Meadow's POV
The room seemed to shrink around you, though in reality the space remained unchanged. The city outside continued its restless movements, unaware that a quiet war had been declared within the invisible arteries of its systems. You could feel the pulse of the storm that had passed lingering in the air, the dampness heavy, a faint metallic scent riding on the breeze that slipped through the slightly ajar window. The words on your device repeated in your mind over and over. "I am inside. And you cannot stop me." The sentence was deceptively simple, but its implications clawed at the edges of your understanding. Not an attacker, not a saboteur, not a manipulator in the traditional sense. This was someone who had already integrated themselves into the city's lifeblood, someone whose reach transcended the structures that Tyler and Victor had built and Dr. Ward had observed with painstaking precision.
