Embers of Discontent

Torian’s POV

The old printing press groaned as it came to life, gears creaking, dust shaking loose from its frame. Torian stood at the heart of the rebel communications hub—an abandoned basement beneath a shuttered newspaper office, where time clung to the walls in the form of yellowed articles and half‑torn protest posters. A single bulb flickered above, casting ghostlike shadows that seemed to whisper of revolutions past.

“This is where it begins,” Aldren said, stepping back from the console. “The static transponder’s final node is fused into this press. Once it’s fully active, we can override every Council broadcast tower east of the river.”

Torian ran his hand across the old machine, feeling the indentations where letters once stamped defiance into newsprint. Now, it was being repurposed—not to print pamphlets, but to burn a signal through the airwaves, loud enough to drown out the Council’s grip on truth.

“How long do we have?” he asked.

Aldren frowned. “Fifteen minutes before the signal lock stabilizes. Once it does, the city will hear our truth—unedited, unfiltered. But they’ll try to shut us down before then.”

“Let them try,” Liora said, stepping into the room, her coat streaked with tunnel grime, her eyes sharp. “We hold the line.”

Echo followed close behind her, clutching the recorder like a lifeline. He’d barely spoken since the extraction. Whatever he’d witnessed at the docks had carved deep—Torian saw it in the way he moved, each footstep tentative, like he was afraid the ground might give way again.

Torian crouched beside him. “You doing alright, kid?”

Echo nodded slowly. “I… I want to press the button. When it’s time.”

Torian exchanged a glance with Liora. There was no mistaking the resolve in Echo’s voice.

“Alright,” he said. “You’ll press it.”

Aldren gave a short laugh. “You’re about to become the most dangerous ten-year-old in the city.”

A siren howled somewhere above, long and shrill, cutting through the silence like a knife.

Liora glanced at her comm. “Curfew just went citywide. Martial law declaration broadcasted. They're framing us as foreign operatives.” She scoffed. “Convenient.”

Torian straightened, jaw tightening. “Then they’re afraid. They’re scrambling.”

Aldren stepped back to the console and brought up the external camera feeds. Grainy footage showed patrol drones hovering near rooftops. A trio of armored vehicles rolled through the alley two blocks down.

“We’ve got ten, maybe twelve minutes before the first wave hits,” he said. “They’re doing a sweep—no sudden blitz. They don’t want a martyr.”

“They won’t get one,” Liora said. “We’re not dying tonight.”

Torian opened a hidden compartment near the old stairwell and retrieved a cache of signal‑scramblers and EMP pucks. He handed two to Liora and kept one for himself.

“We’ll hold them off as long as it takes. Once the signal’s out, every pocket of resistance will know we’re still here. Every citizen watching a blank screen will know the silence wasn’t their fault.”

He turned to Echo. “You ready?”

The boy nodded, stepping up to the console. The screen flickered with a countdown: 07:24.

Aldren moved to the door, flicked off the lights. “They’ll be blind for about ninety seconds when we trigger the street EMP. Then we need to scatter.”

Liora slipped out to the rear corridor, rifle at the ready. She moved like a whisper, her silhouette swallowed by shadow.

Torian took position by the central staircase. The silence was dense, the kind that presses into your chest and dares your heartbeat to give you away.

Then came the first noise—a soft whirring. A drone.

Torian activated the EMP puck. With a high-pitched pulse and a fizz of light, the air trembled. The drone fell from the sky like a broken toy, smashing into a garbage heap.

Footsteps echoed above. The real danger was coming.

“Four minutes,” Aldren called out.

Torian glanced at Echo. The boy stood at the console, finger hovering near the activation key. The countdown ticked like a war drum. Outside, armored boots stomped pavement. They were closing in.

From the stairwell, a Council trooper descended—then two more. Torian lunged from the shadows, jamming his shoulder into the first and sending him tumbling backward. He fired a short burst into the second’s thigh, then ducked behind the staircase as rounds tore through the railing.

Liora emerged from the back, firing with surgical precision. One trooper dropped. Another stumbled into Aldren’s electrified tripwire and convulsed, crumpling.

“Two minutes!” Aldren shouted.

Smoke curled through the stairwell. Shouts came from outside—more boots, more shadows.

Torian turned, blood streaking his temple. “Echo!”

The boy stood firm.

“One minute!”

Echo pressed the button.

The machine surged to life with a low hum that became a roar. Static flooded the room—sharp, dissonant—and then it cleared. A voice emerged. His voice.

Torian’s voice.

“Citizens of the divided city… this is not your silence. This is theirs.”

Screens across the district lit up. Holos in plaza squares flickered, then stabilized into images of Council brutality, doctored footage unraveling in real-time. A split-screen: what they said, and what truly happened.

The Council’s narrative was cracking.

Torian backed toward the rear exit as another volley of shots rang out. Liora pulled Echo into a maintenance corridor.

Aldren gave one last smirk, flipped the console to loop mode, then kicked over a chemical charge. “This story runs itself now.”

The floor shuddered as they fled through the back. Above, the press room burst into flames—but the signal kept broadcasting. Smoke billowed, and with it, a city’s awakening.