"No!"
Nikki lunged forward, scrambling over the jagged, smoking ruins of the concrete street. She reached out, her hands desperately swiping at the thick, ash-choked air. "Adonis! Stop! Look at me!"
She waved her arms frantically, screaming his name until her throat felt raw and bloody. But the towering, red-eyed General didn't even twitch.
He stood amidst the slaughtered human soldiers, completely deaf to her desperate pleas, issuing silent, lethal commands to his battalion of War Droids.
"He cannot hear you."
The voice did not come from the burning city. It resonated directly inside Nikki's skull, a cold, omniscient voice that sounded a lot like her, smooth and thick at the same time.
It was the voice of the System, stripped of its usual gamified neutrality, laced now with cruel, punitive intent.
