Vikram materialized behind the transmitter, his chest burning with cold pain.
Javed turned, his red eyes scanning the darkness. "You cannot hide from me, Vikram! I taught your father how to fold!"
"But you didn't teach him how to break," Vikram muttered.
Instead of fighting Javed, Vikram drove his hands directly into the auxiliary power conduit that Mr. Desai had warned him about. He ignored the triple-redundant loop, channeling all his bio-electric Prana into the circuit.
An immense shock of electrical energy surged through Vikram's body. He screamed, his veins glowing blue as the feedback hit him. But the energy didn't stop in his body; it traveled straight into the transmitter core.
The machine exploded.
A blinding wave of blue and black energy swept through the turbine room. The force of the blast threw Javed through the brick wall, sending him crashing into the yard below.
The mill began to collapse. Concrete chunks fell from the ceiling, and the giant iron looms tilted.
Vikram, his body smoking and weak, dragged himself through a broken window, tumbling into the rainy alleyway. He could hear police sirens in the distance, but the lights of the Lalbaug district were dark.
The three transmitters were gone. The grid was broken.