Chapter 32 · The Rigged Deal

"Take your hand off the console, Kai."

Soran's voice came through every speaker in the room. Calm. Close. Way too close for a man standing three levels below us in a sealed command bunker.

I kept my palm pressed against the black glass anyway.

The interface screamed under my skin.

Red warnings crawled across the display. MEMORY INSTABILITY. VOID OVERLAP: 61%. NEURAL CASCADE IN 04:12.

Four minutes until my brain started eating itself.

"You built the countdown," I said. "You don't get to complain when it reaches zero."

"I built a failsafe. You stole it."

"You stole my crew first."

The city map hanging over the console flickered. Aurora City spread across the air in layers of neon towers, transit veins, corporate zones, and blacked-out districts. Soran controlled all of it now. Every camera. Every gate. Every drone with a gun under its belly.

And he had locked the bunker around me like a fist.

Vala stood three feet to my left with her pistol aimed at my chest. Her jaw was tight. A thin line of blood ran from her hairline toward one eyebrow, but she hadn't bothered wiping it away.

She looked at the countdown.

Then at me.