Boots thundered from above and below, snapping him back. No way he could stay in the stairwell. He kicked through the door onto the 68th floor and dove into a maze of empty desks and cubicles.
Nobody was here. Too late for normal office workers. The lights pulsed red, screaming in time with the building’s alarms. The System was fighting for control, twisting everything it touched.
“Lena, come on, pick up,” Carter muttered, fumbling out his phone as he ran.
The screen flickered with strange symbols, then cleared. Lena’s face came through, glitchy and pixelated.
“Carter? Where are you? The whole grid’s gone nuts!”
“I’m in Blackwood Spire,” he said, ducking behind a desk as a drone zipped past the window. “I hit the console. Zane says the city’s syncing with the System.”
Typing clattere
