## **Chapter 16: The Breach**
The morning sun bled slowly into the city, casting long shadows across the fractured skyline of Auric. From the rooftop of an abandoned transit station, Kian crouched beside Serena, peering through a haze of industrial fog at the southeastern wall of the Central Nexus—a sprawling compound that housed the Empire's critical data systems. Unlike the outposts they'd infiltrated before, the Nexus was a fortress. Heavily guarded. Constantly monitored. But today, it would become something else: a crack in the armor. A breach.
The plan had formed in fragments—risky ideas, calculated assumptions, a lot of hope. Lina had intercepted chatter the previous night: a maintenance detail was scheduled for mid-morning, a narrow window when a section of the perimeter grid would briefly power down. Too brief for full-scale infiltration—but just long enough for someone with Kian's abilities to pry it open further. And so they waited.
Serena's voice was calm, her breath rising in slow puffs. "Drones cycle every twenty-two seconds. Timing has to be exact." She handed Kian a slim device—Lina's latest creation, a pulse anchor designed to amplify his energy into a focused, directed burst. "Get us through the panel without triggering a perimeter lockdown. No fireworks."
Kian smirked faintly, fingers brushing the cool metal. "No promises. But I'll try."
Far below, Rex led the secondary team through the tangle of catwalks that crisscrossed the drainage channels near the base of the compound. Their goal was to create just enough noise to draw the first wave of guards away from the breach point, buying Kian and Serena a clean opening. By the time anyone noticed something was wrong, the breach would already be in progress.
Kian closed his eyes for a moment, focusing inward. The energy stirred like coals behind his ribs—warm, alive, steady. Not the wild, unpredictable surges of the past. He breathed in, and the sensation expanded through his chest, into his arms, his palms. Then he moved.
Down the scaffold. Across the concrete lip. Through the blind spot between camera sweeps. When he reached the access panel—roughly the size of a manhole cover, nestled low beside the base wall—he dropped to one knee, pressing the pulse anchor against the center port. It clicked softly into place, displaying a blinking red light.
Serena knelt beside him, tablet in hand. "Disabling their internal alarm grid… now. Ten seconds."
Kian raised his hands and exhaled. The surge answered immediately—electric, hot, precise. With practiced ease, he funneled it into the anchor. The light turned from red to gold. A hum filled the air. The panel flickered, then popped loose with a burst of steam and a low metallic gasp. They were in.
Serena pulled the panel free and slid in first, followed by Kian. The shaft was narrow, lined with conduit and warm cables, just barely wide enough to crawl. "Fifteen meters," she called ahead, her voice echoing in the dark. "Then vertical climb."
They moved quickly. Behind them, distant alarms flared—Rex's team was making their distraction count. At the base of the shaft, they reached a vertical tunnel with a metal ladder leading up to the maintenance access floor. Serena climbed first; Kian followed, the pulse anchor strapped to his back humming with residual charge.
When they surfaced inside the Nexus, it was like stepping into another world. Everything gleamed—glass and polished metal, endless rows of servers humming like a beehive. The floor beneath them pulsed faintly with the flow of data. The Empire's heart.
Serena tapped her wrist module. "You've got five minutes before the system recognizes a failure cascade. After that, they'll deploy all internal guards."
Kian nodded. He approached the primary data node, its interface glowing soft blue. He placed his hands against the panel. "Let's shake the hive."
The energy flowed like water. Through him. Into the system. He didn't blast it—he threaded into it, fingers flickering with arcs of controlled light. The node stuttered, then complied. A low whine filled the air as partitions began to unlock.
Serena was already at the second terminal, extracting encrypted files—proof of anomalies, records of disappearances, names the Empire had buried. Lina's parents. Hers. Others who had vanished before the regime ever announced them missing.
Suddenly, static crackled through Serena's wrist module. "Change in patrol," Rex's voice warned. "They're circling back faster than expected. Three minutes."
Too short. Not enough time.
Kian gritted his teeth, pouring more of himself into the system. Files bloomed across the interface. Data floods. Video logs. Surveillance notes. "Almost there," he muttered.
Serena downloaded everything she could. "We go in sixty seconds whether you're done or not," she said, eyes never leaving the screen. "If they catch you in here—"
"They won't," Kian said, voice low.
The moment came at forty-eight seconds. The final encryption lock disintegrated with a sharp ping. Serena yanked the drives, stuffed them into her vest, and hit the alarm override. All around them, red lights flooded the hall as sirens screamed to life.
"Now," she barked.
They ran. Back through the shaft. Down the ladder. Crawling fast, lungs burning. Kian sealed the panel behind them with a final pulse, just as boots thundered onto the floor above. The shaft hissed closed.
Outside, Rex's team had cleared the way. Smoke rose in the distance where two hover bikes blazed in flames—a diversion well played. They regrouped in the underpass, breath ragged, eyes wide.
Kian doubled over, hands on his knees, the energy inside him thrumming but intact. Serena laid a hand on his shoulder. "You did it."
He looked up, chest still heaving. "No. We did."
And now they had proof.
Tomorrow, Auric City would no longer be told what to believe.
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