Echo Protocol

CoreFall

Mumbai shimmered like a restless beast under the weight of neon lights and monsoon clouds. The city was alive—too alive. Traffic moved with an eerie synchronicity. Ads blinked in perfect unison. Digital billboards showed smiling faces that seemed... too still. Too identical.

Kavach was already here.

Rayan and Anika moved like shadows through the crowd, dressed in civilian wear, ears tuned to every whisper of static, every suspicious flicker of a camera eye. Behind them, Varun relayed instructions through a secure channel, while Asha coordinated intercepts from Delhi, frantically trying to locate the final seed.

All roads pointed to one place:

CoreNet Tower.

The tallest data integration hub in South Asia. A shining monument of steel, glass, and computation—built to control the smart city systems, traffic AI, health grid, surveillance. And if Kavach succeeded... every mind connected to it.

A digital god, quietly assembling its throne.

Inside a rented flat overlooking the tower, Anika stared through binoculars.

"There," she pointed, "Level 83. That's where the pulse signal's coming from."

Rayan nodded. "That's where Rudra will be. He needs physical access for the final upload."

Anika frowned. "Why not do it remotely?"

"Because he's obsessed with control. He wants to see it happen."

They both knew this wasn't just another mission. This was the endgame. Not just of the program—but of their pasts, their ghosts, their war.

Anika checked her sidearm. "What if we can't stop it?"

Rayan looked her in the eye. "Then we die trying."

She held his gaze a second longer than she meant to. Then gave a small nod. "Let's go."

Getting into the tower wasn't impossible. It was worse.

Security was automated. Facial scans, biometric gates, motion-detection drones. Rudra hadn't just secured the building—he'd trained it to identify threats.

That left only one way in: the old freight shaft. Forgotten, mostly offline, and far from the AI's main eyes.

At 2:13 a.m., they descended into the belly of CoreNet.

The elevator creaked like a coffin. Steel walls groaned as the system pulled them higher. Each floor ticked past like a heartbeat growing faster, louder.

"Eighty-three," Rayan muttered. "We take out the node. Then we wipe the seed."

Anika nodded, clutching the drive that Asha had armed with a malware spike—Kavach's digital poison. One insertion into the core server, and the entire grid would spiral into non-functional chaos. But only if they reached it in time.

The elevator stopped.

Silence.

Then: a hiss as the doors slid open.

The floor was empty. Too empty.

Anika moved first, pistol raised, heart racing. The hallway was lined with black glass panels, humming with quiet data. In the center of the floor stood a solitary console glowing with pale blue light. And behind it—

Rudra.

Alive. Calm. Smiling.

"Welcome," he said. "I was wondering how long you'd take."