Chapter 20 - Phantom Rising
Vance looked up in horror as the heavy steel ceiling fixture tore loose, plummeting directly toward the main server array.
Victoria used his moment of distraction to reverse their positions, slamming Vance face-first into the cracking floor glass.
She grabbed his hand and forced his thumb onto the biometric scanner just as the countdown hit zero.
"00 MINUTES 00 SECONDS... AUTHORIZATION CANCELLED. SYSTEM PURGE INITIATED."
The holographic screens turned from deep crimson to stark white.
The entire orbital network locked down, wiping Vance's access codes permanently across every sector.
"No... NO!" Vance screamed, watching his life's work dissolve into static.
The glass floor beneath Vance finally gave way under the weight of the falling debris.
With a sharp crack, the floor shattered completely.
Vance plummeted into the abyss of the storm below, his desperate screams swallowed by the thunder.
Victoria grabbed Leo, pulling him back onto the solid steel lift frame as the dome collapsed around them.
Silence returned to the high tower, broken only by the sound of falling rain.
The storm was finally clearing over the city, revealing the faint light of dawn on the horizon.
Leo collapsed onto the steel platform, breathing heavily.
"Is it over?" he asked softly.
Victoria looked down at her hands—bruised, bloody, and marked with scars.
On paper, Commander Victoria was still dead.
The public would never know what happened in this spire tonight.
She had no rank, no uniform, and no official existence left in the registry.
She walked to the edge of the shattered window, looking out over the awakening metropolis.
"It's not over," Victoria said, her voice steady and quiet in the cool morning wind.
May you like
"They erased my past..."
"Now we take their future."
