The sound of the police sirens grew softer and softer until they disappeared completely. An uncomfortable silence fell over the city. It was a strange, unnatural quiet that felt heavy and threatening.

Ace and his friends moved carefully through back alleys and side streets. They stuck to the shadows, hiding behind dumpsters and in dark doorways. Their entire world had become very small—it was just about finding the next place to hide and then the next one after that.

The powerful rush of energy they felt from their daring escape and their risky move at the train yard was now completely gone. In its place was a deep tiredness that went all the way to their bones. They didn't need to talk about it; they all understood their situation perfectly. They were in terrible danger.

They were no longer prisoners, but they didn't feel free. They felt like ghosts, invisible and alone, in a city that now felt like a cemetery for the lives they used to have.

Ace felt completely drained. His body ached everywhere. Using his special power, the Nanite Swarm, had been too much for him. It had left him with a constant, throbbing headache. The messages from the mysterious System in his mind were weak and faint, as if it was saving its energy. It only gave him the most basic information.

<<<>>>

WARNING: HIGH LEVELS OF TIREDNESS. YOUR BODY NEEDS FOOD AND WATER.

NANITE SWARM POWER: RECHARGING. TIME UNTIL MINIMAL POWER: 8 HOURS.

ADVICE: FIND WATER, FIND FOOD, FIND A SAFE PLACE TO HIDE.

<<<>>>

A safe place to hide. The thought echoed in his mind, mixing with the ache of his empty stomach. There was really only one place left to look, a place that reminded them of their biggest failure but was also their last connection to the past.

"The cannery," Ace said, his voice rough and dry from smoke and tiredness. He didn't have to explain. The others just nodded, their faces serious and focused. They knew they had to go back to the scene of their defeat. It was like visiting a grave.

The journey there took more than an hour. They had to be incredibly careful, avoiding main roads. The city was a confusing mix of chaos and normal life. They carefully moved around a street that was blocked off by yellow police tape, then walked through a quiet neighborhood where kids were playing in a front yard, completely unaware of the violence that had happened so close by. The difference between the two scenes was shocking.

Finally, they turned onto the old, broken-up street that led to the industrial park. The air here still smelled faintly of smoke. When the chain-link fence around the cannery came into view, they all slowed down and then stopped completely, staring in disbelief.

Their workshop, Unit B17, was destroyed. It was just a blackened skeleton of a building. The metal walls were burned and bent out of shape, with huge holes ripped in them. The windows were shattered, and the empty frames looked like the dead eyes of a skull. The ground was covered in burned junk, pieces of broken glass, and the melted remains of all their computer equipment and tools. They had triggered an EMP to protect their secrets, but Ramos's men had clearly set fire to the place afterwards, as a final message: You are nothing.

For a long time, no one could speak. This place had been much more than just a workspace. It had been their first real home, a safe place they had built together from nothing. It used to smell like coffee and hot metal. The air was always filled with the sound of Kaito typing quickly and Silva's good-natured complaints. The walls were covered with whiteboards full of their plans. Now, it was all just ash.

Evelyn made a small, hurt sound and put her hand over her mouth, her body shaking with quiet sobs. Silva cursed under his breath, his voice low and angry, his hands tightening into fists. Kaito just stared, looking completely helpless, his eyes wide as he saw the full extent of what they had lost.

Ace felt the loss like he'd been punched in the chest. Every burned piece of equipment was a memory of their hard work, now destroyed. The guilt he always carried exploded inside him. This is all because of me, he thought.

He was the one with the special System. He was the one who had made the choice to defy Ramos. He was the leader. And his decisions had led them directly to this—the complete ruin of everything they had.

"It's all gone," Kaito whispered, his voice shaking. "The computer servers... our digital shield... all the programs I wrote... everything is gone."

"Everything," Evelyn repeated, wiping her dirty sleeve across her eyes. But as she cried, her sadness turned into something harder and stronger. "But we're not gone."

Frustrated and angry, Silva kicked a piece of burned metal, sending it skittering loudly across the concrete floor. "So, what's the plan?" he asked, his voice thick with bitterness. "Do we just stand here feeling sorry for ourselves until Ramos's men show up and find us?"

"No," Ace said, forcing his voice to sound strong and steady. He was the leader, and even when everything was lost, he had to act like one. "We go inside. We look through the wreckage. We search for anything, anything at all, that might have survived the fire."

It seemed like a hopeless mission, but it was better than doing nothing. It gave them a small, immediate purpose. They carefully stepped through the destruction, their shoes crunching on broken glass and blackened plastic. The inside of the building was even worse than the outside. Their workbenches were now just piles of ash and twisted metal. The refrigerator was a burned-out shell. The familiar, comfortable clutter of their home had been turned into a black-and-white nightmare of ruin.

Ace's eyes, helped by his enhanced abilities, scanned the area for anything useful. But all he found was more evidence of what they had lost. A screwdriver, half-melted. The broken pieces of a small electronic component. The vintage radio he had fixed with pride, now just a lump of melted plastic and charcoal.

He moved toward the back of the space, to where Silva had set up his security post. The large whiteboard where Silva used to write down who was coming and going had been badly damaged by the heat. The plastic frame had melted, and most of the surface was covered in black soot. But one small section near the bottom, which had been shielded by a fallen piece of wood, was still somewhat visible.

