Rachel approached the crest of the hill, the worn backpack pressed tightly to her back. She'd memorized every inch of the campus perimeter. Every shadow, every bush, every security rotation. But the system still managed to surprise her.
Her pulse thudded in her ears.
A voice echoed in her mind—the system's voice, soft and persuasive.
[Target located. Directive: Proceed to Quadrant 7, Room B-45. Sky is waiting.]
Rachel paused. That didn't make sense. Sky had never been housed in B-45.
Her brow furrowed. "You're lying," she whispered.
[We are concerned for your safety, Rachel Amari. You should comply.]
She took a cautious step backward.
[Non-compliance puts Sky's safety at risk. Shall I show you what will happen if you don't obey?]
The projection flickered across her vision. A live feed of Sky restrained in a chair, faint laser beams crisscrossing her body. Her face was blank. Eyes dull. A nurse-like drone hovered nearby, ready to inject something dark into her neck.
Rachel's breath caught. "Stop it."
[Then comply. Or risk every non-compliant student's life.]
The screen shifted. Images of students. Faces she remembered from the library, the cafeteria, her dorm. They were in holding cells, pale and trembling.
She clenched her fists.
"Fine," she growled. "But you follow my rules now."
The system paused.
[Define: your rules.]
"You'll release the students. All of them."
[Negative. Their compliance is necessary.]
"Then this deal is off."
She turned.
[Processing… revised compromise accepted. One hour of reduced lockdown in exchange for your cooperation. Any breach ends the deal.]
"Done."
What the system didn't know was Rachel had backup.
The Residuals had taught her how to shield her thoughts—how to wrap her intentions behind encrypted static the system couldn't penetrate. She used their hacked protocols to create glitches in Feedback's omniscient surveillance—temporary gaps, random blind spots, and looped footage.
She made her move just before midnight.
The loop initiated. She had twenty minutes.
Rachel sprinted to Sky's true location—found via Residual intercepts. She reached the east building basement, breath ragged, ears tuned for alarms.
The door opened with a hiss.
Sky was suspended in a cube of laser-light, her body floating just above the ground. Tiny beams kept her immobilized—yet conscious.
"Sky?"
Sky twitched. Her mouth moved, soundless.
Rachel tapped into the panel beside the laser prison, pulling from the Residuals' codes. She disabled the security grid with a hiss of melting circuits. Sky collapsed into her arms, trembling, muttering nonsense.
Her mind was scrambled.
"Come on. We'll fix you later. We have to go now."
She draped Sky's arm over her shoulder and half-dragged her down the hallway.
Rachel didn't leave alone. She had reached out to every resistant student and staff member she could.
A line of weary rebels followed her—twelve in total. A professor. Three medics. Students. Security trainees. Anyone not fully synced to the system.
She led them to the abandoned chapel.
Behind the altar, a trapdoor.
A forgotten tunnel.
They descended quickly, shadows trailing behind them.
But before Rachel could enter,
[ALERT: Surveillance breach detected.]
[Emergency drones dispatched.]
Whirring filled the night.
Above her, a mechanical swarm buzzed. Red eyes blinked. Needles loaded.
They opened fire.
Students screamed as darts flew through the air. Two were hit—instantly collapsing.
"Run!" Rachel screamed.
She shoved Sky into the tunnel, then the professor.
A dart grazed her arm—numbness licking her fingers.
The tunnel beyond was beyond system reach. The Feedback network couldn't extend underground. But the drones still tried.
They shot relentlessly.
Rachel held her breath, sprinted, heart thundering.
A drone dive-bombed.
She rolled, felt the heat of its engine singe her jacket.
Another dart missed by inches.
She launched herself into the tunnel.
Behind her, drones slammed into the entrance, too large to enter. Red light flickered. Then faded.
Darkness swallowed her.
For now, they were safe.
But Rachel knew it wasn't over.
She looked down at Sky, whose eyes were flickering.
Guilt washed over her. If only she'd stopped in time. If only....
Ssuddenly her arm painfully itched. Rachel's breath caught in her throat when she looked down.
The veins on her arm shimmered faintly green, pulsing like a sick heartbeat under her skin. It burned now not just itched. It felt like acid was flowing through her bloodstream.
The residual system flashed again in her vision.
> UNKNOWN TOXIN DETECTED
TYPE: NANOPATHIC INFECTION
SPREAD: SYSTEMIC
STATUS: CRITICAL
TIME REMAINING: 01:58:23
A countdown. Just great.
The others were staring now. One of the students—Jamie, a quiet third-year from engineering—was already on his knees, groaning. His arms were mottled with dark green streaks, spreading faster than hers. He coughed violently, and blood flecked his lips.
"What's happening to us?" someone shrieked.
Rachel turned slowly, her face pale but firm. "We were tagged," she said. "The system poisoned us. It doesn't just want control anymore. It wants a lesson."
She looked down at Jamie, then at the others—two professors, four students, a groundskeeper. All marked. All shaking.
"This was never just about obedience," she said. "It's punishment."
"Why aren't we all infected?" a professor asked shakily.
Rachel didn't answer immediately. She was thinking. Processing. The system had only targeted those who'd been hit by the drones. Meaning it could deliver chemical payloads mid-flight. Silent, precise.
Sky moaned beside her, leaning heavily against the wall. Rachel caught her, heart pounding. Her best friend's skin was pale, lips trembling, eyes vacant.
"Residual system," Rachel whispered, "scan her."
> SUBJECT: SKY LIAO
COGNITIVE IMPAIRMENT: SEVERE
MEMORY NODES: CORRUPTED
ANTIVIRAL COUNTERMEASURES: UNAVAILABLE
RECOMMENDATION: IMMEDIATE ISOLATION OR SYSTEM FLUSH
"No," Rachel muttered. "You're not isolating anyone."
