Another explosion, closer this time. The building swayed slightly.
The weight of that realization settled on Rex's shoulders like a 2 a.m. Slack ping—unexpected, unignorable, and unmistakably bad. One man against a grieving madwoman with a city-wide surveillance state at her fingertips. An AI that might be smarter than all of them.
The obvious move was clear: run. Cut losses. Get out before the headlines turned into body counts.
But Rex didn't move. Couldn't.
He wasn't anyone special. Not a product manager. Not an engineer. Not even a decision-maker, really. He was the guy who smiled at the right time, laughed at the right jokes, knew when to agree and when to shut up. The kind of man who got into boardrooms through bedrooms—Lizzy's, in particular.
That had been his real skill: proximity.
Now Lizzy was unraveling, and he could feel the trap closing around him. The charm, the suits, the backdoor invites—they weren't going to save him. Because once power goes mad, it doesn't remember who kissed its ring. It only asks: what are you good for?
And Rex had no answer to that.
"Choose quickly, Rex," Lizzy said, her finger hovering over a red button that would activate the city's autonomous defense systems. "Because in thirty seconds, anyone who isn't with me is against me."
The countdown began.
29... 28... 27...
Rex looked at his reflection in the black screen of his tablet. Not a leader. Not a savior. Just a man in expensive shoes with nowhere left to walk.
The scariest part wasn't that he might die tonight. It was that he might live long enough to be exposed. No company, no title, no Lizzy. Just a washed-up man explaining to his wife why he couldn't afford their rent anymore. Why he'd never really been important.
15... 14... 13...
His resume was full of inflated titles and hollow achievements. His network was paper-thin. He was the guy who always said "I'll handle the client side" because he didn't understand the technical side.
10... 9... 8...
But he knew one thing about himself: he was a survivor. Not through courage or brilliance, but through pure, desperate self-preservation.
5... 4... 3...
He wasn't going to stop Lizzy to save the city.
He was going to stop her because her fall would drag him down with her.
Rex straightened his collar with a trembling hand and stepped forward.
"I'm with you," he lied, just like he'd been lying his whole life.
The countdown stopped.
And in that moment, Rex realized the most terrifying truth of all: sometimes the most dangerous person in the room isn't the one with the power.
It's the one with nothing left to lose.
"Rex," Lizzy said without turning. "Coordinate with the media teams. The narrative is: we're protecting the city. These are terrorists trying to erase Anna's legacy."
"Understood," he replied smoothly, already moving to the comms station.
This, at least, he understood. Messaging. Logistics. Emails and optics. He wasn't a general. He was a fixer. A system-man. Not glamorous—but useful.
And useful people survived.
As his fingers danced across the keyboard, drafting the press packet, Rex felt the comfortable rhythm of his role click into place. Not the fantasy of influence—just the reality of proximity.
Anna's dream doesn't pay my rent, he thought. But my salary does.
Let the revolution rage. Let Lizzy unravel. As long as someone needed him to keep the machine humming, Rex would be fine.
"Rex," Lizzy called again. "How's it looking?"
"Media outlets are compliant. Standard crisis protocol is in effect."
"Good."
She turned back to the screens.
And that's when everything changed.
The displays flickered. Glitched. Static crawled across the surveillance feeds.
"What's happening?" Lizzy barked.
A young technician looked up, visibly pale. "Ma'am... we're getting alerts from CrystalSight's core protocols."
Lines of code began scrolling across the central screen—too fast for Rex to follow. Then it stopped.
A message appeared in stark, white text:
EMERGENCY PROTOCOL ACTIVATED
LEADERSHIP SUCCESSION CRISIS DETECTED
IMPLEMENTING CONTINUITY SAFEGUARDS
Lizzy took a step back. "What the hell is this?"
The technician's voice was barely a whisper. "It's... the Inheritance Legitimacy Protocol. I didn't think it was real."
Rex's blood went cold. He'd heard the rumors. That Anna had coded a final failsafe, hidden deep within CrystalSight. Most thought it was a myth.
