The early light of dawn broke over the city in soft hues of orange and pale blue, brushing the steel towers with an indifferent glow. The world kept turning—even now.
Mikey stirred from where he lay curled beneath the overpass, the concrete wall behind him cold and damp with dew. He shifted on the metal grate floor. He had slept there—if sleep could even be the right word for what he'd just endured.
He sat up slowly, groaning under the ache of his own body. His muscles protested. His eye still throbbed. He reached up and wiped at his face with the back of his sleeve, smearing away dried blood and tears in one swipe. His skin stung from the cold. His fingers trembled, not entirely from the chill.
The bridge above groaned faintly as early transport vehicles passed overhead. Somewhere distant, a bird cried out. A city waking. But Mikey wasn't.
He pushed himself to his feet with effort, limbs stiff and sore, a limp in his right leg as he took a tentative step forward. His breath came out in visible clouds. He pulled the hood of his jacket over his head, hiding his face from a world that no longer felt like his.
He wandered aimlessly through the concrete maze, his thoughts as foggy as the air.
Flashes of memory came like shards—sharp and incomplete.
The heat of the fire.
The whine of missiles.
His father's voice, cut short.
The weight of Desmond's broken body in his arms. The blood. The smoke. The silence.
The Council aircraft hovering in the sky like a mechanical vulture, banking away into the clouds, indifferent to what it had left behind.
His fingers curled tightly in his jacket pocket, clutching the Defector blade.
He reached the edge of Sector C and looked up. Through the smog and smoke, he saw it—his building. His home.
The top floors were blackened with soot, the once-pristine glass façade now cracked and bowed. From the roof, trails of smoke still floated upward. Fire-Control Aircraft hovered above, spraying thick clouds of extinguisher foam that drifted downward like melting snow.
The penthouse—his penthouse—was gone.
The city didn't stop for grief. People still bustled by, averted their eyes from the boy limping in a blood-stained hoodie.
But Mikey wasn't looking at them. His eyes were fixed on the smoldering ruin above.
And behind his eyes—burned like a brand into the back of his skull—was the last image of his father's face.
What was left of it.
Not even the dawn light could chase that darkness away.
He wandered.
No direction. No plan. Just motion. One foot in front of the other, like it was all he knew to do. The city roared around him, its clean silver streets humming with early commuters, delivery drones, and faces that didn't know, didn't care, couldn't possibly feel what he was feeling.
Inside his head, though, it was chaos. A riot of thoughts crashing into each other like storms of static.
Why did this happen?
My dad was telling the truth. Nadia too.
So why did I doubt them? Why did I let them take her?
Why didn't I warn Dad like she told me too?
He clenched his jaw, trying to focus—trying to hold on to something real—but every corner he turned looked more sterile, more foreign. The skyline of Sector C used to feel like home. Now it just loomed overhead like steel bars—an endless metal jungle built to keep people in.
A prison.
His breath caught as he passed a building's mirrored surface and caught a glimpse of himself. Disheveled. Hood up. Blood dried in the corner of his eye. He looked more ghost than boy.
Then he saw it.
A massive billboard stretched across the glass façade of a neighboring skyscraper. The screen flickered between glitzy news anchors and breaking reports. But one image stopped him cold.
A live broadcast of his old home—or what was left of it.
The penthouse.
Charred. Ripped apart. Fire Control crews still circling like flies around a carcass.
Headline:"Vice Secretary of Defense's home in flames, killed by Defectors — SD. Morrison Vows Swift Justice."
Mikey's blood ran ice cold. His eyes scanned every word again. Defectors.Justice.Payne Morrison.
A flicker of static burned across his mind's eye.
But he remembered exactly what he saw. The Council aircraft. The Roundtable and Serpent sigil, clear as day. A symbol etched in chrome and blood.
And now the Council was spinning lies? Blaming it on the same people they claimed to fight? On his father's own cause?
He felt the last shred of doubt leave his body, like smoke dissipating in a storm. It was no longer a question. No longer a mystery.
The Council is corrupt.
The Council hides the truth.
The Council lies.
Payne Morrison lies.
And then came the memory—the clearest of them all. After explosion. The moment he looked up, saw the serpent emblem, and whispered one name like a curse, like a promise:
"Payne."
His jaw tightened. His hand slipped into his jacket pocket, fingers curling around the hilt of Nadia's blade. His breath came slower now, deeper. Not calm. Not at all. But focused.
He didn't know what came next.
But he knew where it started.
Mikey's breath caught.
In a rush of memory, he remembered what happened the day before — at graduation. He'd asked Payne Morrison to write him a letter of recommendation. Payne, all smug charm and cryptic smiles, told him to meet at the Crying Wolf Lounge in Sector B.
Tomorrow at 7 p.m., he'd said.
Tonight at 7.
Mikey's jaw clenched. His fingers curled into fists. He was going to be there. He was going to look that bastard in the eye — and get answers.
But first... he had to find the place.
He looked around at the towering skyline, unfamiliar in the quiet of early morning. The Crying Wolf wasn't somewhere he'd ever been — a Council man's haunt, no doubt. So he did what he always did when the world didn't make sense.
He raised his hand to his temple and tapped the implant.
"H.E.L.P., turn on."
A pause.
No usual sharp beep. Just... a faint rattle in his skull. Like static struggling to come to life.
Mikey blinked, brow furrowed. Tapped again.
"H.E.L.P., turn on."
Silence.
"...H.E.L.P...?"
Still nothing.
His heart dropped like a stone.
"H.E.L.P.!"
Nothing but the whir of distant traffic and a soft breeze brushing past him.
Mikey stumbled to a nearby bench and dropped onto it like gravity had doubled. He stared forward for a moment, but then hunched over, elbows on his knees, hands pressed hard into his face.
H.E.L.P. was gone.
Gone.
The Home-Engineered Life Partner. The AI his dad built from scratch — not just a machine, not just code. It was Desmond's voice in his ear. His logic. His jokes. His comfort. The last living thread connecting Mikey to the man who'd raised him.
And now that thread had snapped.
H.E.L.P. had been with him since he was eleven — right after his mom died. Desmond built it so Mikey wouldn't be alone. So he'd always have someone to talk to, someone to guide him, argue with, lean on.
Sure, Mikey had griped at him. Called him annoying. Told him to shut up. But H.E.L.P. never left. Never stopped answering. Never made him feel like he was truly by himself.
And now... there was just this silence.
Mikey curled into himself, burying his face deeper in his hands. The tears weren't loud, but they came all the same — raw, aching.
He'd lost his mom. He'd lost his dad. And now he'd lost the only voice that ever helped make sense of that grief.
A ghost made of code. A friend that lived behind his eyes. Gone — shattered with the rest of his world.