The blackout broke without warning.

For hours, Hale and Gray had crouched behind the wreckage of a delivery crawler, smoke curling from its cracked frame, the smell of scorched circuitry heavy in the air. The firefight had gutted Westline — streets littered with half-melted drones, fractured concrete, the ghost glow of power conduits stuttering on and off like dying veins.

Then, without sound, everything changed.

The first sign was the hum — low, harmonic, deep enough to rattle the ...