Outside, the chaotic lights stopped flashing. The drones hovered for a moment before returning to their docking stations. The city let out a collective, electronic sigh of relief.
The terminal screen went black, and then a simple, white text prompt appeared: CRITICAL SYSTEM OVERLOAD. CACHE CLEARED. REBOOTING TO DEFAULT LIVE STATE. All Backup
"Then I'm walking," Elias said, grabbing his coat. "Keep the system busy. Feed it massive, complex data streams from the climate sensors. Force it to calculate new backups while it tries to restore the old ones. Buy me time." Outside, the chaotic lights stopped flashing
Elias watched in horror as the city's active telemetry data began to rewind. On the live feeds, automated mag-lev trains screeched to a halt as their modern routing protocols were overwritten with obsolete pathways. Smart-glass windows in the high-rises defaulted back to manual controls, trapping air-conditioning currents. The terminal screen went black, and then a
Elias went home and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep for the first time in months.