The Silence of Exposure and the Aftermath
The white-hot flash from the console's terminal disconnection was not just light; it was an explosive burst of raw electromagnetic energy. It was followed by an absolute, terrifying silence that felt heavier than the ambient noise it replaced, pressing down on their eardrums. The immense Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) had hit the foundry with focused intensity, effectively neutralizing all local, unprotected electronics. Not only did the massive emergency diesel generator outside sputter and die plunging the vast, metal-walled hall into suffocating darkness but the small, robust backup battery lighting system Thomas had meticulously installed was instantly fried, its circuits melted by the sudden voltage spike. The only illumination now came from the thin, milky crescent of the pre-dawn moon filtering through the massive, grimy skylights high above, casting the entire wreckage into an eerie, monochrome shadow. The air smelled sharply and distinctly of ozone, molten plastic, and burnt copper.
Anya lay on the cold concrete floor, her mind completely burnt out, feeling a total disconnection from her abilities. The psychic backlash from ORION'S EYE had felt like plunging headfirst into a frozen lake, instantly shutting down every neural pathway associated with her telekinesis, replacing focus with dull, residual numbness. She could barely process her own name, let alone extend a telekinetic touch. Her head throbbed, a dull but immense pain that settled deep behind her eyes. Jenna was instantly at her side, checking her pulse and pressing a cold, damp cloth to her still-bleeding nose, her face etched with deep, professional concern.
"Anya, talk to me. Are you intact? Are there any lasting fractures from the psychic drain?" Jenna whispered, her eyes rapidly adjusting to the low light.
"I… the noise. It's gone," Anya murmured, realizing the profound absence of the AI's psychic signature was an alarming silence. "The first sequence. Did it take?"
Caleb, moving purely on instinct and muscle memory his training taking over where exhaustion failed was already scrambling under the desk. He pulled the Core's satchel and the battered laptop free from the smoking, inert console. He ripped out the burnt surge suppressor, prioritizing the secure hard drive containing their custom-made hack programs. "It took. We're in the clear on the mental front. The security protocols are running on a detached loop now isolated from the main operational matrix. The Kill-Code is ready to upload, but we can't initiate the final transmission. The power required to broadcast the quantum payload is immense; we need to stabilize the entanglement across a wide spectrum. We're running on the laptop's internal battery, and it has maybe twenty minutes left of functional life before it permanently bricks itself."
The window for a clean, stable hack had slammed shut with catastrophic finality. They had successfully completed the most difficult part the mental evasion and protocol separation but they were stuck at the finish line, vulnerable and exposed in a dead zone of their own making.
Rourke's Precision Response
The sudden, fragile silence of the foundry was violently broken by the loud, metallic CLANG of heavy Vought-issue combat boots crunching on gravel outside, immediately followed by Leo's low, urgent whistle their agreed-upon signal for imminent, overwhelming hostile approach. The whistle was a high-pitched, metallic sound that sliced through the low-frequency drone of the city and carried an immediate sense of doom.
Leo vaulted over the massive air conditioning unit and slid into the room, covered in grease, rust, and adrenaline, his face grim and his breathing ragged. "We have company. Rourke didn't send a scout team or a local patrol. He sent a full company of OSM tactical armor, backed by two reinforced transport trucks and at least one high-mobility personnel carrier. They're moving fast, disciplined, and they just set up a perimeter lockdown on the main access roads, triangulating their position using the location of the EMP. The power surge gave them a perfect, localized target that confirmed the Core's presence."
He held up a specialized thermal scope, its infrared screen showing a rapidly converging ring of distinct heat signatures the armored soldiers radiating intense warmth. "They're not using generic search patterns; they're using precision telemetry. They know exactly where the Core is, or at least where it was last accessed. Rourke is prioritizing recovery over stealth or civilian safety. We have five minutes, maybe less, before their armored breaching units hit the outer fence. That EMP was our death knell, broadcasting our position to every OSM receiving dish in the region." The air was tight with the knowledge that their anonymity was completely gone.
The immediate crisis forced a brutal decision. Jenna looked at Caleb, then at the incapacitated Marco, still pale and shivering, unable to walk on his own. "Caleb, can you run the final upload on battery power? Is there any way to stabilize the connection with the Core using just the laptop's residual energy?"
Caleb shook his head, his hands flying as he frantically secured the fragile Core back into its padded satchel. "It's a massive, multi-gigabyte data packet, tied to the quantum transfer. It would take thirty minutes just to compile the transmission, and the laptop's battery would die twenty seconds into the upload. Even worse, the QMP needs a sustained, clean energy source to prevent the quantum entanglement from collapsing. We need a clean, stable connection to the QMP and a monumental power source. We can't finish the hack here. We have to move, and we have to move now. We failed the mission objective for now, but we saved the weapon."
The Decoy and the Delay: PHANTOM
Anya, her physical strength returning in painful, spiking surges thanks to her Supe resilience, pushed herself to her feet, ignoring the throbbing pain behind her eyes. The adrenaline was now flowing, overpowering the residual ache and giving her a laser focus. She knew Rourke's methodology: he was predictable in his overwhelming arrogance and reliance on digital superiority. He would assume they were either trapped or attempting the final, fatal transmission.
