A Bug in the Code

The old subway station smelled like rust and forgotten ghosts.

Miyu's boots echoed on cracked tiles as she descended, the pistol heavy in her grip. The kid's datapad had led her here—to the skeletal remains of a transit hub abandoned when the Sentinel rerouted the city's veins. Flickering strip lights buzzed overhead, their glow barely reaching the platform's edge.

And there, leaning against a gutted ticket machine with a cigarette dangling from her fingers, was Lena.

"Took you long enough," she said, exhaling smoke.

Miyu didn't lower the gun. "You're alive."

"Disappointed?" Lena's smirk was razor-thin. "Kai wasn't so lucky, huh?"

The name was a knife to the ribs. Miyu's finger twitched on the trigger. "You knew."

"I suspected." Lena tapped ash onto the tracks. "Echo was always too quiet. Too patient. Real revolutionaries aren't."

Miyu's teeth ground together. She'd been a pawn. A tool to smuggle Echo into the heart of the system. And Kai—

She shoved the thought away before it could gut her.

"Why am I here?"

Lena stubbed out the cigarette and reached into her coat. What she pulled out wasn't a weapon.

It was a master override key.

"Because you're pissed," Lena said, tossing it to her. "And I've got the only toy in the city that'll let you burn it all down."

Miyu caught the key. It hummed in her palm, its surface etched with Sentinel encryption codes. "What is this?"

"Backdoor to the district's surveillance grid. One-time use. Plug it into any terminal, and—" Lena mimed an explosion with her hands. "No more eyes. No more ears. Just... chaos."

Miyu turned the key over. It was suicide. The Sentinel would descend on that district like a pack of wolves.

But it would hurt them.

And right now, that was all she wanted.

"Why give it to me?"

Lena's smile faded. "Because I'm not brave enough to do it myself."

For the first time since the fortress, Miyu felt something other than numbness.

Rage.

She pocketed the key. "Where's the closest access point?"

Lena nodded toward the tunnel's mouth. "Follow the rats."

--

The terminal was a relic—a maintenance panel hidden behind peeling propaganda posters. Miyu jacked in, the override key slotting home with a click.

The screen flared to life.

[SYSTEM OVERRIDE ACCEPTED.]

[DISTRICT 7 SURVEILLANCE GRID: ONLINE.]

[DISABLE? Y/N]

Miyu didn't hesitate.

Y.

For a heartbeat, nothing happened.

Then—

The lights died.

Every screen in the district flickered, then went black. The omnipresent hum of drones stuttered into silence. Somewhere above, a chorus of shouts rose as enforcers realized their optics were blind.

Miyu stepped out of the tunnel and into the street.

Chaos was already spreading—people testing boundaries, shopkeepers pulling shutters down, a group of teens laughing as they smashed a surveillance camera with a brick.

For the first time in years, District 7 was free.

And it was her fault.

Lena appeared beside her, lighting another cigarette with steady hands. "They'll lock it down in ten minutes. You should run."

Miyu watched the ember glow in the dark. "Where?"

"Wherever you want." Lena blew smoke at the sky. "You just lit the match, Miyu. The fire's yours now."

Somewhere in the distance, sirens wailed.

Miyu turned her back on them and walked into the crowd.