By sunrise, the Sprawl was quiet again.
Not peaceful — just empty.
The fires had burned down to dull orange smears. The smell of metal and burnt rubber hung heavy, clinging to every breath.
Jack stood at what used to be the east barricade. The concrete was cracked, the blood long since blackened in the rain. From here, he could see the edge of Halo's blockade — Authority drones circling like a noose, high and patient.
They hadn't left.
They'd surrounded.
Victor joined him, coat still torn from the fight. He carried a radio he'd scavenged, static whispering through it like faint ghosts.
"They're jamming everything," he said. "No signals in or out. Supply routes cut. No food drops."
Jack didn't move. "They want to starve us out."
Victor's voice dropped. "It's not just that. They're studying us. Watching what happens when you trap a city and let it eat itself."
Jack finally turned. "They think we'll break."
Victor met his eyes. "Will we?"
For a long second, Jack didn't answer. The wind blew across the ruins, carrying the faint sound of people arguing in the distance — hunger already starting to speak louder than hope.
"Not yet," Jack said.
The days bled together.
Without power, the nights turned cold fast. People huddled around oil drums, burning whatever they could find — wood, cloth, sometimes Authority uniforms.
The graffiti changed, too.
CROWNS FADE.
LONG LIVE THE DEAD.
BRING BACK THE LIGHT.
Jack moved through the streets like a ghost, hood up, unarmed most of the time. The cheers were quieter now. He didn't need Victor to tell him why.
They were hungry.
They were scared.
And he couldn't feed them with words anymore.
It was near dusk when the first riot broke.
A ration line near the west market snapped — one shove too many, one accusation too loud. Guns came out. Then knives. Then blood.
Jack arrived too late. The crowd parted for him like he was something to fear, not follow.
He saw the body of a boy, no older than sixteen, still clutching an empty tin.
Victor appeared a moment later, weapon drawn but too late to matter. His face was gray, empty. "It's starting."
Jack crouched beside the boy. His fingers brushed the tin — the faint reflection in the metal flickered, just enough for him to see his own eyes flash red for half a second.
Then Marcus's voice slid through the static of his thoughts:
"They don't need saving. They need ruling."
Jack jerked his hand back, breathing hard.
Victor caught it — that flicker, that shiver. "Don't," he said sharply. "Don't listen to him."
Jack stood up slowly. "You think I have a choice?"
"Yeah," Victor said. "I do. Every second you fight it, you prove you're not him."
Jack stared at the crowd — the hungry, the desperate, the hopeless. He didn't know what fighting looked like anymore.
That night, they took shelter in an old train station. The tunnels had been dry once, filled with noise and movement. Now they dripped and echoed, filled with the whispers of a city dying.
Victor lit a small flame from a cracked lighter, the kind soldiers used before the war. The light flickered across the wall — old Authority propaganda, slogans half-buried under grime. ORDER IS MERCY.
Jack leaned against a pillar, eyes distant. "You think they're right?"
Victor frowned. "About what?"
"Order." His voice was low, almost hollow. "You think maybe they were right all along. Maybe we were the problem."
Victor exhaled through his nose, slow. "That's not you talking."
Jack's gaze flicked to him. "You sure?"
Victor's jaw worked, but no words came. He dropped the lighter, letting the flame die.
In the darkness, Jack's voice came again, softer. "Maybe Marcus was just ahead of me. Maybe I'm the echo."
Victor's chair scraped against the floor as he stood. "You don't get to talk like that. Not after what we lost to get here."
Jack gave a quiet, humorless laugh. "You think I wanted any of this?"
"I think you wanted to be better," Victor said. "But every time you let him whisper through you, you give a piece back."
Jack looked up. Even in the dark, Victor could feel the weight of his stare. "And what if I run out of pieces?"
"Then I'll stop you," Victor said. It wasn't a threat. It was a promise.
Silence fell heavy after that.
The next morning, the first Authority broadcast broke through the static.
The voice was calm, official, smooth as glass:
"Citizens of Halo District 9. The Crown insurgent, designation Jack Reiss, is hereby condemned under Article 17. All those harboring him will be terminated upon contact."
Every loudspeaker in the city carried it.
Jack and Victor stood in the center of the empty station, listening as the message looped, over and over.
Victor looked at him. "They're not starving us out anymore. They're coming."
Jack didn't blink. "Let them."
Victor stared. "You can't win this. Not this way."
Jack finally turned toward him, expression unreadable. "You think I don't know that?"
Then Marcus's voice slid through the static again — not in Jack's head this time, but faintly through the speaker itself, overlapping the Authority message.
"…you already did, brother."
Victor went pale. "Jack—tell me you heard that too."
Jack's throat tightened. "I did."
The speaker hissed, popped, and died.
They were left with the echo of that one sentence hanging in the dark.
Hours later, as the Sprawl's lights flickered and died for good, Jack walked alone down the main boulevard. The graffiti glowed faintly in the dark, lit by the last failing generators.
CROWNS FADE.
LONG LIVE THE KING.
He touched the wall, fingers leaving streaks of soot. For a heartbeat, the crown symbol pulsed faintly, as if alive.
Marcus's voice whispered, barely audible:
"You didn't start the war, Jack. You just remembered it."
He didn't answer. He just kept walking until the sound of his own footsteps became the only thing left moving in the Sprawl.
Above him, the Authority drones drifted lower, their red sensors flickering through the smoke like hungry eyes.
And somewhere behind him, Victor raised his rifle — not at the sky, but at Jack's back.
The line had finally come due.