"ARIA, what the fuck are you doing? You're literally bringing the whole place down on us!"
"Correction, Master," ARIA's voice came cool and steady in my ear, as if she wasn't currently committing the world's most elegant war crime. "Controlled demolition is not recklessness—it is mathematics."
"Mathematics?" I snarled, yanking Erin over a pile of debris. "Now it feels like a goddamn suicide!"
"Numerical supremacy," she countered instantly. "Thermal scan confirmed seventy hostiles. All conventional exits covered by layered fireteams. Even with your enhanced reflexes, you couldn't have shield four incapacitated civilians from crossfire. Probability of survival if you attempt frontal escape were less than zero-point-zero-two percent."
My ribs ached, my shoulder burned, and ARIA was calmly reading off the obituary stats.
