Targeted by the Tower

The ceiling of Tier 4 didn't just crack; it disintegrated. Structural integrity grids shrieked as they buckled, showering the maintenance shaft in a cascade of white-hot steel and pulverized concrete. Kaelen Vane slammed the Iron Lung into a diagonal support brace, his magnetic clamps whining in protest against the sudden, violent G-force. Below him, the sector was dissolving. The Tower wasn't just fighting him—it was purging the floor to bury the ledger data he’d just broadcast to the city.

Frame Integrity: 32%.

Three sleek, silver-cased purge drones surged from the darkness of the upper catwalks, their targeting lasers locking onto his chest plate with clinical, lethal precision. They weren't soldiers; they were janitors scrubbing a stain. Kaelen pulled up the decrypted ledger on his secondary monitor, his fingers dancing across the haptic interface. The floor rotation was failing, but the ledger predicted the collapse patterns with terrifying accuracy. He didn't aim for the exit; he aimed for the primary atmospheric pressure valve. As the drones fired, Kaelen triggered an overload in his localized shielding, dumping the remaining battery power into the valve’s magnetic seal. The ensuing blast of depressurization didn't just rattle the drones; it shredded their delicate sensor arrays, sending them spinning into the abyss. Kaelen tumbled through the breach, his frame scraping against jagged rebar, his vision swimming in a sea of red system alerts.

He landed hard on the Tier 5 transition platform, the metal floor bucking beneath him. The broadcast feed—his lifeline—flickered violently. Static clawed at the display, the signal being aggressively scrubbed by Overseer Thorne’s private guard. Kaelen hammered his fist against the console, his

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