"Incoming!"
Elias's voice cracked, stripped of his usual clinical detachment.
The air above the 101 Highway didn't just ripple; it tore. Three P.A.C.I.F.I.C. Eraser Drones—matte-black triangles of industrial weight—dropped through the Bile-green rain. They didn't circle for position. They moved with a terrifying, mechanical certainty, their thrusters displacing the thick mist with a series of sharp, pressurized huffs.
"Maddie, anchor!" Will commanded.
A laser designator, blood-red and steady, centered on Will's chest. He didn't have time to think.
His 30 Luck stat seized his central nervous system.
His left calf bunched with a violent, involuntary cramp that sent a white-hot spike of pain up to his hip. The jerk sent him sprawling. His boot caught a jagged piece of rusted rebar, pitching him face-first toward the concrete. A magnetic rail-bolt hissed through the air exactly where his temple had been a micro-second before, trailing a wake of ionized air.
