**“You're really doing this," Ivy whispered.**
She stood in the manor's generator room, the hum of machines vibrating through the concrete walls. Beside her, a hand-held detonator blinked silently in her palm—stolen from a storage locker marked *Property of Neural Sync Program*.
Seth, the janitor who owed her a favor for helping his daughter land a scholarship, nodded. “Ten minutes. Maintenance crew starts the backup shift. That's your window."
“And the decoy explosion?"
“I rerouted a minor overload to Storage Wing B. It'll blow out some lights and trigger emergency evac, but it's harmless."
Ivy's fingers tightened around the device. “Good."
“Sure you wanna go through with this?"
“I'm done being someone's medicine," she said. “This time, I choose what happens next."
---
Back upsta