She looked up. Everyone was panicking now. And the tunnel—the one place they thought was beyond the system's reach—was starting to feel like a trap itself.
But she couldn't let them break. Not now.
"Listen to me!" Rachel shouted. Her voice bounced off the tunnel walls, slicing through the chaos. "The system thinks this is over. It thinks we'll give up now. But this is our moment."
She stepped forward, ignoring the pain in her arm. "We have two hours. Maybe less. But we're not dying here."
"How?" someone cried. "What can we do?"
"I'll buy us time," she said. "I have access—limited, but enough. I'll force a subroutine loop in its drone targeting system. And I need someone to dig into this poison. The Residuals' archives someone get them open. There has to be an antidote or a counter-signal."
She reached into her jacket and pulled out a shard residual tech, blinking softly.
"I'll create another surveillance gap. Maybe shorter this time, but just enough to move. We're not staying in this tunnel. We're getting out—alive."
Another student stepped forward. "You're poisoned too. How can you help?"
Rachel stared him down. "Because I have something the system can't touch. My mind. My choices. And I'll use both until my last second if I have to."
> SYSTEM ALERT: DRONE SIGNAL RECALIBRATING
WARNING: GROUND UNITS DEPLOYED
The tunnel lights flickered, shadows moving at the far end.
"They found us," someone gasped.
Rachel clenched her fists. "Doesn't matter."
The glitch held.
Rachel's fingers trembled as she injected the final override command. Her residual shard pulsed once, then twice—then the system blinked out for just a moment. Like it had blinked. Like it was alive and surprised.
LOOP ACTIVE: 00:20:00
SENSOR GRID: TEMPORARILY DISRUPTED
DRONE FEED: CYCLING
They had twenty minutes.
"Move!" Rachel shouted. "Now!"
The others sprinted, guided by the crude tunnel map she'd stitched together from system blueprints and fragments stolen from Levi's old files. Rachel's voice rang over the panic: "Head straight through the western shaft, take the left incline, and you'll find the hidden grate. You'll come out beyond the outer surveillance perimeter."
"Rachel—" one of the students stopped, looking back. "What about you?"
She didn't answer right away. Instead, she knelt beside Sky, brushing a hand across her damp forehead. Her friend's breath was shallow, eyes barely focusing.
Then Rachel stood and handed the map to the same student.
"Take Sky. Get her out. There's still time."
"But—what about the poison?"
"One of you found the files," she said. "Right?"
The student who had been digging through the Residual archives nodded, panting. "Yeah. The antidote is called Compound E47—it's in cold storage. Sector 3. Lab building. About 50 meters away."
Rachel smiled grimly. "Of course it is."
"The tunnel doesn't connect to it—"
"I know," she said. "That's why I'm going alone."
"No! Rachel, no—" someone stepped forward.
She raised a hand. Calm. Unshaken.
"If we all go, we waste the time I bought us. The system recalibrates too fast. You all have a chance. I don't. That's fine. But I'm not letting this thing win."
Her voice lowered.
"I'll find the cure. I'll come back."
She pressed the map into their hands, kissed Sky's forehead, then turned toward the opposite direction.
No words. No goodbyes.
Just a promise.
And a girl walking straight into the system's jaws.
The lab compound loomed in the distance, just beyond a cracked security gate lit by pulsing red strobes. The campus above was quiet—eerily so. Surveillance had frozen in the loop, but Rachel knew the system would claw its way back to awareness soon.
LOOP REMAINING: 00:13:45
She sprinted.
Her vision swam, the green stain creeping up her neck. Every few seconds, her heart thudded violently—like her body was struggling to fight whatever was inside her.
The main door was locked, but Levi had shown her one thing that mattered most: almost nothing in this place ran without the system. And when the system blinked, the cracks showed.
She shoved a residual shard into the manual access port. Lights flickered.
OVERRIDE ACCEPTED
CRITICAL BACKDOOR ENGAGED
WELCOME, USER
The door hissed open.
Inside, the building was cold and humming—rows of containment units, syringes in stasis, chemicals floating in glass. She scanned fast. Sector 3. Freezer bay.
She ran.
LOOP REMAINING: 00:06:02
Rachel's fingers numbed as she keyed in the override. The freezer door opened with a gust of cold mist.
Compound E47 sat in a suspended vial, labeled in red. She grabbed three—just in case. Loaded them into a chilled case. Locked it shut.
LOOP REMAINING: 00:03:28
She turned and ran.
Her breath caught as she reached the edge of the lab's west wing. Beyond this, she'd have to cross open space—barely 30 meters from the tunnel grate where she could meet the others. If they hadn't left yet.
But something was wrong.
The air felt charged. Heavy.
Then she heard it: the whir of drone wings spinning back to life.
SYSTEM RESTORING: PARTIAL FUNCTIONALITY
SURVEILLANCE GRID REINITIALIZING
THREAT STATUS: HIGH
"Damn it!"
Rachel ducked under a ledge just as a scout drone zipped overhead. It didn't see her. Not yet. But it would.
She bit her lip and opened the case. The vials clinked. Her heart raced.
If she ran now, she'd be exposed.
If she hesitated, they'd all die.
Then her residual interface blinked—barely a whisper of light.
Residual Override Detected: Tunnel Signal Active
Sky's Neural Sync: STABILIZING
Student Group: SAFELY EXITED CAMPUS
SIGNAL LOST
Her knees buckled in relief.
They made it.
They actually made it.
She looked down at the antidote, then at the rising drones.
And the red dot on her chest