The rain wouldn't stop. It fell in sheets, heavy and cold, washing the blood from Jaden's hands as Lydia half-carried him through the ruins of the ridge.
They stumbled into an abandoned communications tower — the last structure standing on the mountain's edge.
The metal walls groaned against the wind. Inside, the faint blue glow of the console flickered to life.
"This is it," Lydia whispered, lowering him gently onto a broken chair. "The last uplink station."
Jaden coughed, his breathing ragged. "Lydia… you shouldn't be here. If they track this signal—"
"Then let them," she snapped, her eyes fierce. "I'm tired of running."
He managed a weak smile. "You sound like me now."
She pressed her palm against the console, and the drive's light began to pulse again — brighter, stronger. The system recognized it instantly.
"Encryption link active," a robotic voice intoned.
Lines of code streamed across the cracked monitor — thousands of documents, names, and transactions flashing before her eyes. The evidence Cassandra died for. The proof of what Jaden's family had done.
Lydia swallowed hard. "Once this goes live, there's no going back."
Jaden's gaze locked onto hers — pale, tired, but burning with truth. "Do it."
"You'll lose everything—"
He cut her off with a whisper. "It's already gone. All that's left is you."
Her chest tightened. She wanted to tell him to stop talking like that, to promise her he'd make it through the night. But the storm outside howled too loudly, as if the world itself was warning them that time was up.
Suddenly, the door slammed open.
Lydia spun around, heart racing.
Out of the rain stepped a figure — drenched, gun in hand, eyes burning like ice.
Cassandra.
Lydia gasped. "You're alive—"
"Barely," Cassandra hissed, clutching her side. "The tunnels collapsed, but I found another exit." Her gaze dropped to the console. "You're about to send it, aren't you?"
Lydia nodded slowly. "The world deserves to know."
Cassandra's voice was low, urgent. "You don't understand. If that data goes public, the system will retaliate — automatic purges, name erasures, blacklists. Anyone tied to it dies in silence. You'll be hunted, Lydia. So will he."
Lydia's hand hesitated above the transmit button.
Rain drummed on the metal roof. The room pulsed with tension.
Jaden stirred. "Cassandra… you said she needed to finish what my mother started."
"I did," Cassandra said, her tone trembling. "But your mother didn't want destruction — she wanted reform. A quiet revolution from the inside. That file…" she nodded to the drive, "…will burn the entire network down."
Lydia stared at her, torn. "So what are you saying?"
"I'm saying choose wisely." Cassandra's voice cracked. "Expose them, and chaos will follow. Hold it back, and the truth dies with us."
The console beeped — Transmission ready.
Lydia turned to Jaden. "What do I do?"
He looked at her, eyes soft despite the pain. "Do what you think she would've done."
For a long, aching moment, Lydia stood there — drenched, trembling, her finger hovering over the button.
Then, slowly, she lowered her hand… and instead opened the file directory.
"What are you doing?" Cassandra demanded.
"Changing the story," Lydia whispered. "If destruction isn't the answer, then rebirth is."
She accessed the system core — rewriting the delivery algorithm, rerouting the data not to the public network… but to every financial institution tied to Jaden's empire.
Cassandra's eyes widened. "You're seeding it internally—"
Lydia nodded. "Let their own greed eat them alive. The system will destroy itself from the inside."
The console buzzed. The rain outside grew heavier.
"Transmission in progress," the computer said.
Suddenly — boom.
A drone missile slammed into the side of the tower. The floor buckled, metal screamed. Lydia fell to her knees, shielding Jaden as the room lit up with fire.
"Lydia!" Cassandra shouted over the noise. "You need to finish it—now!"
Lydia crawled back to the console, smoke stinging her eyes. She slammed the final command.
TRANSMISSION COMPLETE.
The drive sparked, melting into the circuitry as the tower's systems overloaded.
And then—silence.
Just the storm, and the hum of a world that had finally been set free.
---
Hours later, dawn painted the sky in pale gold.
The tower was nothing but ashes and twisted steel. Lydia sat near the edge, her arms wrapped around Jaden, who lay unconscious but breathing.
Below them, in the distant city, the screens of the global network flickered — banks shutting down, fake accounts erased, board members exposed.
Cassandra stood a few feet away, staring into the horizon. "You did it," she said quietly.
Lydia didn't look up. "No. We did."
Cassandra nodded once. "Your mother would've been proud."
A faint breeze brushed Lydia's hair as she glanced down at Jaden's face, bruised but alive. She smiled weakly. "And now, maybe, he'll finally be free."
Cassandra turned to leave. "The world's changing, Lydia. Make sure you survive long enough to see it."
And with that, she disappeared into the mist.
Lydia sat there a while longer, the weight of everything settling in — the love, the loss, the truth finally set free.
Then she whispered softly, more to herself than to him:
"Beneath his cold eyes, I finally saw the man he was meant to be."