"No."
"Just enough," I tell him.
By the time we reach the command deck above the training wing, lockdown alarms are blaring. It isn't automated. It's deeper. It's lower. It's alive. It's as if the system is crying out.
A voice thunders across campus.
"All students remain in pods. Any deviation will be sanctioned."
No name.
No signature.
But it's Voss.
I recognize her voice.
And I don't care.
We come to the central console—a gleaming ring that is supposed to govern internal security, issue warnings, and control comms. Normally password protected.
Now open.
Because I opened it.
I step into the interface field.
Code flows towards me. Glyphs flash across my vision—some of them familiar from training, others which seem to know me. The loop requires guidance.
Not instructions.
Not logic.
Just choice.
That frightens them.
That I have it.
Lio keeps guard. Nessa arrives three minutes later with two attendants, both tattooed. One's bleeding from the shoulder.
"They began sweep and isolate," she reports. "Sector 5 went out. They've got suppressors."
I can feel my glyph surge.
"They can't hold," I say.
"Are you sure?"
"No," I admit. "But I'm not done."
The system fights me harder than I expect.
It unleashes counter-loops, logic checks, and thermal misdirection.
But I don't write code.
I feel.
I burn.
I let my heartbeat synchronize with the code. Let my body remember what Voss tried to erase. I don't control the system.
I merge with it.
Outside, power vanishes.
Security locks disengage on five tiers.
Drones crash from the air.
Students flood from pods, unsure if it's a glitch or freedom.
Some weep.
Some run.
Others watch me from broken hall monitors, still in the middle of devastation.
Then the voice once more.
Not Voss.
Another.
A girl.
A call for a broadcast override.
"They kept us under numbers. Told us we were less. That power was privilege. That silence was safety."
The voice shakes.
Then steadies.
"No more. They ranked us. But we remember who we are. And we choose us."
It's not me.
It's not Miko.
It's a Rank E student from the far dormitory wing.
A nobody.
A nothing.
Like I was.
Lio watches the screens. "You started something."
"No," I say. "I just opened the door."
They dispatch Strata in turn.
Six armored agents, pulse rifles locked and loaded.
I feel them before the monitors pick them up.
Because my glyphs blaze.
Because the air thickens.
Because my body has a memory of what the threat feels like.
The door bursts open.
They don't utter a word.
They move to fire.
I raise one hand.
The entire floor shakes.
Their guns click locked in midair, pulled from their hands by an unseen force. Their feet glide on metal. One of them falls beneath his own armor.
"Contain her!" their leader shouts.
I don't move.
I don't need to.
Because I'm not alone.
The other Conduits advance. Lio. Nessa. The bleeding girl.
Their glyphs glow.
And we press.
Together.
The force is clean.
Non-lethal.
But unignorable.
The agents drop.
Unconscious.
Unarmed.
Unranked.
We seal the doors once more.
Nessa is panting against the wall. "They'll send more."
"Let them."
"You're ready for that?"
"No," I say. "But I'm done being prepared. It's time they learned what happens when a system which consumes its own finally gets someone it can't consume."
By nightfall, the school is half in darkness.
The Loop is still running, by its bare margin.
Glyph echoes appear in strange corners of the net—students finding what was once strength lying dormant, waking like I woke, like I still wake.
Jin arrives in the command wing at midnight.
Her fingers are raw from opening relays.
Doesn't speak.
Only hugs me with the first hug I've had since we were children.
I don't fight it.
Because now there is no one to care for.
Voss comes on at 03:47.
No soldiers.
No drones.
Only voice over static.
"You think you've won."
I don't reply.
"You've destabilized the future."
Remaining silent.
"But don't mix noise with revolution. The system does not need you to break. It just needs you to burn out."
I lean in.
"Then watch me burn."