They were almost out.
The narrow service corridor behind the Night Market's VIP zone was already within reach—Lira was guiding them through a short, verified route—when Kai suddenly screamed and dropped to his knees. His hands clamped onto his head, fingers digging into the skin around his mechanical eye.
"Interception…" he rasped through clenched teeth. "They… they've entered my network… Astra, run! Don't stay here!"
Kai's mechanical eye flared a toxic red. Rapid lines of code surged across its surface—foreign, aggressive, devouring everything in its path.
Astra rushed toward him, but it was already too late.
From the surrounding shadows—behind stalls, behind rusted pillars—new figures began to emerge. Not two. Not a handful. A legion. Twenty, thirty, maybe more—Hunters in identical gray armor without insignias. Their movements were perfectly synchronized, as if a single mind controlled multiple bodies.
At the same moment, a deep, crushing thunder rolled across the hangar. The roof simply vanished—an orbital beam from the "Dead Moon" struck the center of the market. Metal and composite materials were erased without a trace, dissolving into a cloud of plasma. Through the opening, cold artificial starlight poured in from the false sky above.
Lira barely managed to shove Astra aside.
A heavy drop capsule slammed into the exact spot where they had been standing, its hull still glowing from atmospheric entry.
"CITIZEN KAI," a synthetic voice boomed from speakers echoing across the hangar. "YOUR QUANTUM INDEX HAS BEEN REVOKED. YOU ARE SENTENCED TO FULL RESET AND DISASSEMBLY INTO COMPONENTS. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE."
From the capsule, magnetic restraints fired outward—thick, shining cables with neural suppressors at their tips. They wrapped around Kai, piercing skin and implants, paralyzing his nervous system. He jerked violently, trying to resist, but the restraints were already dragging him toward the capsule's open maw.
"ASTRA!" he screamed desperately, reaching toward her. Tears and rage filled his human eye. "Don't let them… don't let them erase me!"
The capsule sealed shut with a heavy metallic clang. A second later, it launched upward on anti-gravity engines and vanished through the hole in the roof, heading directly toward the Black Square—the most feared prison-laboratory in Sector 01, from which no one had ever returned intact.
Astra stood in the ruins of the market.
The Hunters slowly closed in around her. Lira, pressed against a wall, had already raised her rifle—but even she understood: there were too many.
Something inside Astra finally broke.
Not fear.
Not despair.
It was the end of human endurance.
All the years in the ghettos, all the humiliation, all the "defects," all the losses—everything condensed into a single burning point deep in her chest.
"Tell me, little spark…" Tanatos whispered inside her mind. His voice was almost gentle, almost affectionate, like an old friend who had been waiting for this moment. "Are you ready to burn this city to the ground to get your little hacker back?"
Astra slowly подняла голову.
Her eyes were completely filled with violet light.
"Yes," she said aloud.
Her voice was quiet—but it echoed across the entire hangar, drowning out sirens and the Hunters' heavy breathing.
Her hair began to lift slowly, suspended by static charge. The air around her thickened, turning violet, as if reality itself was changing color. The violet threads across her shoulder and body flared brighter, burning through the remnants of her clothing.
The Hunters raised their weapons in unison.
But it was already too late.
Tanatos was no longer asking permission.
He had received it.
And now Sector 01 was about to learn what happens when an spark's patience finally ends.
Lira, standing beside her, quietly cursed and tightened her grip on her rifle.
"Astra… if you let him out completely now… there's no way back."
Astra did not answer.
She simply took a step forward.
And the shadows around her began to move again.