The explosion came at 3:12 a.m. Not loud. Not dramatic.
Just a soft 'whump' followed by the smell of burning ozone and betrayal.
Reed woke first (something in the air tasted wrong). He was out of bed before the second pulse hit, pulling on jeans, barefoot on cold concrete. Laken rolled after him, eyes already glacier-sharp, frost curling from her fingertips like smoke.
They reached the sub-basement lab together.
The MDFG-7 was gone.
In its place: a perfect circle of melted steel where the pedestal had been. The containment lattice (three months of work, seven lives' worth of hope) reduced to slag that still glowed faint blue. Every holo-screen cracked in spiderwebs. The coffee station Eliza had enchanted now dripped molten glass.
And in the center of the ruin stood Marcus Garrett.
