Chapter 3. Financial District Lockdown.2047-13 Remaining.The emergency alert blared through the financial district’s publicaddress system.It’s harsh tone echoing off glass and steel.Pix watched in horror asmassive security barriers rose from the ground,cutting off every exit point.The digital billboardsthat had been showing betting odds momentsearlier now flashed red evacuation warnings.Mimostatus picks his voice crackled through the comm.Multiplesystem liquidation protocols detected,Mimo responded,fingers flying across his mobile holographic interface.These aren’t threats,they’re real.I’m picking up actual code signatures,professional grade,distributed allacross the infrastructure.Quince’s voice cut in, tense, controlled.We’re separated.I’m three blocks north between ThompsonTower and the exchange buildingand Victor’s somewhere in the underground parking complex.Pix pulled up a holographic map.Red dots populated every second as Mimofed her liquidation protocol locations.The pattern was deliberate,not designed to destroy,but to contain.A trap.A booming announcer’s voice echoed from every screen.Ladies and gentlemen,the stakes have just been raised.Place your bets.Will our heroes survive the systemic lockdown?And more importantly,which critical asset will they choose to stabilize?A new video feed materialized showing two failing critical sectors.One,a young systems administrators server market bound by code traps.Two,an elderlysecurity guards pension fund caught in an automatedliquidation system draining its assets to zero.You have 10 minutes to reach either target.The announcer continued,choose wisely.Pix tightened her grip on her haptic controls.Victor,get to the control room,override the lockdown if you can.On it, Victor replied,but his voice sounded strained.Off. Two off.Pix tracked his location.Through the underground tunnels.Victor approached the control room door and then static.His signal vanished.Victor,Victor respond.Pix is demanded.Only silence answered.Then a scream tore through the calm.One of their support operatives, Jenkins.He’d been routing through a maintenance tunnel.On the screens,his sector collapsed broadcast livecatching him inside a neatly laid trap.The betting odds spiked.Instantly as viewers profited off his failure.They knew,Mimo whispered.They knew exactly where he tried to enter.On the monitors,the elderly guards pension fund reachedits critical liquidation threshold.The systems administrators server market was nowsurrounded by blinking secondary liquidation code bombs.Pix ran calculations in her head.The pension fund could survive a few more minutes,but the server market, if itfailed,they would lose access to every criticalbypass needed to break the lockdown.Quince’s voice broke through,raw with emotion.Pix the guards pension fund we have to go.That’s real money for real people.Pix closer eyes briefly.We can’t quince.The guards fund is already in a full liquidation protocol.What does that mean?Quince shouted.Liquidation?Explain.Pix forthe most trusted person.Liquidation is worse than theft.It’s an automated process that drives assets tozero value to satisfy creditors irreversibly.But the server market.The server market is essential infrastructure.Mimo interrupted.Economic triage says we save whateverguarantees the survival of the most people.The server market runs logistics and the city’s power grid.Lose it and collapse spreads everywhere.Pix stopped mid-strived.One innocent guard’s life savings gone.One administrator standing between them and wider collapse.Trapped.Numbers versus humanity.Logic versus conscience.I’m sorry.Pix whispered.She turned toward the server market.On a distant screen,the pension funds value dropped to zero.Betting feeds erupted with flashing winners.Pix forced herself to watch.To bear witness to the cost of her decision.Target secured.Quince reported moments later.Her voice hollow.She’d managed to stabilize the server market’s remaining structure.Partial lockdown restrictions lifted.Civilians streamed through newly opened exits.But enough barriers remained in place tokeep Pix, Mimo and Quince confined.The game masters had gotten what they wanted.A forced ethical sacrifice.Stepped the revenue.And proof that they controlled the entire district.Mimo’s voice cut through the aftermath.Tied.Subdued.Pix.I found something in the logs.The liquidation triggers.They were activated from inside the control room.Someone had to be there before Victor.Pix his blood ran cold.The pieces were starting to connect.But the next wave of the game was already preparing.The betting odds shifted.The screens brightened.The countdown continued its merciless crawl toward zero.Every second purchased by impossible choices.
