Shutline Novels & Stories

Marcel dropped his cutleries noisily and slammed his fists causing Samantha to flinch. " Are you going to bore me with pleasantries or will you sit and eat!". His voice echoed through the walls of the room.

I shouted, but the hologram was already dissolving into static. "The Crescent Moon will not accept the update," Lucian’s voice echoed as he vanished. "We are initiating a Cold-Boots of our own node. We would rather see the South go dark than see it run on your Adulterated Code. Prepare for the Network Partition, Architect. The world is about to split." The silence that followed was heavy. I looked at the global map on my HUD. Lucian wasn't lying. Across the Mediterranean, the golden threads of our update were being Snipped. The Southern packs weren't just resisting; they were performing a Suicidal Force-Shutdown of their own Ley Lines.

off. The usual morning chatter was gone. No one was laughing. No one was talking. Almost every head was bent over a laptop screen, their expressions tense. A strange feeling settled in my stomach. I slowly shifted my gaze back to Sienna and Elara. "What email?" Sienna cleared her throat, her gaze darting toward our editor's office before shifting back to me. "The office is shutting down in a few days," Elara said softly, and I was definitely sure I'd heard wrong.

"Drop the main switch. Burn the servers if you have to. We will pay double whatever Blue-Claw is offering the network providers." "Consider it done," Axton said. The line went dead. I stood by the glass, counting my breaths. One. Two. Three. I refreshed the feed on my personal screen. The entire system stalled for three seconds, the loading wheel spinning into nothingness. Then, the screen wiped clean. Every single tag, every comment, every single mention of my name alongside those three men vanished without a single trace. The entire continent’s network went dead silent, leaving millions of users staring at empty error screens.

Everyone said Alice Foster was heads over heels in love with me. Even when my father and I were kicked out of the house, she still insisted on keeping her marriage vows. She even rehearsed them ninety-nine times because she envisioned a perfect wedding for us. Little did they know, all the best-men at the wedding were picked among a list of the ninety-nine lovers she kept around her. “Oliver, you're already my husband. It’s not too much to ask to let them attend the wedding, is it?” I numbly accepted the box of cash she handed me before rushing to the hospital. The wedding was supposed to be for me. That was, until I saw her walking onto the stage with the child my mother birthed out of

“They were watching.” Aria turned away, pacing again, but faster now — restless energy replacing earlier hesitation. “Then nothing here is safe. Not the network, not the devices — nothing.” Lucien didn’t argue. Because she was right. “Can you shut them out?” she asked. “I can slow them down,” he said. “But shutting them out completely? Not without taking everything offline.” Aria stopped. “Then do it.” Lucien looked at her. “If I shut everything down, we lose access to the files, the channels, the releases,” he said. “We go blind.”

If they shut down the system, patients could suffer, emergency systems could fail but if they did nothing, the Founder would control everything. She closed her eyes for a brief moment then she opened them. “Do it.” Adrian nodded immediately and he began typing the shutdown command. Warnings appeared on the screen. System wide shutdown will affect all connected services. Confirm? Adrian looked at Marcus. Marcus nodded once. “Confirm.” Adrian pressed the key. The system began to respond but something was wrong. The shutdown did not start. Adrian frowned. “That’s not right.” Marcus stepped closer. “What happened?” Adrian checked the command log then his face changed.

So without my phone I'm now stuck in Zanes room with him, and I could cut the awkwardness with a knife. Say something, anything.. please. "So about that conversation we were having earlier." Okay, nope. Nevermind, anything but that. "Why are your elites called Shadow Demons?" I whisper the last part, though I'm not sure why. I know I'm acting awkward as fuck right now. "Oh, you've heard of that huh?" It's zanes turn to act awkward, but instead he just laughs it off. "My pack is known for its special set of skills, once your Luna you'll know all about it."

He rerouted the line through a localized loop, mimicking a busy signal before killing the connection entirely. Julian frowned, slamming the receiver down. "The line's dead. Why the hell is the Vance network down?" "There's an regional outage near the northern border, boss," Marcus lied flawlessly, his voice remaining steady. "The storm knocked out the primary signals. The lines are temporarily unavailable. I'll have a courier dispatched if we don't get a signal within the hour."

Maybe he was busy, I mused, then sent him a text. Dear Mr. S.N., This is Shawn Lindays, CEO of Lindays Group. I am reaching out regarding the sudden withdrawal of your shares and funding. There seems to be a grave misunderstanding or a system error on our end. We are holding an emergency board meeting tomorrow at 10 a.m. and it is vital that you attend so we can rectify this. Your support has been the backbone of our recent growth, and I would appreciate the chance to discuss why you chose to pull out so we can move forward together.