Chapter 25 · Sixty Seconds to Clear Out

The red text burns across every surface I can see. REPOSSESSION STARTED. EVACUATION PROTOCOL: 60 SECONDS. I don't have lungs anymore, but I feel like I'm choking. Fifty-nine. Fifty-eight. The numbers drop in the corner of my vision like a countdown to my own execution.

Eli's still on the floor near the food court, Ivy crouched beside him, her hand on his shoulder. The broken pieces of his collar are scattered around them like shrapnel. She's saying something to him, but I can't hear it over the alarm that's started screaming through the mall. It's not my alarm.

I didn't trigger this. Fifty-three. Fifty-two. I try to pull up my core interface, but half the screens are locked out. Red borders everywhere. A new window opens without me asking for it. PRIORITY ASSET RETENTION, it says.

SELECT ONE. Below that, two options. FOUNDATION INTEGRITY. Or. IVY ROWAN. That's it. That's the whole choice. I can lock down the mall's structure and maybe survive whatever's coming, or I can keep Ivy safe. Not both. The system won't let me have both. Forty-seven seconds. My core lights flicker.