The last notes of Vivaldi's "Winter" were shattering, just like the bay window. The concerto, a moment ago a complex and beautiful thing, was now just a backdrop to chaos.
Caine was a whirlwind in the center of his own living room, a symphony of controlled violence set to the frantic strings. Two of the intruders, bulky in black tactical gear and featureless masks, came at him. He moved with a predator's grace they hadn't anticipated. He wasn't just a man; he was the central processor of the room itself.
A drone, no larger than a hardcover book, zipped from the bookshelf, its repurposed lens flashing a blinding strobe into one attacker's face. As the man flinched, Caine drove the heel of his hand into his nose with a wet crunch. The second lunged, but a sleek, disc-shaped device detached from the ceiling—a climate control node—and shot downward, magnetizing itself to the back of his helmet with a heavy clang. The man stumbled, thrown off balance by the sudden weight, and Caine swept his legs out from under him.
But the room was losing the fight. His other creations were being systematically eliminated. A sentry-turret disguised as a floor lamp was sparking and dead, its barrel bent. Another drone was a smoldering wreck on the Persian rug, shot from the air.
His eyes, sharp and calculating, scanned the fray and found her. Elara. She was at the top of the staircase, her face a mask of terror, clutching the banister.
"Caine!" Her scream was a knife cutting through the music.
He turned to fight his way to her, but a new weight slammed into his back. A third man. He was buried under a dogpile of Kevlar and muscle.
And that's when he saw them. Three more figures, moving with grim purpose, ascending the stairs. They didn't look at him. Their target was clear.
"NO!" The roar was torn from his throat, raw and primal, utterly unlike the calm tech-master he was a minute before. He threw an elbow, connected with a grunt, bucked and fought like a wild animal. But the men on him were trained anchors.
The intruders reached Elara. One grabbed her arm, another her hair. The third simply drove a fist into her stomach. Her cry was a choked gasp. The music swelled, a cruel, beautiful irony—the vibrant, living concerto scoring her death.
They began pulling her, dragging her struggling form down the stairs.
Time, which had been a frenetic sprint, now fractured. It stretched, thickened, became syrup.
Caine's world narrowed to a tunnel. The grunts of the men holding him faded to a distant hum. The violins of Vivaldi stretched into a single, agonizing, high-pitched note.
He saw everything in hyper-clarity.
The way her favorite silk robe tore at the shoulder. The desperate,terrified look she shot him, her eyes wide, pleading. The glint of the combat knife as the third intruder drew it. The first thrust.A quick, professional puncture to the side. Her body jolted. Then another.And another.
It wasn't rage. It was efficiency. A task being completed.
A crimson flower bloomed across the pale blue silk, spreading, consuming the fabric. Her mouth opened in a silent 'O' of shock and unbearable pain. The light in her eyes, the fierce, intelligent light he loved more than any code or circuit, flickered.
The men holding him delivered a final, concussive blow to the back of his head.
The world didn't go black. It just… stopped.
The last thing he saw was her body, now limp and broken, being let go. It crumpled at the foot of the stairs like a discarded doll, a dark pool already gathering on the polished oak floor.
The last thing he heard was the final, triumphant note of the concerto, a brutal punctuation to the end of his world.
Then, nothing. A void. A silent, empty collapse into absolute nothingness. He did not feel himself hit the floor. He did not know what happened next.