Marked by the Enemy King
He clutched the drives to his chest, his knuckles white.
"Stay back," he rasped, his voice barely rising above a whisper.
A figure emerged from the smoke-filled doorway, silhouette framed by the flickering emergency lights. It was Vane, a scavenger leader who had spent the last decade tearing the city’s scraps from the fingers of the desperate. Behind him, a dozen armed survivors pushed forward, their eyes wild with hunger and the promise of power.
"The core," Vane said, his voice a gravelly rasp of ambition. "We saw the light go out, Nikos. We know the power is dead. Give us the drives. We can restore the grid. We can rule what’s left."