The city went quiet in a way that felt intentional.
Not evacuated.
Not destroyed.
Cleared.
Streetlights dimmed to standby. Emergency signals cut mid-cycle. Even the wind seemed to hesitate, as if the world itself had been instructed to reduce variables.
She felt it through the ache still burning in her chest.
"They're making space," she whispered.
"Yes," he replied, gaze lifting toward the skyline. "For something they swore they'd never use again."
—
Deep beneath the city, far below civilian infrastructure and official maps, seals began to disengage.
Not alarms.
Safeties.
Ancient ones.
Layers of authorization collapsed inward as forgotten protocols woke from dormancy. Power rerouted from nonessential systems, siphoned downward like blood drawn toward a buried heart.
In a chamber no human had entered in decades, something stirred.
—
"They're deploying an Absolute Solution," he said quietly.
She frowned through the pain. "That's not a weapon name."
"No," he agreed. "It's a philosophy."
He helped her sit against a fractured wall, keeping a steadying hand on her back. She noticed—dimly—that he hadn't let go since the lattice broke.
"Containment failed," he continued. "Termination failed. So now they move to eradication by precedent."
"Meaning?"
"They will use something so catastrophic," he said, voice flat, "that the justification erases the crime."
Her stomach twisted. "What is it?"
For the first time since she'd met him—
He hesitated.
"An engine," he said finally. "Built from anomalies that couldn't be controlled."
Her breath caught.
"They used people like you?"
"Worse," he replied. "They used what was left after breaking them."
—
The bond stirred uneasily.
She felt it then—not his power, not her pain—but something else.
Old.
Heavy.
Hungry.
"Is it awake?" she asked.
"Yes."
Her hands clenched. "Does it know we're here?"
A beat.
"Yes."
—
High above, command nodes synchronized into a single authority channel.
"All sectors cleared," an operator reported. "Collateral threshold no longer applies."
"Status of the Absolute Engine?" another voice asked.
"Online. Calibration in progress."
A pause.
Then: "Release restraint."
Deep underground, chains that were not physical loosened.
The city shuddered.
—
She gasped as a wave of pressure rolled through her—not violent, but vast, like standing too close to a storm you can't see.
"That thing—" she choked. "It's looking."
He nodded. "It recognizes anomalies."
"And me?"
His jaw tightened. "You are… new."
That did not reassure her.
—
The ground cracked nearby—not from impact, but from weight. Something immense was moving upward, reality bending around it like a concession.
She forced herself to stand, legs shaking.
"If they're using monsters to erase monsters," she said, "what does that make us?"
He met her gaze, eyes dark and steady.
"Targets," he said. "And witnesses."
The bond pulsed—uneasy, strained, but still holding.
"Can it be stopped?" she asked.
"Yes."
Hope flared—
"By killing it," he finished. "Or becoming worse."
The hope died quietly.
—
A silhouette rose in the distance, barely visible through the warped air—vast, asymmetrical, wrong. Not a creature so much as a structure shaped by suffering and restraint.
The Absolute Engine had no face.
But it noticed them.
She felt its attention settle—cold, assessing, ancient.
Her knees almost buckled.
He tightened his grip on her hand.
"Listen to me," he said urgently. "What comes next will break rules. Moral ones. Physical ones."
She swallowed hard. "And if we don't?"
"Then this world survives," he said softly. "And we don't."
The Engine shifted.
Reality screamed.
Somewhere, far above, a final command was issued.
"Absolute Solution deployed."
She looked at him, fear burning behind her eyes—but beneath it, something else.
Resolve.
"Then teach me," she said. "How to survive becoming something the world can't justify."
The bond responded.
Not with power.
With acceptance.
The Absolute Engine began to move.
And the world learned a terrible truth—
Absolute solutions do not end problems.
They create monsters.