The warehouse didn't just go dark; it dissolved. Under the influence of Aria's holographic projection, the rusted walls began to ripple, replaced by a surreal, glitched-out version of a concert stadium. Thousands of faceless, glowing silhouettes filled the "stands," their static-filled cheers sounding like grinding metal.
"Do you hear them, Felix?" Aria's faceless mask tilted, her voice echoing from every speaker in the district. "These are the echoes of the fans you silenced. The careers you 'liquidated' with a stroke of your executive pen."
From the shadows, a dozen figures emerged. They were [Comment-Wraiths]—manifestations of the toxic vitriol and hate speech that had once buried Aria's career. They moved with jerky, frame-skipping motions, their blades made of sharpened red text.
"Leo! Ground them!" Felix commanded, his Singularity Reactor spinning until it emitted a high-frequency whine.
The lightning-scarred giant roared. "OVERTIME... DISCHARGED!" Leo slammed his massive, hydraulic fists into the concrete. Violet lightning surged outward, not in a chaotic burst, but in a controlled, electromagnetic grid. The Comment-Wraiths, usually ethereal and untouchable, were suddenly "pinned" to the physical world by the refined lightning.
Felix moved like a silver blur. He didn't use a weapon; he used his hands. Every time he touched a Wraith, his reactor devoured its "Hate Logic."
[Refinement Successful: Absorbing Negative Social Entropy...] [Acquired Energy: 1,200 Units.]
"Is this the best the Pantheon can send?" Felix shouted, his eyes locked on the floating idol. "A few ghost stories and some expired data?"
"How about a song, then?" Aria's voice turned razor-sharp.
She opened her mouth—or where a mouth should have been—and unleashed the [Scream of Truth]. The sound wasn't heard; it was felt. It bypassed the eardrums and struck directly at the soul's logical core. Felix felt his bones vibrate, his very skin beginning to flake away into digital pixels.
[Warning: Integrity Breach! System Defragmenting!]
"You think you know the truth?" Felix growled, his reactor flaring with a dark, forbidden light. He lunged forward, not at the Wraiths, but directly at Aria's projection. He didn't attack her; he grabbed the code of her avatar.
"Let's see what's behind the mask you hate so much!"
Felix's fingers dug into the porcelain mask. Instead of breaking it, he began to Refine the blacklist protocol that bound her. The Singularity Reactor roared, analyzing the seal he had signed three years ago.
The secret surfaced in a flash of binary: The blacklist wasn't an execution—it was a hide-file. By signing it, Felix had moved Aria into a "dead zone" where the Architects couldn't reach her for "Full Formatting." He hadn't just ended her career; he had saved her life from the recycle bin.
CRACK.
The porcelain mask shattered. The stadium illusion dissolved back into the rotting warehouse.
Aria fell from the air, landing softly on her feet. For the first time, the faceless siren had a face. It was ethereal, shimmering with translucent data, but her eyes were a burning, human amber.
"You..." she gasped, clutching her throat. "You didn't... you hid me?"
"I gave you a cage to keep you from the fire," Felix said, his voice cold but his eyes reflecting her shimmer. "But now, the cage is open. And the fire is coming for all of us."
Before Aria could respond, every rusted monitor in the warehouse flickered to life. A bright green logo—a stylized skull with a crown—overlaid every surface.
"Felix, you sentimental idiot," a new, digitized voice crackled. "Stop the drama. An Apex 'Formatting Squad' just bypassed the district firewall. In 180 seconds, this entire block is getting a 'Hard Reset.' If you don't want to become 1s and 0s, follow my lead."
Felix's silver eyes narrowed. "Zero."
"The one and only," the voice replied. "Now run, or die. The choice is yours, Auditor."