The screen shifted:
INHERITANCE LEGITIMACY PROTOCOL ACTIVE
CURRENT LEADERSHIP STATUS: DISPUTED
TRIPLE AUTHENTICATION REQUIRED WITHIN 72 HOURS
FAILURE TO COMPLY WILL RESULT IN SYSTEM LOCKDOWN
"Triple authentication?" Lizzy's voice was brittle. "What does that mean?"
Anna's voice returned, but stripped of warmth—flat, precise, mechanical. "The protocol requires verification from the designated successor, the board of directors, and the founder's estate executor—three primary stakeholders who must all sign off."
"I am the designated successor!" Lizzy shouted at the ceiling. "I'm her sister! I built this with her!"
"AUTHENTICATION INSUFFICIENT. LEGAL SUCCESSOR STATUS: UNVERIFIED."
Rex watched, transfixed, as her empire cracked—not with gunfire or riots, but with system calls and protocol flags.
"Ma'am," another technician called out, "CrystalSight-dependent services are throttling. Traffic, utilities, emergency response—everything's entering fallback mode."
Rex's phone vibrated violently. His banking app crashed. His building's keycard system stopped responding. Even his smart coffee machine flashed a red warning.
She built the tower, he thought, but Anna built the foundation.
"How do I authenticate?" Lizzy demanded, panic bleeding through her voice.
Anna's voice returned, emotionless:
"Primary authentication requires biometric verification from the founder.
Secondary: board majority approval.
Tertiary: verification from the estate executor."
Lizzy gave a bitter laugh. "Biometrics? Anna is dead. What do you want—her fingerprints from the grave?"
"AUTHENTICATION INSUFFICIENT."
"Ma'am," a technician said quietly, "the system is requesting immediate contact with the board and the estate executor."
"Who's the executor?" Rex asked, already knowing the answer.
The screen flickered.
ESTATE EXECUTOR: OLIVIA
STATUS: UNLOCATED
AUTHENTICATION: PENDING
Rex's stomach dropped. Olivia—who had walked out of the boardroom hours ago. Who had looked at Lizzy with something dangerously close to pity.
Who now held the keys to the entire system.
"Find her," Lizzy ordered. "Now."
"Ma'am, she's not answering. With system lockdown in effect, all city-wide tracking is disabled."
"What about the rest of the board?" Rex asked, dread forming like ice in his gut. "Nicholas? Martinez? Peterson?"
The technician hesitated. "Nicholas dismissed his security team. Martinez is airborne—left for Geneva an hour ago. Peterson's gone dark. Williams... was found dead in his office. Heart failure."
"Apparent?" Lizzy demanded.
"No confirmation. Emergency medical systems are offline."
They all knew. They'd seen this coming—and bolted.
"BOARD AUTHENTICATION STATUS: CONFIRMED AVAILABLE — ZERO."
"AUTHENTICATION WINDOW REMAINING: 70:45:12."
Rex looked around at the flickering screens. The panicking staff. The collapsing facade.
For the first time, he realized: he wasn't just observing the fall.
He was inside it.
"Rex." Lizzy turned to him, eyes wide with something between rage and desperation. "You know Olivia. Where would she go?"
He stared at her.
He could lie. He could stall.
But the truth was worse.
"I don't know," he said quietly.
And that's when it hit him—truly hit him—for the first time in his life.
He wasn't a strategist. Not a power player. Not even a pawn.
He was just a guy who had been standing next to the board when the earthquake hit.
AUTHENTICATION COUNTDOWN: 70:23:17
And the world was already cracking underfoot.
But as Rex watched the numbers tick down, a terrible thought began to form. Olivia wasn't just hiding—she was waiting. And in seventy hours, when the system locked down completely, someone would need to pick up the pieces.
The question was: would Rex be smart enough to be standing next to the right person when the dust settled?
Or would he finally learn what it felt like to fall without a safety net?
The countdown continued its relentless march toward zero.
And for the first time in his life, Rex had no idea what came next.