Elder Kiet’s hand flew to the crystal interface, his usually placid expression tightening as raw data streamed across the display. “A distributed denial-of-service, but… it’s evolving. Morphing into something kinetic.” His fingers danced across the console, trying to isolate the attack vectors, but the data was too chaotic, too layered.
Virot, jolted from his semi-slumber by the piercing wail, blinked. “Kinetic? Is this a new type of DRM? Like, I need a plastic keycard for the next zone?” He pushed himself up, rubbing sleep from his eyes, the decrypted ledger forgotten for a moment. He still saw glowing mission markers, not danger.
Narija, however, had gone rigid. Her gaze snapped to the main security feed flickering on a smaller screen near Elder Kiet. Dotting the boundary of the orphanage grounds, emerging from the dense Ayuthara night, were sleek, obsidian shapes. Not human. Too precise. Too numerous. Corporate enforcement chassis. Their multi-jointed limbs moved with mechanical fluidity, cannon apertures extended, glinting under the emergency lights.
“No, Virot,” Narija’s voice was low, strained. “This isn’t a keycard. This is a purge.”
Elder Kiet frowned sharply. “The ‘deletion scheme’ Pravin spoke of. He’s initiated it.” A sharp crack resonated from the perimeter barrier, followed by the distant whine of high-energy munitions. The emergency lights in the server room flickered again, straining against the sudden power drain.
Virot pulled out his terminal slate, his fingers flying across the holographic keyboard. “Right, so hostile mob spawns. I’ll just run a bypass script on their comms, shut down their targeting. Standard procedure for automated patrols.” He’d done it countless times with the Trakhara Spire’s internal security bots, turning them into docile, decorative metal husks.
Sirens rose an octave. A shudder tore through the sub-floor, knocking plaster from the ceiling panels. Beyond the blast doors, the rapid-fire *thump-thump-thump* of heavy ordnance drew closer. The feed showed the automatons advancing, their discharge vents spitting focused energy bolts that carved glowing gouges into the masonry.
“They’re not ‘automated patrols,’ Virot,” Narija yelled over the din, her voice laced with an urgency he rarely heard. “These are military-grade corporate assets. They’re designed to bypass everything except structural integrity.”
Virot’s script compiled, ready to deploy. “Relax, it’s just a firewall. I’ll find the backdoor.” He tapped the deploy command with confidence.
[ *EXECUTION FAILED. TARGET SYSTEMS UNAVAILABLE. REMOTE OVERRIDE DENIED.* ]
[ *ACCESS PROTOCOL: ELIMINATION.* ]
The message flashed on his slate. Virot frowned. “Huh. That’s new. They’ve got some serious encryption on these guys.” He tried a different vector, a more aggressive, brute-force approach, one that usually took down even hardened government firewalls. It was a bit overkill for what he assumed were glorified sentinels.
Another crack, closer this time. A high-pitched shriek of tortured metal. The main entrance to the Glass Lotus retreat, a thick plasteel barrier, groaned and buckled inwards. A shadow fell over the corridor as an assault unit, larger than the others, with a long, slender barrel glowing faintly, aimed its turret directly at their chamber.
“Virot, down!” Narija hit him sideways with her shoulder, driving him flat to the tiles. His handheld device skittered across the concrete. A searing, incandescent beam lanced through the air where his chest had been half a second earlier, vaporizing a section of the server rack behind them into bubbling slag and copper steam.
A sharp, metallic tang filled the air. Narija drew in a ragged hiss, teeth locked tight. The sleeve of her jumpsuit was blackened away, exposing blistered skin that hissed and leaked clear fluid around charred edges. Her stare remained fixed on the smoldering wall. She had thrown herself in front of him.
Virot blinked, disoriented, staring at her arm. The raw, exposed flesh. The smell of burning cloth and flesh. It wasn’t a graphic animation. It wasn’t a glitch in the rendering. This was… real. The heat from the laser, the sudden, terrible stink, the silent, trembling pain etched on Narija’s face. It wasn’t a temporary debuff. It wasn’t a visual effect. It was *blood*. And *pain*. And it was because of him.
Crimson welled along the split skin of her arm. The sleepy apathy that usually cocooned him split straight down the middle. This had no respawn point. His pulse surged into his throat, hard and sickeningly fast. Elder Kiet’s rapid keystrokes, the blaring sirens, the mechanical impacts beyond the breached entryway—none of it was background noise anymore.
“Narija!” His voice was a raw, unfamiliar rasp. He scrambled to his feet, his gaze wild, terrified. He snatched up his slate, fingers shaking over the glass. The lead unit in the hall advanced, its capacitors whining as charge gathered in the barrel.
“No more scripts,” Virot muttered, pupils small against the red glare. “No more bypasses.” He slammed his palm onto the slate. He didn't seek an access handshake; he inverted the terminal's power regulation, overriding the factory safeguards.
[ *WARNING: EXTREME POWER DRAIN. SYSTEM INTEGRITY AT RISK.* ]
He dumped the entire battery array into an unfiltered magnetic burst. The arc flared violet, washing through the corridor and punching past insulated chassis plates. The lead unit’s capacitor died mid-whine. Sparks sprayed from its joint housing, followed by greasy black smoke. The frame dropped like lead ballast, slamming onto the threshold with a heavy crunch.
The supporting units along the perimeter followed suit. Capacitors shorted out with dull pops, limbs seizing mid-stride before toppling into the gravel. The alarms cut out.
Silence. Thick, heavy, ringing silence. Only the sound of Virot’s ragged breathing and the soft, pained whimpers from Narija disturbed the air. Elder Kiet, still crouched by his console, looked up, his face pale with shock. Virot knelt beside Narija, gently touching her burnt arm, his hands trembling. He had never seen real pain, real injury, up close. He felt sick.
His glass slate, still hot against his palm, blinked with a residual push notification. His EMP had fried the local field units, but the parent queue remained active on the city net.
[ *DELETION PROTOCOL ACTIVATION CONFIRMED. TARGET: VIROT TRAKHARA. SCHEDULED FOR ANNUAL SHAREHOLDERS GALA: AYUTHARA GRAND BALLROOM, TOMORROW, 18:00 HRS.* ]
The image of the ballroom, of the stage where he had been introduced, flashed in his mind. This wasn't a game. This was his life. And it was set to end tomorrow.