BLEEDING LOYALTY
The clock clicked over: 03:01 AM.
The quiet in the room was absolute, so profound I could hear the slow, unsteady rhythm of my own breath dragging through my teeth. The storm outside seemed to recede, the thunder muffled by feet of reinforced concrete above.
Then, the static on the Sector Four monitor didn't just flicker it vanished entirely, replaced by a single, crisp line of text typed directly into the command line from an internal terminal:
[OVERRIDE ACCEPTED - WELCOME HOME]
My blood ran cold. My hand slammed down onto the master alarm switch, forcing the plastic cover back and shoving the metal toggle all the way up.