Most of the writing was gone, leaving only faint, ghostly lines where schedules and lists used to be. But in one corner, almost completely hidden, was a small, scribbled note. It was a phone number, written in Silva's distinctive, blocky handwriting. Next to it, the heat had made the words blurry, but Ace could just barely read them: Mitch - last resort.

A tiny spark of hope, fragile but real, flickered to life in Ace's chest. He knelt down, gently brushing away flakes of ash. "Silva," he called out, his voice tight with sudden urgency.

Silva was by his side in an instant, with Evelyn and Kaito right behind him. Silva stared at the whiteboard, his eyes wide with surprise. "Mitch… from The Golden Cue pool hall," he said, remembering. "After we let him go, I… I guess I just wrote his number down. I thought maybe, if things ever got truly desperate, he might know something. A way to escape the city. It was probably a stupid idea."

"It's not stupid," Evelyn said, her voice firm and strong. "It's the only lead we have."

"But it's just a phone number," Kaito pointed out, his practical nature breaking through his sadness. "We don't have a phone. Ace destroyed the last one when he overused his powers."

Ace's mind started working quickly. "A public phone. A payphone. There has to be at least one still working somewhere in this city."

"And what do we even say to him?" Silva asked, his voice full of doubt. "Hey, Mitch, remember us? The people who dragged you into this mess? We're now homeless and have no money. Can you help us?" He let out a short, harsh laugh. "He'll hang up on us before we can even finish talking."

"We have to try," Ace insisted. Just then, the System in his mind, as if recognizing this tiny chance, showed him a faint message.

<<<>>>

PROBABILITY THAT CONTACTING THIS PERSON WILL HELP: UNKNOWN. NOT ENOUGH INFORMATION.

CURRENT CHANCE OF SURVIVAL WITHOUT HELP: 4%.

CONCLUSION: ANY ACTION THAT COULD INCREASE THIS CHANCE IS A LOGICAL CHOICE.

<<<>>>

Four percent. The number hit Ace like a physical punch, but it also made the decision incredibly simple. They had almost no chance on their own. They had to try.

It took them another hour of anxious searching to find a relic from the past: a dirty, graffiti-covered payphone outside a closed-down laundromat. The receiver felt sticky, and the cord was frayed, but when Ace lifted it to his ear, he heard the beautiful, blessed sound of a dial tone.

Ace held the small, dirty piece of paper with the faded phone number. This was it. Their very last chance, hanging by a single, thin thread. He fed their last few coins—which they had scraped together from the bottoms of their pockets and from the dusty ruins of the cannery—into the payphone's slot. With a deep breath, he carefully dialed the number.

The phone began to ring.

Ring... Ace's hope faded a little.

Ring... His heart sank further.

Ring... He was sure it was too late; no one was going to answer.

Then, a soft click.

"Hello?" a voice answered. It was quiet, careful, and low. It was Mitch.

Ace took a shaky breath. "Mitch. It's Ace."

There was a long, heavy silence on the other end of the line. Ace could almost feel the man's fear through the phone. He was certain he would hear a sharp click as Mitch hung up on him.

But instead, Mitch's voice came back, even quieter than before. "Are you crazy, calling me? They're looking for you everywhere. Ramos is furious. Even Vincenzo's men are asking questions. You're like ghosts everyone is hunting."

"We know," Ace said, his voice rough with emotion. "We have nothing left, Mitch. Nowhere to go. We're calling in the debt. The one from The Golden Cue." He was referring to the time they had spared Mitch's life.

Another pause. But this silence felt different. It was less scared and more thoughtful. "A debt for my life," Mitch murmured, as if he were reminding himself of a promise. "I didn't think I'd ever actually have to pay it back."

"We wouldn't be asking if we had any other choice," Ace said honestly.

Mitch let out a long, slow breath. "Alright," he said, finally. "Listen carefully. I can't help you directly. It's too dangerous for me. But I was prepared for something like this. When you work for a man like Ramos, you learn to always have a backdoor—a secret way out." He quickly gave Ace an address and a unit number for a self-storage facility on the other side of the city. "It's under the name 'Miller.' The key is magnetic, stuck to the underside of the fire hydrant directly across the street. There's a bag inside the locker. It's not much, but it's clean and untraceable. It was my own emergency escape plan."

Ace's knees felt weak with a overwhelming wave of relief. "Thank you, Mitch. I... thank you."

"Don't thank me," Mitch said, his voice serious and grim. "Just survive. And lose this number. You never called me."

The line went dead with a final click.

Ace stood for a moment, listening to the empty dial tone buzzing in his ear. He turned to face the others. Their faces showed the same desperate hope that he felt. "He gave us a location," Ace told them. "A storage locker. He said there's a bag inside."

This wasn't a solution to all their problems. It was a temporary rescue—a single, small life raft thrown to them in a huge ocean of ruin. But as they turned away from the broken payphone and started the long, careful walk across the wounded city, the crushing weight of their complete failure felt just a tiny bit lighter. They had lost everything they owned, but they had not lost their will to fight for survival, to grab onto even the smallest piece of hope. The long, difficult journey back from rock bottom had to begin with a single step. For them, that first step was finding a key hidden under a fire hydrant.

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