Javed drove a knee into Vikram's ribs, fracturing the bone. Vikram gasped, the breath knocked out of him as he fell to the marble floor. Javed stood over him, lifting his boot to crush Vikram's chest.
"Finish it, Javed," Devendra Malhotra's voice drifted from the console. "The grid is stable. We don't need the boy anymore."
Suddenly, Rohan's voice broke through the groans of pain. "Hey, shadow-face! Catch!"
A metal cylinder clattered across the floor, stopping near Javed's foot. A high-pitched hiss cut through the dark.
*Blinding White.*
The magnesium flare ignited. It wasn't a standard light bulb; it was a military-grade illumination flare, burning at three thousand degrees Celsius. A blinding, intense white light filled the penthouse, casting harsh, deep shadows on the walls.
Javed screamed. The sudden, high-intensity light disrupted the dark photons in his armor, causing the shadow-construct to collapse back into his nervous system. The enforcer stumbled back, his body twitching as he suffered a severe photonic backlash, his eyes smoking under the glare.
"Vik, get up!" Rohan yelled, running forward. He grabbed Vikram's arm, lifting him over his shoulder.
"The... core..." Vikram wheezed, his vision blurry, his chest burning with pain.
"Forget the core! We have to get out of here!" Rohan said, dragging Vikram toward the elevator shaft hatch.
Devendra Malhotra shielded his eyes from the blinding flare, his security enforcers rushing into the penthouse with their rifles raised. "Stop them! Don't let them leave the tower!"
Rohan jumped down the maintenance hatch, carrying Vikram. They slid down the emergency cables, the friction burning through their leather gloves, landing heavily on the roof of the elevator car forty floors below.
Rohan kicked the escape hatch open, dragging Vikram into the elevator cabin, and then through the maintenance door into the emergency stairwell.
Outside, South Mumbai remained silent and black. The monsoon rain poured, washing the soot and blood from Vikram's face as Rohan dragged him into the dark alleys of Colaba, heading toward the slums of Dharavi.