Chapter 17: The Fall of the Core

👉 Previous Decision: Julian confronted Arthur in the dark vault as their memories merged, and Arthur confessed to ruining his father.

Before Arthur could reach the manual server wipe button on the emergency flash drive, the heavy vault door burst open. Evelyn Ross stood framed in the flickering red light, her face streaked with sweat and grime. She held a heavy crowbar.

With a desperate cry, she lunged towards the primary breaker lever on the wall. A deafening electrical arc flash ripped through the air, illuminating the vault in a blinding white light. Sparks flew, followed by the sickening crunch of metal.

The entire subterranean power grid shuddered. The severance quantum core, already damaged by the solar storm, exploded with a final, violent surge, sending millions of dollars in hardware damages into fiery ruin. Smoke billowed from the destroyed terminals. Emergency fire suppression sprinklers roared to life, raining down on the ruined machines and the dazed, confused analysts.

Severed employees across the vast chamber began to stir, their dual memories crashing together in sudden, painful realization. Gasps, cries, and bewildered murmurs filled the smoke-filled air.

Arthur Pendelton, his face contorted in a rare moment of pure rage, cursed under his breath. He shoved Evelyn aside, already moving. He slipped out through a private emergency exit I hadn’t even known existed, vanishing into the dark, storm-drenched streets of D.C. before federal law enforcement officers, alerted by the widespread power grid anomaly and the catastrophic failures across downtown, arrived on the scene.

➡️ Read CHAPTER 18 to continue the story.