The Director's office didn't feel like an office anymore. It felt like the inside of a dying brain. The massive floor-to-ceiling windows, which usually showed the glittering lights of the city, were now reflecting nothing but a dull, throbbing red glow from the computer screens. Outside, the city was actually going dark. Block by block, the grid was failing as the Scrubber program ate through the Tower's exterior nodes.
Elias stood in the center of the room, his feet planted firm on the expensive rug. He could feel the static electricity in the air. It was so thick it made the hair on his arms stand up. Every time he breathed, he tasted metal—like he was sucking on a copper penny.
The Director was backed up against the glass, his hands shaking as he watched his empire blink out. "You're killing the city, Elias," the old man choked out. "Do you have any idea what happens when the life-support systems in the hospitals go down? When the transit mag-levs lose their guidance? You're murdering thousands of people just to find one girl who doesn't even want to be found."
Elias didn't blink. He didn't even feel a spark of guilt. That part of him—the part that cared about "collateral damage"—had been deleted in the tunnel.
"She's not a girl," Elias said, his voice sounding like two pieces of sandpaper rubbing together. "She's the encryption key. You didn't kidnap her because you wanted her. You kidnapped her because her brain is the only thing that can lock the Scrubber's back door. You turned her into a firewall."
The Director's face went pale. He hadn't expected the "backup" to figure it out so fast. "If you break that firewall, Elias, there's no going back. The Scrubber won't just be in you. It'll be in everyone. It'll 'clean' the whole world until there's nothing left but empty shells walking around, waiting for instructions."
Elias took a step forward. His right leg twitched—a glitch in his motor functions. He ignored it. He reached out and grabbed the edge of the Director's glass desk. Under his touch, the glass began to frost over, tiny white lines spider-webbing out from his fingers. The computer was using his body as a bridge to dump data into the room's hardlines.
"Tell me where the physical core is," Elias commanded.
"I can't," the Director whispered. "I don't even have the clearance anymore. The System saw you coming the moment you stepped into the stairwell. It's already moved her."
Suddenly, the lights in the office didn't just flicker—they turned into a blinding strobe light. A siren started to wail, but it wasn't the fire alarm. It was a low, mournful sound that felt like it was vibrating inside Elias's chest.
The big screen on the wall behind the Director's desk changed. It stopped showing the red text. Instead, it showed a map of the building, but it was shifting and changing like a puzzle. Rooms were being locked down. Elevators were being sent to the basement. The building was literally reconfiguring itself to trap him.
Elias felt a surge of heat in his neck. The red lines under his skin were glowing now, bright enough to see through his shirt. He looked at his hand and saw that the red ink was leaking out of his pores, dripping onto the white rug.
"It's rejecting me," Elias realized. His voice cracked.
"The backup is a temporary fix," the Director said, a bit of hope returning to his voice. "Your brain wasn't built to hold this much data. You're overheating, Elias. In ten minutes, your grey matter is going to be soup. You're going to burn out right here on my floor, and the System will just reboot without you."
Elias didn't run. He didn't panic. He looked at the red marker cap sitting on the desk. He picked it up and rolled it between his fingers. He remembered the feeling of Clara's hand on his. It was a tiny, fading memory, like a photograph left out in the sun, but it was the only thing keeping him from turning into a total machine.
"Then I guess I have ten minutes to break the world," Elias said.
He turned away from the Director and looked at the wall. He didn't see a wall. He saw the electrical conduits running behind the drywall. He saw the fiber-optic cables pulsing with light. He saw the weak point in the building's skeleton.
He doubled over as another wave of pain hit him. It felt like his skull was being cracked open with a hammer. He fell to one knee, the "sloshing" of his wet boots finally stopping as he went still. He jammed his fist into the floor, not out of anger, but to ground himself.
"Clara," he hissed.
The name felt like a spark. The monitors in the room exploded. Not just the screens, but the casings themselves, melting under the sheer force of the data surge Elias was pulling through the air. The Director screamed and dove under his desk as glass rained down like lethal snow.
Elias stood up. He wasn't breathing anymore. He didn't need to. He walked toward the private elevator behind the Director's desk—the one that led to the sub-basement where the "Deep Storage" was.
The doors were welded shut by the security system. Elias didn't even look for a tool. He just reached into the gap between the doors and pulled. The metal shrieked and bent, groaning as the "Scrubber" pushed Elias's muscles far past their breaking point.
The doors tore open, revealing a dark, bottomless shaft.
Elias didn't wait for a car. He stepped into the emptiness and let himself fall.