The chamber buzzed with nervous energy. Rebels gathered in clusters, checking gear, loading crude weapons cobbled together from scraps. Lanternlight flickered across their faces—some grim, some eager, all weighed down by what lay ahead.
Daren stood at the center, his scarred hands gripping a crude map spread across a table. His voice rumbled low, steady. "The Accord believes they've broken us. Tonight, we remind them they haven't."
Kael stood beside Mira, his stomach in knots. Daren's finger stabbed at a point on the map: a relay hub, one of many that carried the Accord's silent broadcasts across the city.
"We strike here," Daren said. "Just long enough to show the people it can be done. Long enough for them to remember they still have voices."
A murmur of agreement swept the chamber.
Kael swallowed hard. His hands still shook from the last encounter with the drone, but Mira's presence steadied him. She caught his eye and gave the faintest nod. You're ready.
Hours later, the night air aboveground clung cold and heavy. Kael crouched with a small squad behind a crumbling wall, the relay hub looming ahead. Its steel tower glowed faintly, guarded by sentries and the ever-present hum of drones circling like vultures.
Mira leaned close, her whisper barely a breath. "Your task is simple. Get the emitter on the tower. Once it pulses, voices will ride the signal across half the district."
Simple. Kael almost laughed. His heart thudded so loud he thought the drones would hear.
The squad moved. Shadows against shadows. A knife flashed, a guard dropped soundlessly. Kael followed Mira, pressing against the cold steel of the tower. She gestured upward.
His throat tightened. The climb. The risk. One wrong move and it was over. But he forced his hands to grip the ladder rungs, each step echoing with the memory of Mira's words: You either endure it, or you fight it.
Halfway up, a drone veered close, its sensors sweeping. Kael froze, sweat slicking his palms. Below, Mira flung a rock into the shadows. The drone turned, drawn to the false vibration, and drifted away.
Kael forced himself upward, higher, until the city stretched silent and endless beneath him. At the top, the relay box hummed with power. His fingers trembled as he pressed the emitter into place.
For a heartbeat, nothing.
Then a pulse shot through the tower—white-blue energy crackling outward. Across the city, loudspeakers sputtered, glitched… and voices erupted. A thousand stolen words bursting into the night.
Kael's chest swelled. They had done it.
But the triumph lasted only seconds.
A flare lit the sky crimson. Alarms wailed. From the rooftops, the Quiet Guard poured like shadows made flesh.
"Down!" Mira screamed from below. "Kael, jump!