There was something electric in the walls now.
Not literal electricity—though some had tried to manipulate the panel circuits with broken tray pieces and blood-soaked wires—but *presence*. Movement. Intent.
The Cage had become aware of itself.
Not just as a prison.
But as a battlefield.
***
Elias stared at the ceiling, watching the slow flicker of the light pulse. It was no longer steady. A slight, almost imperceptible delay between each blink had begun a few days ago—he was certain. Subtle. Like a machine stuttering from internal rot.
“They’ve lost control of the outer corridor grid,” Vesk whispered from his corner.
“How can you tell?” Malik asked.
“Because the lights aren’t pulsing on a Dominion timer anymore,” Elias murmured. “They’re pulsing on an internal override cycle.”
“You mean one of ours?”
“No,” said Vesk. “Not yet. But someone’s trying.”
***
The next wall tap came in fast, urgent beats. Vesk pressed his ear against the wall, translating.
“Message received. Systems breach initiated. Stage Two protocol approved. Prepare uplink route from internal access panel 7G.”
Elias sat up. “7G… that's six cells down from us, east block.”“Which means we’ll have to move,” Vesk said flatly.
Malik’s eyebrows rose. “Move? Through what, concrete?”
“Ventilation shafts,” Vesk replied. “There are three junctions in the eastern corridor. Each controlled by a localized fuse. If we trip it during a false fire drill, the shafts unlock automatically for inspection. Standard Cage protocol.”
“And how do we cause a false fire drill?” Elias asked.
Vesk gave a dark smile. “We burn something real.”
***
Over the next three cycles, they gathered materials—rags from uniform scraps, fragments from meal trays, and the lubricant from the biometric locks. Combined with the internal coil from Elias’s now-damaged vitals scanner, they fashioned a primitive incendiary coil.
Not enough to kill.
But enough to signal panic.
***
On the fourth cycle, the plan ignited.
Literally.
The coil sparked near the vent filter, setting off a trail of thick black smoke that pumped into the outer hall sensors. Within seconds, sirens wailed, and a robotic voice echoed:
*“Fire Detected in Sector D. Engage Lockdown Evacuation Protocol. Initiate Shaft Ventilation Cycle.”*
Vesk grinned.
“Go.”
***As the guards scrambled to assess the smoke and reroute airflow, Elias and Malik squeezed through the unlocked grate, crawling through the narrow metal shaft, heat from the residual spark still warming the air.
The shaft was suffocatingly tight, barely wide enough for shoulders. Every movement echoed like thunder in their ears. They had memorized the junction map from Vesk—right, then left, then straight to panel 7G.
The crawl took twelve minutes.
Twelve minutes of adrenaline, whispering metal, and the possibility of discovery.
When they reached the junction, Elias dropped down first, landing in a crawlspace lit only by a flickering blue light.
A figure waited.
A girl. Thin, maybe eighteen. Buzzed hair. Eyes sharp as razors.
“You’re Vorn?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Good. We don’t have much time.”
***
Her name was Nira, and she had been inside the Cage for over a year.
She wasn’t a prisoner.
She was a mole—planted by the surface resistance. Embedded with a stolen identity. And she was the one breaching the network grid.
“I’ve accessed 12% of the surveillance relay system,” she said as she worked over a small, jury-rigged interface panel glowing with code. “Enough to shut down comms between the upper blocks for about ten minutes.”
“That’s it?” Elias asked.“That’s *everything*,” she snapped. “Ten minutes of silence in this place is like a bomb going off.”
Malik watched in awe. “What can we do with that window?”
“Hijack a broadcast terminal,” Nira said, glancing up. “Tell your truth. Not just to the guards. To everyone.”
Elias’s breath caught.
“You mean outside?”
She nodded. “Straight through the Dominion relay hub. The Cage is wired directly into the national grid. They built it to monitor everyone. We’ll use it to expose them.”
***
Back in the cell, Vesk was already preparing.
He drew a symbol on the wall with burnt soot from the fire—two broken links of a chain forming a circle.
The mark of the inner resistance.
It was their signal now.
The Cage had been invincible because it was silent.
But silence was ending.
They had ten minutes.
To scream the truth loud enough that the world above would hear it.
---
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