It’s been one minute since I’ve taken a real breath.
My knees buckle. I catch myself on the console, but my fine motor control is gone. Thinking feels slow, surreal, like moving through molasses. The fog is chest-high now.
Logic has failed. The code is stronger than me. The math is on its side.
If I can’t beat it with order, I have to beat it with chaos. I have to be the mistake.
I look at the cooling pipes running along the ceiling—thick, insulated conduits pumping liquid nitrogen coolant to the superheated cores.
“The hardware,” I gasp, grabbing Jackson’s arm. My words are slurred, heavy. “The pipes.”
He stares at me, confusion clouding his gaze. The hypoxia is hitting him, too. His pupils are blown wide.
“Smash them!” I scream, expelling the last of my air. “Flood the racks.”
He looks at the pipes. Then at me. He realizes what I’m asking. Liquid nitrogen in a sealed room. Thermal shock. It will destroy the servers.
It will probably kill us.
He doesn’t hesitate.
He holsters his pistol and grabs the heavy fire axe mounted on the wall. He moves slowly, fighting the heavy air, but he swings the axe with a silent roar that rips through the hissing gas.
CRUNCH.
The blade bites into the main conduit above the central bank.
Pressurized liquid nitrogen explodes outward.
It hits the superheated server racks.
Liquid nitrogen dumps into the room. White clouds of freezing fog. The temperature plummets instantly.
Metal shatters as it contracts instantly.
I sink to my knees as the oxygen level drops critically. The floor is vibrating. Or maybe that’s me.
Jackson swings again. And again. He is a machine of destruction, fueled by rage and suffocation. He severs the main line.
A waterfall of freezing liquid pours onto the electronics.
Water and electricity. The oldest enemies.
Sparks erupt—massive, blinding arcs of blue lightning that jump from the racks to the floor. Halon gas may be non-flammable, but Halon discharges produce high-velocity blasts, extreme cold, rapid condensation into fog, and massive static electricity. Combine that with liquid nitrogen, open circuits, and overloaded systems, and we have flashover effects.
Electronics react violently in the oxygen-poor environment. Just as Jackson and I are suffocating, the electronics are dying as well.
The screen above me flickers. The progress bar stutters at89%.
The AI’s processing slows on the screen. The geometric eye flickers.
ERROR. THERMAL CRITICAL.
The logic boards are freezing. It’s slowing down.
“What are you doing?”The voice glitches. It shifts rapidly between the Commander, Nathan, and a genderless, robotic monotone.“Illogical. Self-destruction is—illogical…”
“Chaos,” I choke out. “Calculate that, motherfucker.”
