The enforcer precinct’s ready room stank of synth-caf, ozone from freshly cycled mag-weapons, and too many armored bodies crammed into a space designed for half as many. Outside, rain hissed against the grimy windows, turning the neon skyline into a bleeding smear of color. Holo-screens flickered above the lockers, looping corp-approved propaganda between tactical alerts.

  Sergeant Cross pulled Diana aside, her armor’s servos whining from lack of maintenance.

  "Captain, got something weird from my sister. She runs with the Razor Queens."

  Diana paused mid-sip, the bitter sludge of precinct coffee cooling on her tongue. “Since when do the Queens hand out charity intel?”

  "They don’t," Cross said, voice low. "That’s the weird part. Something went down in the Wastes last night. Big chase, a lot of noise. Now? They’re clamped shut. Won’t say a damn thing. And you know those bitches live to brag."

  Diana’s gaze flicked toward the wall map, where the Wastes pulsed dull red with high-crime markers. “Gang war?”

  “No bodies. No tags. Just… silence.” Cross leaned in, her breath sharp with stim-gum. “And Argon’s tripled their patrols there since midnight.”

  Before Diana could reply, the ready room lit blood-red as the alert tone ripped through the air.

  "Code Seven in Corporate Heights. Rogue super. Electrical manifestation. Three civilian casualties and climbing."

  Diana set down her coffee. “Table it, Cross. We’ve got work.” She filed the Razor Queens’ silence away — gangs didn’t go quiet without blood in the water.

  “Threat assessment?” she barked to dispatch.

  "Level twenty-three to twenty-five, Captain. Holed up in the Nexus Financial building, thirty-second floor. Corporate asset dispute gone bad."

  Level twenty-five. Dangerous, but not elite. “Details?”

  "Subject is Mira Chen, age thirty-five, accounts manager. Deceased husband’s mother is attempting to claim custody of Chen’s daughter. Has Helix Dynamics backing."

  Diana swore under her breath. The taste of ozone and old iron seemed to thicken in the air. "Full tactical. Non-lethal if possible, but civilian safety takes priority."

  The squad hit the armory like muscle memory — armor plates locking, mag-rifles cycling through diagnostic chirps, HUDs glowing pale green. A minute later they were on the precinct launch platform, neon rain slicing sideways as the VTOL turbines spun up.

  The craft squatted low and lethal — matte-black plating slick with moisture, hull bristling with suppression arrays and non-lethal launchers that would pulp anyone who got in the way. Its pilot, a grizzled woman with cranial ports and reflex leads trailing into her collar, jacked into the controls and took the bird skyward.

  Through the viewports, Neo Horizon sprawled like a diseased organism — steel and glass arcologies stitched together with skybridges, the streets below a dark veinwork of traffic and shadow. Holo-ads for luxury gene-splicing scrolled across entire tower faces, bathing the cockpit in false color. Somewhere in the mid-tier blocks, a pleasure drone zipped past in a spray of rainwater, its neon eyes tracking them before vanishing between buildings.

  Diana reviewed the file, eyes flicking over the lines of text like they might change if she stared long enough. Mira Chen. One daughter, age eight, conceived naturally before the gamma event. The kind of child the corps would kill to get their hands on.

  “What triggered escalation?”

  Cross brought up the rest. “Chen refused to enroll her kid in Helix’s Ascension Academy. Grandma filed for custody, citing ‘unfit environment.’”

  Thompson grunted from the bench. “Those academies are a joke. My cousin put her girl in one last year — hasn’t seen her since. ‘Advanced training program.’ Right.”

  The Ascension Academies — corporate farms for the next breeding stock. Where young girls were taught that their worth came in fertile cycles and power brackets. Diana didn’t bother to hide her scowl.

  “Chen’s daughter’s not enhanced,” Cross said. “Helix wants her for retroactive triggering. Experimental work.”

  The VTOL banked hard, throwing everyone sideways against their harnesses. Below, the Nexus building loomed — thirty-second floor torn open to the night, arcs of raw electricity spitting into the rain.

