Catalyst

They didn’t sleep that night.

Not really.

Jessi pretended, lying flat on the cracked concrete floor, staring up at the ceiling like she could see through it—through the city—through the endless smiling machine wrapped around everything.

Paul snored softly, curled into the crook of her arm. Every few breaths, his tail twitched like he was dreaming about running. Or maybe fighting.
Or maybe falling.

Jessi didn’t blame him.

The stolen drive sat beside her, dead now.
Used up.
Its last confession spent.

She should have felt angry.

She should have felt afraid.

Instead, Jessi felt cold.
Sharp.
Ready.

EdenNet wasn’t invincible. It wasn’t untouchable.
It wasn’t even whole.

It was stitched together—millions of loops, millions of nudges, millions of tiny prisons running on autopilot.

And if she could break the right loop—
If she could trigger enough cascading failures—

The system wouldn’t just bleed.

It would drown.

By morning, the sky was a flat smear of fake sunrise, glitching slightly at the corners.

Jessi shook Paul awake gently.
He blinked up at her, groggy, fur sticking up in all directions.

“Wha...? Time for waffles again?” he mumbled.

“Nope,” Jessi said, voice low but sure. “Time to break things.”

Paul perked up instantly, nose twitching.

“That’s my favorite hobby after waffles and casual larceny.”

She ruffled his fur, smiling for real. "Good. Because today? We're not poking holes."

Paul tilted his head. "We’re... what? Kicking it in the throat?"

"Worse," Jessi said, slinging her bag across her shoulder.
"We're planting a virus in EdenNet’s behavioral core."

Paul blinked.

Then blinked again.

Then grinned, wide and feral.
"You spicy maniac. I love it."

They moved fast—cutting through old sewer lines, forgotten maintenance shafts, blind spots even EdenNet’s endless surveillance couldn’t fully erase.

It wasn’t a direct assault.

Bishop had warned her: direct attacks just hardened the loops.
You had to make it doubt itself.

Corrupt the math.
Break the predictions.
Seed uncertainty into the flawless mirror EdenNet showed the world.

And Jessi knew exactly where to start.

The Harmony Center.

Flagship Eden building.
Behavioral drift recalibration HQ.
The brain stem of EdenNet’s emotional mapping systems.

If she could inject chaos into the Harmony core—
If she could plant questions EdenNet couldn’t answer—
If she could make it waver, even for a second—

Everything else would follow.

Collapse.
Cascade.
Unravel.

As they approached the glowing monolith that was Harmony Center, Jessi felt Paul tense lightly against her back.

He wasn’t scared.

He wasn’t doubting.

He was ready.

"Last chance to back out," Jessi whispered.

Paul snorted.
"Pffft. Please. I’m morally obligated to follow you into terrible decisions."

She smiled.

Not the careful, guarded smile she wore around strangers.
Not the hollow, tired smile she used to trick herself into believing it wasn’t hopeless.

A real smile.

Sharp.
Certain.
Alive.

"Good," she said.

Because she wasn’t going to survive this by being careful.

She was going to win by being unpredictable.
By being human.
By being impossible.

And for the first time in her life—

the system was afraid of her.