January 18, 2059 –
Frozen industrial canal, South Side Chicago
The canal is a sheet of black ice under weak streetlights. Snow swirls sideways.
Elijah's group moves fast along the bank—six adults scouting ahead to clear a new supply route while the kids stay hidden in the church.
Malik floats point, gravity scouting for thin ice. Aisha's prosthetic crunches snow. Maya's light is banked low, just enough to see roots and cracks.
Jonah carries the radio pack. Kenji and Kayden bring up the rear, senses sharp.
They're halfway across when the drones drop.
Three military-grade, silent until the last second. Floodlights snap on, blinding white.
Iron Patriot lands in front of them, alloy boots cracking the ice. Ten contractors fan out, rifles up.
"Evening, ghosts."
Elijah's shadows surge, swallowing the lights.
Chaos.
Aisha blurs—three-second burst, tackling two contractors. Bones crack. She's back before the echo fades.
Maya flares gold, hope-fire searing drone rotors. One spirals into the canal, exploding in steam and sparks.
Malik lifts Patriot off the ice—gravity crushing armor joints. Metal groans.
Jonah floods minds—contractors seeing their own families in the crosshairs, hesitating.
Kenji slams palms to the ice. It buckles, swallowing three contractors to the waist, freezing around them.
Kayden's illusion hits: contractors see the canal as a pit of fire, screaming as they fall in—real ice, imagined flames.
Patriot breaks Malik's hold, fist slamming down. Ice shatters. Elijah dives, shadows cushioning the fall.
Aisha takes a bullet graze—thigh, blood hot against cold. She keeps moving.
Maya shields Malik as rotors rain shrapnel.
Elijah rises from the water, shadows boiling.
He wraps Patriot in darkness—complete, suffocating.
The alloy man thrashes, kinetic backlash exploding outward. Ice erupts in geysers.
Elijah holds.
Patriot drops to one knee.
"Not tonight," Elijah says.
They vanish into the storm—six bleeding but breathing, dragging footprints the snow fills fast.
Behind them, the canal steams and cracks.
Iron Patriot's roar echoes long after they're gone.