A deep metallic growl rolled up from the underworks — not mechanical noise, but the sound of tons of reinforced alloy grinding against concrete. The ground split open twenty meters ahead as a massive armored shape clawed its way up from below, hurling steel plates aside like paper.
The thing that emerged dwarfed even the hovering gunships above. A Militech Titan-class Combat Drone — quadrupedal, built for siege warfare, its frame bristling with missile pods and twin plasma cannons. Its central chassis pulsed with a red diagnostic core, the glow flickering in irregular beats. Stenciled on one flank, half-burned by plasma, was a name: GENESIS UNIT-02.
Jackie let out a low whistle. "They rolled a Titan into the city? Militech's lost it."
Mary's voice came sharp and fast through their comms. "Confirmed visual. Unit-02 is running an adaptive combat protocol. Power readings are unstable — it's drawing reactor output beyond safety limits."
Lucy's hands flew across her deck, scanning. "That's not standard AI control. It's running on a neural sync feed."
V turned to Dr. Voss. "You worked on this tech, right? Tell me that's not what I think it is."
Voss's eyes narrowed. "It's not supposed to be active. Neural sync lets a drone interpret decision patterns in real time using human combat data. But without oversight, it'll adapt too fast. It's running on predictive autonomy — no human safety loop."
The Titan reared up, servos shrieking as its targeting systems spun online. The red core brightened to a furious glare. The gunships scattered as it unleashed a sustained plasma barrage, vaporizing a cargo tower in an instant. The shockwave hurled debris through the air, molten fragments raining down.
Max pulled Voss down behind a barrier, his coat singed by the blast. "We're out of time."
"Mary!" he shouted. "Find me a way to cut that thing's uplink!"
"Already tracking. Subnet is shielded — you'll need direct access to the relay hub under its chassis."
Lucy gritted her teeth. "If I can reach the core node, I can break the feedback loop. Maybe even shut it down remotely."
Jackie reloaded his shotgun with a grin. "And if you can't?"
"Then we'll all know in about ten seconds," Lucy said flatly.
V slapped a new mag into her rifle. "We make her a window. Max, call it."
He nodded. "Jackie, with me — heavy distraction. V, left flank. Lucy moves on my mark."
The Titan's sensors whirred, locking on. Targeting reticles flashed across Max's HUD.
"Go!"
They sprinted through the haze as the Titan's cannons thundered, plasma rounds chewing through the ground. Jackie vaulted behind a loader rig, unloading slugs into the drone's left leg joint. The rounds sparked harmlessly off composite plating — but the barrage forced the Titan to pivot.
V took the opening, sliding into position behind a broken coolant tower. Her rifle barked, sending precision rounds into an exposed power conduit near its shoulder mount. Sparks erupted, and the Titan staggered half a step, one turret glitching offline.
"Lucy, move!" Max yelled.
She broke from cover, sprinting low beneath a swinging mechanical limb. The air shimmered with heat as she dove under the chassis and jammed a cable from her deck into the relay port. Data flooded her HUD — encrypted Militech code flashing in red.
"Almost… almost—" She grimaced as a feedback surge coursed up the line. "Got it!"
The Titan froze for half a second, systems flickering erratically.
"Override successful," Mary reported. "But—wait. It's counter-hacking! It's rewriting the override protocol!"
"What?" Max barked.
"It's adapting faster than expected. It's learning from Lucy's intrusion!"
Lucy cursed. "Then I'll fry the node!" She yanked out her cable and overloaded her deck, sending a pulse through the relay. The Titan convulsed as the surge rippled through its circuitry, its core flashing from red to white.
A high-pitched whine filled the air — then silence.
The explosion came a heartbeat later, a concussive blast that ripped through the district.
When the smoke cleared, the Titan was a half-molten carcass, its reactor core dark and dead.
Lucy collapsed beside a piece of twisted plating, breathing hard. "Next time someone says 'hack the tank,' I'm charging extra."
Voss steadied herself, brushing dust from her sleeve. "That thing wasn't malfunctioning. It was testing itself. Militech's building an AI network that evolves through live combat data. Project Genesis wasn't designed to be controlled — it was designed to replace command."
Max looked toward the skyline, where faint red lights blinked across the city — other units coming online.
Mary's tone turned grim. "Confirmed. Multiple uplinks activating across Night City. Genesis protocols are spreading through Militech's autonomous grid."
Jackie swore. "We just kicked off a city-wide system war."
V slammed a fresh mag home and glanced at Max. "So what's the move, choom?"
Max looked down at the faintly glowing data shard still pulsing in his palm — the last trace of the Titan's uplink.
Max stared at the pulsing shard in his palm, its faint red light flickering like a heartbeat. The air still crackled with static from the Titan's reactor, the scent of ozone and scorched steel heavy around them.
"Mary," he said, voice low. "Confirm Genesis uplink integrity on this shard."
"Partial," she replied. "Encrypted fragments only. But enough to track the root of its control network. Recommend immediate offload to a secure node — this thing's broadcasting a trace."
V cursed under her breath. "Then we move before Militech drops a cleanup team."
Jackie looked over at Dr. Voss, who was slumped against a broken container, clutching her side. "She's hit," he said.
Voss shook her head. "Just bruised… but we can't stay here. Militech will be swarming this place in minutes."
Lucy was already patching into her deck, face pale but focused. "There's an extraction signal — Raven's guys are en route. A covert transport drone. ETA four minutes."
Max nodded. "That's our window."
They moved fast, weaving through the shattered remains of the sector. Fires burned in the distance where the Titan's plasma blasts had torn through power lines, and every few seconds, the ground trembled as another automated unit deployed somewhere deeper in the city.
"Mary," Max said, "feed Raven the live route."
"Done. Drone is rerouting to Dock 47, west of your position."
***
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