Chapter 103 The Purple Sky

Chapter 103 The Purple Sky
Marcus

The purple light from above was blinding. It didn't feel like normal light; it felt heavy, vibrating against my skull and making my ears bleed. Silas’s grip on my neck tightened, his silver wrist blade hovering just an inch from my throat.

"Look at that sky, Marcus," Silas whispered, his voice vibrating through the gold mask. "The board has won. The loop is complete. Every single street rat with an implant below the wall is dropping dead right now."

No, my mind screamed. Not like this. I didn't lose Julian just to let this city burn. The absolute rage inside me grew so hot it felt like it was going to burst my veins. I didn't care about the knife. I didn't care about my own life anymore. I reached up with both hands, ignoring the sharp blade scratching my neck, and dug my fingers directly under the edges of his gold mask.

"You're going down with me!" I roared.

With a wild, desperate heave, I ripped the mask upward. The metal clips tore out of his skin with a wet, sickening sound. Silas let out a sharp cry of agony, his grip on my throat slipping as he stumbled backward down the stone steps.

I fell onto the stairs, coughing violently, the air rushing back into my lungs like fire.

When I looked up, Silas was clutching his face. The gold mask was in my hands, its internal blue wires sparking and hissing. Without the mask, I could see what the Board had done to him. The right side of his face was a twisted mess of white plastic bones and fake cybernetic skin. He looked like the very machines he used to control.

"You little piece of trash," Silas snarled, blood leaking through his fingers. He turned toward the three black robots standing in the lobby. "Unit One, Two, Three! Kill the boy! Burn them all!"

The three red-eyed machines turned toward the escalator in perfect unison. Their heavy mini-guns began to spin with that terrifying, high-pitched metallic click.

Sarah

Inside the crushed iron cage, Maya let out a sharp, piercing shriek.

"Marcus!" I screamed, looking down at the little girl in my lap.

The purple light behind her ears wasn't just blinking anymore; it was burning. Wisps of thin white smoke were rising from the ports in the back of her skull. Her eyes were rolled back, showing nothing but a terrifying, glowing violet color. The biochip inside her brain was cooking her alive as it routed the sky signal to the lower sectors.

"Jax, hold her!" I yelled, gently pushing Maya into his good arm.

Jax groaned, his face totally white from the bullet wound in his shoulder, but he clamped his hand over her chest to keep her from shaking. "Sarah, what are you doing?"

"I’m ending this," I said.

I grabbed the heavy iron wrench from the floor. The anger from losing our home, from watching Julian die, from seeing Marcus get choked on the stairs – it all came together into a solid lump of hot fire in my chest. I didn't look back. I sprinted out from behind the cage, my boots skidding on the bloody marble tiles.

Silas was still dazed on the escalator steps, trying to wipe the blood from his ruined face. He didn't see me coming.

I leaped onto the first step, swinging the heavy iron wrench with every single ounce of human strength I had left.

CRACK.

The solid metal slammed right into the side of Silas’s knee. The bone snapped with a loud, ugly pop. Silas let out a horrific scream, his leg buckling instantly as he tumbled down the stairs, rolling heavily onto the lobby floor right in front of his own war machines.

"Marcus, the mask!" I shouted, my lungs burning as I turned back to the boy. "The transmitter is inside the mask!"

Marcus

I looked down at the gold mask in my hands. The purple sky was still pulsing above us, a giant net of death closing around the city.

Inside the metal casing of the mask, a tiny silver chip was blinking in sync with the sky. This was the bridge link. Without Silas’s face to power it, it was running on a tiny backup battery, still forcing Maya’s brain to broadcast the killing signal.

"Die!" Silas roared from the floor. He was dragging his broken leg behind him, his silver wrist blade extended as he crawled toward me like a spider. "Destroy the mask! Shoot him!"

The centre black robot raised its triple-barrel gun, the red eyes locking onto my chest.

I didn't try to run. I didn't try to hide behind a pillar. I placed the gold mask flat against the sharp stone edge of the escalator step, lifted my heavy boot, and slammed my heel down onto the metal with a wild, vengeful scream.

The mask shattered into a hundred pieces.

A bright explosion of blue and white sparks erupted from the plastic casing, lighting up the smoky lobby for a split second. The high-pitched humming in my ears stopped instantly. Above us, the purple light in the sky blinked out, replaced by the dark, natural gray of the night clouds.

The signal was broken. The lower sectors were safe.

"No!" Silas shrieked, his voice cracking with pure despair. He dropped his knife, his hands clawing at the shattered gold pieces on the floor. "The Board... the Board will kill me for this!"

The three black robots suddenly stopped marching. With the transmitter destroyed, their programming lost its target link. The red lights in their eyes flickered wildly, turning from a solid, angry red to a slow, confused blink.

"We did it," Sarah panted, leaning against the escalator rail, her wrench dripping with Silas's blood. "Marcus, we actually did it."

But before I could even take a breath of relief, the centre black robot let out a deep, mechanical growl.

The red light in its eyes didn't turn off. It turned a bright, blazing yellow. A completely different voice, not Silas's and not the Board’s, boomed from the machine's chest speakers. It was a voice I recognised from the darkest nightmares of my childhood.

It was Mason Thorne.

"A very impressive performance, Nephew," the robot said, its heavy chrome hand suddenly reaching out and locking onto Sarah’s throat before she could even scream. "But you forgot one basic rule of business. I always buy out the competition."

Mason has hijacked the board's war machines, and he has his hand around Sarah’s neck! With Marcus completely drained of power, how will he save her from his own uncle's final trap?