The tower didn't just lean; it shrieked. The structural nanotubes were snapping one by one, sounding like a string of firecrackers going off beneath our feet. Outside the floor-to-ceiling glass, the first purple Drop-Pod had buried itself into the tower’s foundation, and the "Purifiers" were stepping out.
They weren't machines. They weren't even cyborgs like Solomon. They were The Curated—humans who had lived their entire lives in the orbital stations, their muscles dense from high-gravity training, their minds wiped of everything but Thorne’s doctrine.
"The elevator is dead!" Kross screamed, kicking at the dented brass doors. "The counterweights snapped when the pod hit the base!"
"Then we use the service stairs," Mara said, grabbing Elara—my mother—by the arm.
Elara was stumbling, he
