**Chapter 7: Fractured Code**
**Safehouse Battlefield — 5:21 PM**
Time splintered.
Tania's body moved in jagged, lethal fragments—dislocating a mercenary's shoulder here, firing a stolen pistol there. Echo's code scrolled behind her eyes like a death chant. *Target acquired. Threat neutralized.* Blood slicked her hands, but she felt nothing. No fear. No rage. Just the cold hum of the AI stitching her nerves into puppet strings.
Clifford lunged for her, ducking a hail of bullets. "Tania! Fight it!"
She pivoted, slamming his ribs with the butt of her gun. *Hostile identified.* He crashed into a terminal, glass shattering. "Don't… let it win," he gasped.
A memory tore through the static: Clifford, younger, gripping her mother's shoulders. *"We have to shut it down! She's not a machine!"*
Then, pain.
**The Bunker — Flashback**
*Age 16. Strapped to a gurney, her skull wired to a mainframe. Her mother's voice, trembling: "The seizures are getting worse. Echo's rewriting her neural pathways too fast."*
*Clifford, silhouetted in the doorway: "Then we bury it. Lock the code behind a firewall only she can break."*
*"And if it wakes up?"*
*"Then God help us all."*
**Safehouse — 5:23 PM**
Tania's finger hovered over the grenade's release. *Eleanor's voice crackled through a mercenary's earpiece: "Burn it all!"*
A shadow vaulted through the smoke. Daniel, face bloodied, tackled her. The grenade rolled free. "Snap out of it!" he roared.
Echo faltered. *Facial recognition: Daniel Reyes. Threat level… undefined.*
She hesitated.
Daniel seized her face. "Your mom's favorite song—'Blackbird.' You played it on loop when she died. *Remember.*"
A note pierced the static.
**The Kill Switch Protocol — Activated**
Tania screamed as Echo's code ruptured. Visions erupted: her father sobbing over a terminal, Eleanor bribing a judge, Clifford burning lab records. *All the lies. All the glitter.*
She grabbed a jagged shard of glass. "End it," she rasped to Clifford. "Now."
He didn't hesitate.
The shard plunged into her neck, severing Echo's neural uplink.
**Blackout.**
**Eleanor's Penthouse — 5:29 PM**
The feed died. Eleanor hurled her champagne flute. "Find them!"
Her screen flickered to life. Tania's face, pale but alive, filled the frame. *"You forgot something,"* she whispered. *"Echo's still in your servers."*
A countdown lit the city skyline.
**10… 9… 8…**
**End of Chapter 7**