If he'd jumped in just now, he'd already be dead.

Rumble, rumble.

Heavy footsteps behind him.

Internet Surveillance evaluated John's firearms and deployed several heavily armed operatives to block the corridor.

Bang!

Heavy shotgun blasts cleared the doorframe.

A few big guys stepped out, stood at the end of the corridor, and faced the passage, firing to purge it.

John dodged at the absolute limit, but his thigh still got grazed.

Outside the building, a hovercar went into a hover and locked position.

It activated panoramic thermal imaging, syncing John's position into the operatives' cyber eyes.

Running was meaningless.

So John stopped running.

He raised his rifle and fought back, standing in the flower of buckshot muzzle-flash, trading fire in a frenzy, cobalt-blue arcs of electricity shaving apart the subdermal armor under his skin, bringing a wave of searing sting.

But his depleted-uranium rounds shattered their heavy armor.

Level 4 protection meant nothing against this rifle designed to crack alloy and machines.

A brute weighing over two hundred pounds had his chest cave in on the spot and went down in the barrage. The operatives beside him didn't retreat; instead they raised a metal shield, set up a formation, and charged forward together like a hydraulic press.

The thunder of their steps shook the stairwell.

John fired a few more shots; seeing he couldn't stop them, he grabbed the elevator shaft cable and jumped in, dodging the initial impact, then drew his Mantis Blade and stabbed back, catching one unlucky bastard as they ran past.

He jumped down with the impaled enemy.

Together they plunged into the burning elevator shaft.

John gripped the cable to slow his fall, then used the shock-absorbing advantage of his prosthetic feet, scraping down layer by layer along the obstacles on both sides of the shaft wall.

He touched down at the bottom, had just pried open the elevator doors, when he heard something clattering down from above.

"Fack!"

John rolled out, turned left, and flattened himself against the wall.

Rumble——

Internet Surveillance had tossed a bomb into the shaft; thick smoke mixed with debris geysered out through the elevator doors.

The attack didn't stop.

This was the apartment lobby; Internet Surveillance's holographic grid had long since partitioned every floor tile. On the two armored vehicles downstairs there weren't just signal boosters, but also two mounted [Plato - City Hunter Light Turrets].

Another wave of ammunition poured in.

Those luxurious decorations, the sofas, the pretty crystal chandelier and golden trim, all turned to dust in the hail of bullets.

Internet Surveillance's enforcement authority was second only to SAT.

But they cared a lot about political image and rarely issued warrants at such a high level.

The state police were dead set on killing John.

[Stay hidden and don't move. Give it a little more time and it'll be over.]

Kenichi Sora's voice was still cold.

Beep——

A few seconds later.

Amid the hail of bullets, a shrill alarm sound blended in.

More than a dozen Internet Surveillance operatives froze in place, their smart guns overheating and shorting, and every network access pod within a block was locked down tight.

The wrestling match was over.

In cyberspace, Kenichi Sora had won.

Beep——

Beep——

But the alarm didn't disappear.

It echoed over the entire West District, spreading outward, triggering new layers of resonance.

Even the people in the city's corners who cared least about anything had to look up at the sky. In high-rises, on pedestrian overpasses, under the shadows of chemical plants, from the shacks of the homeless—countless heads tilted back to look at the heavens.

The alarm was coming from the municipal broadcast system.

Highway information boards, looping announcements in the tunnels, PA systems on intercity trains and the metro, even the music player for the central park fountain...

All of them were echoing the same shriek at this moment.

Beep——

The sound kept going, gradually spreading across the entire city,

Eden City was being jolted awake.

Wanderers out in the wasteland got the word: the sand-control towers along the ring road had turned red.

The signal lights on the Border Wall all lit up as well.

The military took over the checkpoints; no vehicle was allowed to enter or leave Eden City.

"What the hell did you do?"

An ominous feeling rose in John's chest.

[Negotiated.]

"With… Internet Surveillance?"

[Yes. I think you've realized it too: we can't leave the West District alive. The sweep is on a very high scale. It's been passed by the Council, signed by the Mayor, and reported to ECPD and SAT.]

"Ward Method?"

John was stunned.

He'd been unconscious for just ten hours, and woke up as the city's most wanted!?

Sora explained.

[A high-risk roaming AI exposed its presence and was confirmed to be active in the western part of Eden City.]

Its voice sounded like a synthesized electronic machine.

[If you beat Internet Surveillance here, the Special Event Handling Action Team will lock down half the city within five minutes. Even in the optimistic case where you survive, Eden City will no longer have room for you.]

Its tone was certain.

[Human society cannot accommodate high-threat units.]

Thud.

"Goddammit!"

John had heard enough bad news. "Then what's the point of the surgery? Just say it straight—I'm dead either way, at best I drag a few poor bastards down with me, right?"

[No.]

Sora ignored John's furious outburst.

[You won't die.]

Fzzzt.

Sora's voice stuttered, then vanished completely.

Internet Surveillance's forces didn't resume their attack.

That terrifying alarm was still echoing over the city, and it didn't sound like any minor incident.

From behind cover, John leaned out to observe and saw all those operatives staring up at the sky.

People were screaming in the streets.

Even Internet Surveillance operatives couldn't help but look up, babbling frantically over voice comms about something.

Through a shattered glass window, John finally saw it:

The sky was pale.

A star even brighter than the rest punched through the clouds, trailing orange flames, carving a sharp trajectory across the atmosphere, and heading toward the direction of Eden City.

Then came a second one.

A third.

More fire.

They were daylight meteors, gathering into broken fireworks, linking into a sheet of flame that no one could ignore anymore…