The Veins were fractured, corridors twisted into rubble, fires licking at walls that weren't built to burn. Civilians screamed somewhere beneath the chaos, their voices muffled by steel and smoke. Every shadow seemed deliberate, every echo a calculated trick.
Drip… metallic groan… faint shuffle…
I stepped carefully over a fallen conduit, tracing patterns in the destruction. Panels warped, pipes severed, lights flickering like nervous witnesses. Each misaligned panel, each unstable beam, told a story one I already knew. The Architect had played his pieces perfectly. Everyone around me, even those I'd called allies, had been pawns. Kara's betrayals weren't impulsive; Elliot's omissions weren't mistakes; the Detective's nudges weren't guidance. All deliberate. All wires in a system I hadn't fully understood until now.
I pressed my hand to a wall, feeling the subtle vibrations tremors in the steel that mirrored the tremors in the city above. The Veins themselves seemed complicit, groaning under weight, strain, and orchestrated chaos. And me? I was just another piece in their curated game.
Soft hiss… distant drip…
I cataloged every detail, every hazard, every potential lever. Paths blocked by rubble could be bypassed, conduits cut could reroute power, smoke could mask movement. The city's skeleton was a puzzle, and for the first time, I wasn't just observing I was calculating escape routes, contingencies, and countermeasures. Trust wasn't part of the equation anymore. It hadn't been for a long time.
I paused at a junction, listening. Footsteps echoed faintly above, panicked or cautious, I couldn't tell. Voices shouted directions, commands lost in static. It didn't matter. I was alone, and alone was enough.
A panel groaned under pressure. Sparks arced lazily across exposed wiring. Perfectly timed, almost theatrical. I noted the timing, the spacing, the reactions of anyone unfortunate enough to be nearby. If I moved right, I could exploit it. If I moved wrong… well, that was just data.
Drip… low metallic clank…
I exhaled slowly, letting the details settle. No allies, no guarantees, no soft landings. Only the Veins, the chaos, and me. Every plan, every step, every micro-movement had to account for a world where trust didn't exist.
I traced a line with my finger along the rail beside me, almost as if drawing the path forward. Every wire, every conduit, every human pawns' reaction was a note in a symphony of calculated survival.
"Trust? Funny word," I muttered under my breath, voice low, sardonic. "I'll file it under obsolete."