Chapter 37 · Neon Embers: The Price of a New World

"Get your damn hand off the override, Kael!" Sloane's voice cracked through the static of the dying Tower.

She didn't just shout; she lunged. Her palm slammed against my shoulder, pinning me against the jagged console of the main hub. The metal was freezing, but her skin was searing through my thin shirt. We were both bleeding, both shaking, and the air tasted like ozone and burnt copper.

"I'm not letting them reboot the system," I spat, my fingers hovering over the final sequence. "If I stop this now, the old regime keeps their grip. Every gene-rank, every slave-code—it stays. We die as experiments."

Sloane didn't flinch. She pressed closer, her chest heaving against mine, her eyes narrowed into those dangerous slits that always told me she was calculating exactly how to break me. "And if you push that button, the feedback loop will fry every neural link in the city. Including ours. You want to be a hero? Try not to kill ten thousand people in the process."

"Better a clean slate than a gilded cage," I countered. I tried to shove her back, but she was faster.