The street was gone.
Only ash and static drifted through the ruin where the fight had been.
Lucas coughed, dragging himself upright. His armor was half-melted, HUD a storm of error codes. Above the haze, the sky bled gold as the Core Sentinels descended—three vast shapes wrapped in light, each step shaking the city.
[Containment escalation confirmed.]
[Directive: Terminate anomalies.]
He turned toward Evelyn. She was standing amid the dust, silver hair scorched at the edges, eyes glowing like tempered metal.
"Guess they're not here to congratulate us," he muttered.
Evelyn didn't answer. She was already analyzing trajectories, reading the rhythm of the Sentinels' pulse cannons. When she finally spoke, her tone was pure control.
"Two minutes before they acquire firing lock. If we run north, we'll reach an access conduit."
Lucas smirked. "You sound like you've done this before."
"I've never had to run," she said. "Until now."
A beam lanced down, vaporizing the street. The shockwave hurled them both backward.
Lucas rolled, firing on reflex, but the rounds sparked uselessly off the Sentinel's barrier. Evelyn raised her hand; the air shimmered, forming a translucent wall that deflected the next blast.
The impact rattled her bones.
"Your shield won't hold!" he shouted.
"It doesn't need to." She pointed upward. "That crane—its core's still charged."
He followed her gaze. "You're insane."
"Correct," she said flatly, and sprinted.
Together they dove through collapsing scaffolds toward the crane. Evelyn's resonance flared, bending gravity just enough to launch them onto the upper beam.
Lucas jammed one of his grenades—improvised from drone parts—into the crane's power coil.
"On my mark!"
Evelyn's eyes widened. "Your mark?"
"Yeah. Three—two—"
The coil detonated, hurling a surge of blue fire into the nearest Sentinel. The machine reeled, armor shattering in sheets of light.
Lucas laughed breathlessly. "See? Teamwork."
Evelyn shot him a look halfway between disbelief and reluctant admiration. "Crude. Effective."
The remaining Sentinels turned toward them.
"Move!"
They leapt from the beam as the structure collapsed behind them. Evelyn caught his wrist mid-air, twisting gravity again so they landed in the lower transit tunnel with a bone-shaking crash.
Silence.
Only their ragged breathing and the distant hum of failing circuits.
Lucas leaned against the wall, trying to catch his breath. "You could've warned me before flipping gravity upside down."
"You were too slow to warn," she replied.
He grinned faintly. "You're really bad at saying thank you."
Evelyn's grey eyes met his. "I don't thank people who cause containment breaches."
"Funny. I was about to say I don't trust people who open dimensional rifts in the middle of a city."
A flicker of something—amusement?—touched her face, gone as quickly as it came.
"Then we agree on one thing."
They stared at each other across the narrow tunnel, two survivors bound by a glitch neither understood.
Above them, the Sentinels regrouped. The System's voice whispered through every speaker:
"Containment failure ongoing. New directive: terminate anomalies jointly."
Lucas exhaled. "Guess we're both on the hit list now."
Evelyn turned toward the darkness ahead. "Then we move together… until the list changes."
He nodded slowly. "Temporary truce?"
Her answer was cool and precise. "Temporary."
They started walking—Lucas limping slightly, Evelyn's silver hair streaked with soot—disappearing into the shadows where the System's light couldn't reach.
And somewhere in the network above, a new line of code appeared:
[Resonance Link – stabilizing.]