Chapter 31 · No More Cages

Ryan's hand was still shaking when he slammed the key into the console slot.

The hub's interface lit up like someone kicked a hornet's nest. Lines of code scrolled faster than he could track, red warnings flashing across every surface. His vision stuttered. The stabilizer chip Derek gave him was already fighting the neural load, cooling algorithms trying to shove back the current building in his spine.

He didn't have an hour. Derek didn't either.

The room smelled like burnt plastic and old blood. Ryan's leg throbbed where he'd dragged himself up three flights of server-stacked stairwells to get here. Natasha's black-market clinic was two miles east. The hub was supposed to be unmanned. Supposed to be.

But when he'd kicked open the access door, he'd found the core interface still online. Still pulling data. Still feeding something.

"Override," Ryan said. His voice came out hoarse. The mic didn't respond.

He pulled up the command line and started typing. His fingers kept slipping. The current in his wrist wanted to arc, wanted to burn through the keyboard and fry the whole terminal.