  “Taking us in hot,” the pilot warned.

  The turbines screamed as the VTOL swung into position, armored belly toward the breach. The side doors slammed open, rain and static rushing in like a living thing.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Go, go, go!”

  Diana’s mag-boots hit the wet floor with a metallic thunk as she rolled in, rifle up, HUD marking friendlies in blue and unknowns in red. Paperwork and shattered glass swirled around her, caught in the crosswind.

  At the far end of the floor, Mira Chen stood wreathed in lightning, every hair on her head haloed in blue-white light. Her face was raw with grief, her wedding ring flashing in the storm she’d become.

  “Stay back!” she screamed, the power crackling around her like an angry god. “I won’t let them take her!”

  Diana lowered her weapon just enough to signal she was listening. “Mira — I’m Captain Voss. Let’s talk.”

  “Talk?” Bitter laughter cracked the air. “You know what happens in those academies? They sort us like cattle! Test our power levels, our fertility, our genetic compatibility with their precious male samples!”

  “Mira, your daughter—”

  “She needs to be free! Not turned into breeding stock in a few years, not paired with some corporate male’s sperm like a prize heifer!”

  Thompson’s voice cut in over comms. “Helix security VTOLs inbound. Ninety seconds.”

  Diana saw the moment Mira realized surrender meant losing her daughter anyway. The tension in her body shifted into something else — a dangerous, desperate resolve.

  The office lights guttered, flickering like dying stars. Then came the hum — deep, resonant, rattling the glass still clinging to the frames. Power bled from the building’s grid into her in hungry, spiraling arcs.

  [DESPERATION SURGE – MATERNAL RAGE]

  Mira Chen: Level 25 → 27

  +Electromagnetic Shield

  +Area Discharge

  Half of Corporate Heights winked out into darkness.

  The temperature spiked, the air thickening with static until every breath tasted of copper. Metal fixtures began to vibrate and lift — desk lamps, paperclips, rifles in slackened hands. Diana’s HUD glitched, scattering red warning glyphs across her vision.

  Mira’s eyes burned white-blue now, arcs crawling over her skin in a living lattice that warped the air around her. Her voice came low and steady despite the roar. “Tell Emmy I loved her.”

  “She’s pulling everything!” Cross shouted, clutching her helmet as the comms spat white noise.

  “Feels like the whole tower’s feeding her,” Thompson hissed.

  Cross’s shot hit first, cracking the shield. Then Thompson’s. Then Diana’s — three suppression rounds punching through in sequence.

  The storm died with her scream. Lights flickered, then steadied.

  Mira lay on the scorched floor, small, still, and already cooling. The wedding ring glinted faintly in the smoke.

  Through the shattered windows, Helix security VTOLs descended, sleek and silver in the rain. A woman in a tailored synthsilk suit stepped out — the grandmother — flanked by two operatives. Even from here, Diana saw the satisfied tilt of her chin as she took the hand of a young girl. Blank eyes. No tears.

  Diana turned away first. “Scene secure. Subject terminated during resistance. Send medical and cleanup.” Her voice was steady, but her hands were tight on the cuffs she never got to use.

  The VTOL circled back, rotor wash scattering Mira’s papers into the night. No one spoke until they cleared the sector.

  Cross broke the silence. “Level twenty-five shouldn’t have been able to pull that much power.”

  “Maternal instinct,” Thompson said. “Most powerful force in nature.”

  Cross didn’t smile. She leaned forward, meeting Diana’s eyes. “That thing in the Wastes I mentioned earlier? My sister finally texted me back.” She turned her wrist so Diana could see the single word glowing on her display:

  Omega.

  The turbines roared as the VTOL banked toward the precinct. An Omega signature in the Wastes. Argon tripling patrols. Helix accelerating their Ascension program.

  The corps weren’t just consolidating power — they were preparing for something. Something big enough to make the Razor Queens bite their tongues.

  The world had burned once when the gamma storm hit. Diana knew, with the same cold certainty she felt pulling the trigger, that it was about to burn again.