Carter pushed himself up, slow and unsteady. He glanced at his hands—they’d stopped glowing, but the city’s energy still buzzed through him, deep in his bones. He wasn’t just playing anymore. Now he was part of the whole machine.
Behind him, the doors started to bend and groan. The Guardians were tearing through the steel like it was nothing. Carter didn’t flinch. New icons flickered at the edge of his vision, and he felt this strange, icy confidence settling in.
“Let them in,” he said, almost to himself.
The doors tore free and crashed to the floor. Two Sentinels—liquid metal, bigger and meaner than before—poured into the room. They caught the change in him right away. Their red screens jumped and jittered, like they couldn’t process what he’d become.
“My turn,” Carter said.
He trigg
