Preparation took thirty-six hours.

Jax worked through both nights, fueled by energy drinks and a vendetta that burned steadier than caffeine. His subway tunnel command center had expanded — three more laptops salvaged from abandoned electronics stores, each running decryption algorithms on intercepted Bastion communications.

"I've got everything," Jax said on the morning of Day Five. Dark circles under his eyes competed with the manic glow in them. "Audio recordings of Voss negotiating tribute runs with the System. Personnel lists of people he sent into impossible dungeons — names, levels, Classes. Twenty-three confirmed dead, eleven more 'unaccounted for.' Satellite imagery from the sky-crack showing Voss's compound receiving System supply drops that no other faction gets."

Ethan studied the data on the screen. Names. Real names. A Level 3 Farmer named Thomas Delgado, sent into a Level 12 dungeon "to scout." A Level 2 Crafter — sixteen years old — dispatched to "clear a spawning node" that was actually a Rift Beast nest. None came back.

"How do we broadcast?" Ethan asked.

"The System's communication layer operates on a network I can piggyback. When a Safe Zone sends out a beacon signal, it creates a broadcast window — milliseconds, but enough. I've written a packet injection tool that can ride the signal and push data to every System-enabled device within range."

"Range?"

"If I use the Baker Street permanent Safe Zone as an amplifier — which, thanks to your Fragment stunt, is the strongest signal source in the city — I can hit every device within thirty miles."

"That covers every Safe Zone. Every faction. Every survivor with a working phone."

"Exactly." Jax cracked his knuckles. "One broadcast. Every dirty deal. Every dead tribute. Every lie Voss told his people."

"And then?"

"And then chaos. The good kind." Jax paused. "Probably."

---

They set the broadcast for midnight. Ethan spent the intervening hours doing something he hadn't done since Day Zero: planning instead of reacting.

He returned to Baker Street — the permanent Safe Zone he'd created. The community center was empty now, its residents forcibly relocated to the Bastion. But Gerald had stayed behind, and with him, a handful of survivors who'd refused to go — a former police officer named Diana with a Guardian Class, a teenage girl called Sparks who could generate electrical discharges, and an elderly man named Professor Kim who'd received the unlikely but useful Analyst Class.

"If the broadcast works," Ethan told them, gathered in the community center gymnasium, "the Bastion will fracture. Soldiers who signed up to protect people won't fight for a man who sacrifices them. But Voss won't go quietly. He has loyalists — his personal guard, at minimum. And he has System-enhanced gear that outclasses anything we have."

"So what's the plan after the broadcast?" Diana asked. She was calm, professional — the kind of person who'd run toward gunfire in a previous life and saw no reason to stop now.

"We offer an alternative. Baker Street Safe Zone — permanent, self-sustaining. Anyone who leaves the Bastion can come here. We protect them."

"Five of us," Sparks said. "Against however many loyalists Voss keeps."

"Six." Ethan held up his blade. "And I can see things they can't. Every weakness, every exploit, every gap in their defenses."

"That's helpful," Professor Kim said mildly, adjusting his glasses. "But can you see a way to do this without anyone dying?"

Ethan looked at him. The honest answer was no. The useful answer was different.

"I can see the way that gets the fewest people killed. That'll have to be enough."

---

Midnight. Day Five.

Jax's fingers hovered over the laptop keyboard. The subway tunnel hummed with the quiet tension of a countdown that couldn't be undone.

"One click," Jax said. "After this, Voss will know exactly who we are and what we can do. No more hiding."

"Do it."

Click.

The Baker Street Safe Zone beacon pulsed — a brilliant flare of blue that Ethan saw from three miles away, visible even through the subway grate above his head. Riding that pulse, encoded in the beacon's harmonic frequency, was Jax's data packet — 47 megabytes of evidence compressed, encrypted, and delivered simultaneously to every System-enabled device within thirty miles.

For three seconds, nothing happened.

Then every phone in the city buzzed.

---

Ethan was on the street, watching.

Through his ERROR interface, he could see the data spreading — a wave of blue light on his minimap, expanding outward from Baker Street like a digital shockwave. Each blue dot was a device receiving the broadcast. Each dot was a person learning the truth.

Inside the Bastion compound — three miles north, visible as a cluster of green dots on his map — the reaction was immediate. Movement. Lots of movement. Dots shifting, grouping, separating. Arguments becoming shouting becoming chaos.

Jax's voice crackled through a jury-rigged walkie-talkie: "It's working. Bastion internal comms just went nuclear. Half the garrison is demanding Voss explain the tribute lists. The other half is trying to shut down the broadcast."

"They can't shut it down?"

"It's already delivered. You can't un-receive a message. The evidence is on every device now — screenshots, audio clips, names of the dead. Voss can deny it, but he can't delete it from ten thousand phones."

Ethan watched the Bastion's dot cluster fracture. Green dots — soldiers — beginning to move away from the compound. Defecting. Heading south, toward Baker Street.

But the core of the cluster held. Voss's loyalists. And at the center, one dot that his ERROR interface highlighted in red:

``` [DIRECTOR VOSS — Lvl 14] CLASS: Commander (System-Enhanced) STATUS: HOSTILE ABILITIES: [CLASSIFIED — ERROR ACCESS DENIED]

⚠ NOTE: This entity has System administrative privileges. Standard Exploit may not function. ```

Level 14. System-enhanced. Administrative privileges. Voss wasn't just a politician — the System had made him a weapon.

And his dot was moving. South. Fast.

Toward Baker Street.

---

"He's coming," Ethan said into the walkie-talkie. "Voss himself. Heading our way."

"How fast?" Jax's voice was tense.

"Ten minutes. Maybe less. He's bringing his personal guard."

Ethan ran to Baker Street. Diana was already at the entrance, Guardian Class shield shimmering on her arm. Sparks crackled with contained electricity. Gerald had barricaded the approaches with System-enhanced concrete barriers.

Professor Kim stood behind them all, Analyst Class interface projecting tactical data that only he could see. "Seventeen incoming hostiles," he reported calmly. "Fourteen soldiers, two enhanced elites, and one Commander-class entity."

"That's a lot of hostiles," Sparks muttered.

"We have the Safe Zone," Diana said. "They can't bring monsters in. It's an even fight — them versus us."

"It's not even," Ethan said. "But it doesn't need to be."

His ERROR interface was already scanning the approaching force. Seventeen panels lit up in his vision — each one showing stats, weaknesses, equipment vulnerabilities. He could see the cracks in their armor. The timing delays in their System-enhanced weapons. The network lag between their communication devices.

Every system had exploits. Every army had weak points.

"Diana, hold the front entrance. Sparks, I need you on the roof — hit their comms when I give the signal. Gerald, block the south approach." He gripped the Fracture Blade. "And when Voss gets here, he's mine."

The sound of engines grew louder. Headlights appeared at the end of Baker Street.

Ethan activated Exploit Window — not on a creature or a turret, but on himself. On his own fear.

It didn't freeze. Fear wasn't a System construct.

But for half a second, he felt clear. Focused. Ready.

*Forty-seven ERROR users died before me. I will be the forty-eighth — or the first to survive.*

He stepped into the street to meet them.