Chapter 20 · Before Reset Thirteen

The key burns in Nora's hand like it's trying to crawl back through her skin.

She runs. Doesn't look back at the sealed vault door, at the mother she just lost for the second time in eight months. The emergency lights in the maintenance shaft are strobing now, red and white, and somewhere overhead Silas's voice keeps looping through the public grid: "Core integration begins in twenty-eight minutes. All citizens remain in designated zones. This is not a drill."

Not a drill. Right. Because the first twelve times were just practice.

The key pulses in her grip, hot enough that she can feel the edges of the runes carved into its surface. It's not metal. Not exactly. Her mother called it a vessel, said it was grown from a fragment of the core itself, back when the city still knew how to build things that weren't just weapons pointed at their own heads.

"Integration's a lie," her mother had said, shoving her toward the exit. "Silas doesn't want to stop the resets. He wants to make sure the next one never ends."

Nora hits the ladder and climbs. Her shoulders scream.