O'Malley's had seen better decades — the cracked leather booths, dim orange bulbs, and jukebox that wheezed out Springsteen like a dying radio made that clear. But it had something Noah hadn't felt in weeks.
Normalcy.
He sat at a table tucked in the corner near the window. Misha sipped a whiskey sour while Jayce poked at a plate of nachos like they were a science experiment.
Noah nursed a soda — stomach still too tight for alcohol. He'd claimed it was for "hydration," which Jayce clearly didn't believe.
JAYCE
"You know, you're different outside of work."
NOAH (raising an eyebrow)
"Quieter or weirder?"
MISHA
"Slightly less robotic. You blinked three times in the last ten minutes. That's a new record."
NOAH
"I'm adapting. Slowly. Like software updates that no one asked for."
Jayce laughed, mouth full of cheese.
JAYCE
"Look at you making jokes. I'm proud. Our little android is learning feelings."
NOAH (deadpan)
"I'll notify your next of kin when I ascend."
Misha raised her glass.
MISHA
"To Skybot."
NOAH
"No."
JAYCE
"C'mon. That name is solid."
NOAH
"That name is a lawsuit."
MISHA
"So what do you do when you're not debugging our sins or quietly judging us from the break room?"
Noah hesitated, careful with his words.
NOAH
"Car stuff. Reading. I walk a lot."
JAYCE
"You're not secretly in a band or building a murder drone in your garage?"
NOAH (flatly)
"Definitely not that second thing."
They all chuckled. For a moment, it felt real — the teasing, the familiarity, the shared exhaustion of people who spent too many hours under the same corporate ceiling.
Then, as the laughter quieted, a silence settled.
Jayce leaned back in his chair, his tone softening.
JAYCE
"You guys feel it too, right? The shift? Ever since… y'know. Merren."
Misha's smile faded.
MISHA
"Yeah. I keep waiting for someone to say something. Like an actual company memo. But it's like… nothing happened."
NOAH (quietly)
"They want everything to seem normal."
MISHA
"Well, it's not. Merren was one of the sharpest minds in the company. He doesn't just… check out like that. And a suicide? It doesn't add up."
Jayce frowned, pushing nachos around with his fork.
JAYCE
"You think it was something else?"
MISHA
"I think it was something. And I think Aerodyne's been acting weird ever since. Random security updates, systems locked down, people reassigned."
JAYCE
"And whatever the hell's going on in Drone Ops. Half our projects are getting pulled. Other teams are being told to keep logs off-server. It's like someone's sweeping a crime scene before there's even been an investigation."
Noah stared into his glass. He couldn't say anything. Not without revealing what he knew — what he suspected.
So he asked the question that felt safest.
NOAH
"Do you think he knew something?"
Misha and Jayce both went quiet.
MISHA
"If he did… maybe that's why he's gone."
A gust of wind rattled the windows. Somewhere in the corner, the jukebox skipped. The moment stretched.
Then the bar door opened — and everything began to change.
The door creaked open.
Noah turned slightly, catching a glimpse over Misha's shoulder. A coworker from across the lab stepped inside, rubbing their hands from the cold.
Then another.
Then three more.
All of them — familiar faces from the drone development wing.
Jayce noticed too. He leaned forward, squinting toward the entrance.
JAYCE
"Huh. Looks like the whole department got thirsty."
MISHA
"Didn't know this place had a group discount."
They all chuckled — nervously this time.
NOAH (half-joking)
"Someone send out a memo we missed?"
The front door swung open again. Five more Aerodyne employees walked in, laughing casually. All from their floor. All from Drone Ops.
Noah's smile faded. His eyes scanned the room. Twenty, maybe twenty-five people now — all from the same division. The air in his chest thickened.
MISHA
"Wait, who even invited us here?"
JAYCE
"Wasn't it Thompson? I thought he mentioned it at lunch—"
MISHA
"No, I think it was you."
JAYCE
"Me? No. I mean… maybe? I thought Misha said something."
NOAH (firmly)
"I didn't hear anything until you brought it up today."
A pause. Noah stood slowly.
NOAH
"Where's Jared?"
He scanned the bar again.
The music cut off.
A high-pitched whine surged from somewhere deep.
BOOM.
The explosion ripped through the building like a thunderclap from hell.
Noah was thrown backward — fire, splinters, screams, and darkness consuming the room in an instant. His ears rang. Heat pressed against his chest. His back slammed into something solid — then the ceiling gave way.
Everything collapsed.
Then: silence.
Just the ringing.
He didn't know how long he was out.
A minute?
Longer?
He blinked. Smoke. Debris. Shapes moving. Blood pooling nearby.
Noah's ribs ached. His side burned. The air smelled of burning wood, alcohol, and something else — charred metal.
Bodies surrounded him. Some moved. Some didn't.
His ears still screamed with the aftershock.
And then… he heard it.
The hum.
A deep, methodical whir overhead. Mechanical. Searching.
He tilted his head just enough to see it: a sleek aerial drone floating above the wreckage, framed in the fractured light from the bar's shattered windows.
It had no logo now. Just dark plating. Three rotating red sensor eyes. A compact plasma stinger below its belly. A green light pulsing slowly across its undercarriage.
It was scanning the scene.
Targeting. Tagging. Confirming.
Noah knew that drone. He had helped build its prototype. Merren had helped him tune its movement algorithms.
It wasn't meant for this.
It wasn't meant for warfare.
And yet — here it was.
Aerodyne had militarized it. Released it. Deployed it. And now… it was cleaning house.
Noah's pulse surged, but he didn't move. Every fiber of instinct screamed to run. But one twitch would give him away.
The drone hovered inches above a body beside him. Its lens blinked red. The body twitched. The drone shifted. Target acquired.
A sharp buzz of energy — and then a flash of light.
Noah bit his lip hard enough to draw blood. He didn't breathe.
The drone lingered above him. Scanned.
Then — it moved on.
He waited.
Ten seconds.
Twenty.
Still.
Motionless under the rubble, heart thudding in silence, Noah realized the truth:
This wasn't about a mole.
This wasn't about a cover-up.
This was an execution.
Aerodyne had lured the entire department out with a phantom invitation… and leveled the bar.
They weren't just tying up loose ends.
They were burning the whole thread.