The wind howled like a dying god over the skeletal remains of District 4. Ten days had passed since the night the sky broke open, yet the air still tasted of sulfur and wet ash. Leo sat huddled beneath the shattered concrete awning of what used to be a bustling corner bakery, his bare feet pulled tight against his chest. His clothes were stiff with dried mud and someone else's blood—or perhaps his own; he couldn't remember anymore.

They burst out of the subterranean elevator shaft into the central broadcasting hub on the highest surviving skyscraper of District 1. Below them, the ruined city stretched out like a dark canvas dotted with the faint campfires of struggling survivors.

The wind howled around the open-air antenna platform, but Leo didn't feel the cold. The golden circuits on his skin hummed with a steady, rhythmic warmth.

"The main satellite uplink is right here," Maya panted, slamming her fingers across a battered console. "If we broadcast the master decryption key to every surviving radio, phone, and terminal across the globe, Thorne's entire network will collapse in seconds. The Directorate will lose control of every automated asset they have."

"Do it," Leo said quietly.

Maya’s fingers flew across the keyboard like lightning. A progress bar flashed on the massive holographic screen above the city: Data Transfer: 10%... 45%... 80%...

Suddenly, the heavy steel door behind them exploded inward in a cloud of smoke and splintered metal.

Director Thorne staggered through the smoke. His pristine white suit was charred and stained with blood, his left arm hanging uselessly at his side, but his eyes burned with a psychotic, desperate fury. He raised his remaining plasma pistol directly at Leo's head.

"You arrogant little glitch," Thorne snarled, his voice trembling with rage. "You think you've won? Without me to manage the weather grid, the automated storm barriers will fail. The storm that destroyed your family ten years ago? It wasn't natural, boy. I engineered it. And without the core's stabilization codes... it's coming back tonight."

Leo froze. The wind around them suddenly grew violently cold. The sky above District 1, which had been clear for days, began to turn a sickly, bruised purple. The air pressure dropped violently.