Run

The reservoir had frozen over before the alarms began. ZleeSyn ran across its fractured surface with a stolen memory core beneath his coat, every step sending black water shivering below the ice. Behind him, the border drones rose from the snowbanks one by one, their searchlights cutting through the storm with surgical precision. They did not fire. They only followed, patient and certain, broadcasting his name across the empty valley. The ice cracked ahead. The red beam found his back. He could hear the machines closing through the whiteout, their rotors beating a rhythm against the wind. There was nowhere left to hide, no road beyond the dam. So he ran harder, carrying the last proof that the city had lied.