The Countdown Begins

Veyna’s breath hitched as she stared at the terminal. The numbers continued to tick down, each second chipping away at the city's supposed perfection.
> [00:59:11] UNTIL CORE FAILURE.[00:59:10] UNTIL CORE FAILURE.


Her hands hovered over the interface, hesitation gripping her like frostbite. Reporting this anomaly meant alerting The Sentinels, Cyropolis’s enforcers. But keeping silent meant letting the system—the very lifeblood of the city—collapse without warning.
The logic was simple. The Cortex never failed.And yet, the numbers didn’t lie.
She tapped into the encrypted logs, pulling data from the depths of the Cortex’s neural mainframe. Line after line of fragmented code scrolled across the screen, but one repeated anomaly stood out—a breach originating from outside the Core.
That shouldn’t be possible.
The Core was locked beneath The Citadel, the administrative stronghold of Cyropolis. No one accessed it. No one questioned it. It was untouchable.
Then why was there an intrusion?
A faint hiss behind her sent a shiver up her spine. She turned, heart pounding.
A Sentinel drone hovered in the doorway. Its sleek, black frame gleamed under the cold fluorescent lights. Its red eye pulsed as it scanned the room.
"Unauthorized system access detected."
Veyna's stomach dropped. No.
If she stayed, she’d be detained. Questioned. Erased. The Sentinels did not ask for explanations. They did not tolerate deviations.
Her pulse thundered as she did something unthinkable. She severed the link.
The screen went dark. The countdown still ticked in her mind. 00:58:32.
And then—she ran.
The alarm klaxons blared, a deafening wail as the facility locked down. Doors slammed shut, steel barricades deploying in rapid succession. Her feet pounded against the cold metal floor as she bolted down the corridor, every step shadowed by the relentless hum of the Sentinel’s pursuit.
She didn’t have a plan.
She only knew one thing.
Cyropolis was ending. And she had less than an hour to stop it.