The breach was silent. The reconquest was not.
They chose 3:17 a.m.—the hour when the city's heart slowed, when the guards yawned hardest, and the satellite sync cycle was at its weakest.
From The Nest, Kirion's daughter gave the signal.
"Begin phase one."
Across the capital, synchronized nodes flared to life.
Power flickered. Surveillance blind spots opened.
The Aegis—distracted by false incursions—shifted its focus, unaware that its real enemy had already slipped inside its shadow.
Kirion, dressed as a sanitation worker, passed through a guarded checkpoint with forged clearance. His back itched from the Kevlar, his thoughts sharp. Beside him, two allies posed as tech repairmen, smuggling in gear packed with worm scripts and data siphons.
Inside the government's main data facility, Obel1sk rerouted cooling systems, creating temperature anomalies that forced a partial shutdown of active scanners. The breach was physical and digital—one feeding the other.
By 3:41 a.m., the daughter whispered:
"We're in."
They didn't just copy files. They rewrote priorities. They erased arrest warrants, reversed surveillance target lists, and flagged propaganda directives for internal review. A critical medical supply route—once rerouted to elite officials—was re-coded to reach rebel-held hospitals.
The most dangerous move came at 3:58 a.m.—when they embedded a silent kill switch in Aegis itself. It would remain dormant unless the regime launched a digital first strike.
Kirion emerged from the facility just before dawn, blending into the morning haze. The tech team vanished into alleyways, leaving no trace.
In The Nest, cheers were muted. They all knew what came next.
The breach was a message.
The reconquest, a warning.
For the first time, the regime saw that control wasn't a given.
It could be stolen back.