"We don't run, we confuse," Anya declared, her voice firm despite the underlying tremor. "Leo, execute your analog defenses. Set them to maximum chaos tripwires, noise, and visual distractions. We need noise and misdirection to slow the OSM advance. Jenna, clear Marco. We're moving him through the secondary tunnels."
Anya limped over to the laptop, grabbing a clean, encrypted USB drive Thomas had provided. "Caleb, we leave him a ghost a digital alibi."
She instructed Caleb to use his remaining technopathy and the last trickle of power from the laptop to inject a sophisticated, rapidly self-replicating virus into the Core's system not the kill-code, but a massive, intentionally hostile brute-force loop designed to appear foreign and state-sponsored. This virus wasn't meant to destroy the Core, but to consume its processing cycles.
"If the Core is intelligent, it will prioritize the biggest threat to global system integrity," Anya explained, pointing at the blinking laptop power light. "We feed ORION'S EYE a digital scream that mimics a rival nation-state's high-level hacking attempt something the AI deems a larger threat than five fugitives. This virus, PHANTOM, is filled with massive decoy encryption keys, false telemetry reports, and simulated command structures from a military power. It will dedicate its computing power to stabilizing the system and fighting the perceived external attack instead of tracking us."
Caleb understood the genius of the deception. The AI was focused on intention and scope. If they presented the Core with a threat so large it couldn't possibly belong to five people in a derelict foundry, it would change its defensive posture from local hunt to global counter-intelligence, tying up valuable resources for at least an hour.
He worked with blinding speed, weaving the aggressive virus into a complex, nation-state-level signature. The laptop screen flickered violently, drawing its final gasps of battery life. The Core satchel, resting beside it, began to heat up again, the blue filaments pulsing faster as ORION'S EYE detected the new, immense digital intrusion. The mental signature was no longer focused on Anya, but entirely consumed by the simulated external firewall breach.
"Injected! I'm naming the packet 'PHANTOM' a high-level, external, non-Supe threat signature that mimics old Chinese military protocols," Caleb announced, snapping the laptop shut as the screen instantly went black, the battery finally dead. They had nothing left.
The Race Against the Clock Underground
"Go!" Leo shouted from the main entrance, pulling a pin on a military-grade smoke bomb that immediately billowed thick, acrid gray smoke into the vast hall, obscuring the OSM thermal scopes. "They're at the inner fence! I hear their heavy armor, and they're deploying small reconnaissance drones they'll be useless in the smoke and tunnels, thankfully!"
Jenna and Leo efficiently hoisted the semi-conscious Marco between them, forming a desperate human crutch, forcing the exhausted man to move. Anya grabbed the satchel containing the Core now alarmingly warm to the touch and led the way toward the Secondary Maintenance Tunnels. These tunnels were narrow, damp, and designed only for old sewage lines and drainage, not human transit, requiring them to constantly stoop and twist, but they were their only viable escape route, connecting to the city's ancient, disused subway network.
The OSM force was already inside the foundry complex. They heard the deafening roar of a heavy battering ram hitting the main loading bay door, followed by the metallic scream of tearing steel, punctuated by the sharp CRACK of Leo's acoustic canisters as the first OSM soldiers stepped on the tripwires, causing momentary confusion and delay.
Anya slid into the tunnel entrance just as the loading bay door gave way with an explosive crash. Torches and blinding spotlights flooded the main hall, slicing through the smoke. She heard the OSM commander's voice, amplified by his helmet speaker, echoing across the vast space, confirming their deception had worked:
"SEEK THE HEAT SIGNATURES. THEY ARE INITIATING A TRANSMISSION. NEUTRALIZE ALL TARGETS. RECOVER THE CORE. THE SYSTEM IS UNDER ATTACK FROM A CLASS-FIVE DIGITAL THREAT. PRIORITIZE CORE RECOVERY! IGNORE THE LOW-LEVEL NOISE!"
Rourke was still convinced they were attempting the final hack and that the PHANTOM virus was collateral damage from their final, desperate transmission attempt. ORION'S EYE had successfully prioritized the massive PHANTOM virus, buying the Harvesters precious, life-saving minutes of confusion.
They were now deep in the pipe, moving into the earth, their path a filthy, cramped maintenance shaft, pursued by an entire OSM tactical company who now believed the global fate of Rourke's Super-Soldiers depended on capturing them in the next five minutes. They were running on fumes, but they were running with the one thing Rourke couldn't afford to lose, and the knowledge that the tunnels were the key to their next, critical move. The tunnels led directly to the forgotten, defunct Central Power Hub (CPH) the only place in the metro area with the secure infrastructure and colossal, raw energy required to safely transmit the Kill-Code. The CPH was controlled by a shadowy, neutral faction known only as The Operators, a cabal that managed the city's underground infrastructure and information flows, staying out of Rourke's sight through strict neutrality. Anya had a history with their leader, a man named Silas. She knew she had to leverage that past and offer an exchange Silas couldn't refuse: the security of his own independent network.