The spire groaned as though the city itself had been wounded. Smoke rolled through the broken door, acrid and thick. Cain shoved the last armored body aside and pushed forward, blade dripping, cloak torn. The prisoners pressed with him, ragged and wild-eyed, carrying scraps of metal like banners of defiance.
"Up!" Susan barked, her voice hoarse but unbroken. "Don't crowd—keep climbing!"
They surged into the stairwell beyond the chamber, boots ringing like hammers. Alarms wailed. Somewhere above, the emergency shutters groaned into place, sealing levels in panic. The spire was alive now, a body trying to cauterize its wound.
Roselle reloaded on the run, each click echoing. "They'll try to bottle us. Keep moving before they choke the stairs."
Cain took point. His muscles screamed from the fight, but he carried the weight like an oath. The walls rattled with gunfire below, the sound of more troops forcing their way in. He didn't look back. Looking back wasted seconds.
Steve gasped, clutching his satchel of devices like a lifeline. "You don't understand—the feeds aren't just out there. They're ricocheting. They'll bounce through the outer grids, the satellites. Even if they scrub the city, the world has seen."
Hunter's tone was cold, deliberate, slicing through the clamor. "Then the world knows we're cornered."
Cain ignored him. The climb was all that mattered. Stairs twisted, landings opened to shattered windows where dawn poured through like knives of light. Smoke rose from the streets far below—fires catching where mobs had already broken loose at the sight of the files. The Daelmonts' order was cracking.
On the next landing, armored figures waited—five, rifles raised. Cain didn't stop. His blade flashed once, twice, cutting the arc of their fire. Bullets sparked stone, tore flesh. A prisoner fell with a cry, another leapt over him with a wrench raised high.
Roselle dropped two cleanly, her precision cutting holes in the enemy line. Susan, pale but ruthless, hurled a broken bottle into a visor and then jammed a pipe into the gap. The stairwell became a butcher's choke point.
Cain's blade caught a rifle mid-burst, snapping it in half. He shoved the soldier backward over the railing. A scream cut the stairwell as the body fell stories into the dark.
They moved again, higher, every level louder with sirens.
At the 40th floor landing, they broke into a corridor lined with mirrored walls. Cain slowed, blade ready, senses alert. The reflections fractured them into an army—Cain in every pane, Roselle's rifle multiplied, Susan's limp repeated like a drumbeat.
Hunter's voice was tight. "This place is wrong."
The mirrors flickered. For an instant, the reflections didn't match. Cain's doubles turned their heads a second late. One lifted its blade before he did.
"Not mirrors," Steve whispered, horror in his voice. "Projectors."
The wall exploded in light. Their reflections stepped out. Shimmering constructs of light and steel, weapons glinting, faces empty.
"Run?" Susan asked, low.
"Fight," Cain answered.
The corridor detonated into chaos—steel on steel, glass shattering as constructs moved with inhuman speed. Cain's first strike passed through one like smoke; the second found resistance, solid as flesh. They were illusions with weight, coded to kill.
Roselle fired, but the constructs soaked bullets, each impact sparking without slowing them. She cursed, switching to close range, rifle butt smashing through a false face.
Susan fought like a cornered animal, every strike desperate, her breath tearing out of her chest. Hunter aimed precisely, as though marking debts with each bullet.
Cain carved through one construct, its body dissolving into shards of light. Another replaced it instantly. His rage simmered colder, more precise. Not everything could be cut. Some things had to be broken at their roots.
"Steve!" Cain roared.
"I see it!" Steve scrambled to a wall panel, wires spilling into his hands. Sparks burned his fingers but he didn't stop. "Keep them busy!"
Cain did. He wove his blade through light and steel, every strike a refusal. Susan's shoulder bled, Roselle's arm went numb from recoil, Hunter's shots slowed. The constructs pressed harder.
Steve screamed, ripping wires free. The corridor flickered, light spasming like lightning trapped in glass. One by one, the constructs froze, their motions glitching. Cain drove his blade through the last and the whole wall of illusions shattered into black.
Silence fell, broken only by ragged breathing.
Cain helped Susan to her feet. Her hand shook but her eyes were steady. "They're throwing everything at us."
Roselle spat blood. "Good. Means they're scared."
Steve slumped against the wall, hands scorched, but a wild grin on his face. "They're blind again. Can't chase us with phantoms."
Hunter looked down the corridor, toward a lift sealed shut. His face was unreadable. "We're nearly at the executive levels."
Cain turned, his voice iron. "Then we cut the last of the hands."
They pressed upward, slower now but unbroken. Every floor they cleared, the world shifted further out of the Daelmonts' control. Outside, chants began to rise—thousands of voices threading through the city like a tide.
By the time Cain pushed open the next door, dawn had fully broken. Light speared the hall of glass ahead. At the far end stood figures in immaculate suits, untouched by dust or blood, waiting.
The council.
Cain's grip tightened on his blade. The climb was almost over. The fall would decide everything.
The council's waiting felt ceremonial, as if they had prepared prayers instead of defenses. Cain stepped forward, blade lowered but ready, each footfall loud enough to be a verdict. Beyond the glass, the city's noise became a rising tide — shouts, breaking glass, the drum of people. He smelled policy, money, and fear in the corridor air. Men in fine suits watched like predators who had never handled blood. One of them smiled too easily, a thin practiced civility. Roselle dropped a cartridge; the clack was an honest sound. Hunter's face stayed stone; Susan moved as if pain no longer mattered. They held silence; words would give the council time to spin lies. Steve's hand hovered over his pack, ready to throw their feed into the world again. Cain breathed twice, feeling the city's pulse sync with his own. Then he spoke, low and dangerous: "We came for answers, not bargains." The room shifted — eyes sharpened, a servant flinched, a door clicked. The first councilor rose and folded his hands with composed menace. "Very well," he said. "Tell us where to begin." Cain's reply was simple: "Where you keep the ledger." Glass reflected their faces like accusations.