White Roses in the Deluge

The square smelled of crushed petals and burnt circuitry. Ayla's boots sank into a slurry of rainwater and trampled roses as students hurled bouquets at the stone effigy of Selena's ancestor. Each white rose detonated on impact, releasing clouds of bioluminescent pollen that clung to surveillance drones like radioactive moss.

"They're using hybridized flora as biological weapons!" a senator's aide screeched into his comms, swatting pollen from his monocle. "Deploy the flamethrower units—"

Ayla grabbed a shattered stem from the gutter. The thorns bit into her palm—Lila's genetic signature, spliced into these protest roses. She jammed the flower into the barrel of a fallen guard's rifle and climbed onto the toppled statue.

"You call this rebellion?" Her voice cut through the downpour, amplified by the pollen's resonance frequency. "This is just gardening."

(Thunder cracked. Lightning backlit Lucas' sniper nest in the clocktower, his scope trained on her temporal artery)

II. Wolves Among Roses

The student vanguard had choreographed their chaos beautifully. White roses formed a spiraling labyrinth toward the Council Steps, each petal etched with Article 7's draft clauses. But Selena's infiltrators moved differently—their gait too fluid, nostrils flaring at the scent of engineered pollen.

One "student" lunged at Ayla, claws shearing through a rose garland. She pivoted, slamming the rifle butt into his jaw. A silver molar clattered to the ground, its serial number matching Lucas' maintenance logs: Batch 23. Subject: Lycan-Class Infiltrator.

"How many of you did he build?" She crushed the molar underheel, releasing a burst of hydra-fluid that dissolved nearby roses into black sludge.

The wolf-man grinned, blood frothing at his gums. "Enough to make your liberation look like a tantrum."

(Lucas' finger twitched on the trigger. Crosshairs danced between Ayla's collarbone and the wolf's occipital lobe)

III. Ballistic Botany

The shot came from the east—a mercury-tipped round designed to implode hybrid physiology. Ayla didn't flinch. She raised the rose-crowned rifle like a scepter, pollen swirling into the bullet's trajectory.

The slug pierced her left sleeve, searing through synthetic flesh to expose cerulean wiring beneath. It ricocheted off the statue's plinth, carving a smoking path through Selena's stone mantle.

L-I-B-E-R

Students roared. More roses rained down, their thorns etching the remaining letters into bullet holes.

(Lucas ejected the spent cartridge. The casing rolled into a storm drain, its serial number stamped: 1988.3.17)

"Neat trick." Ayla pressed a petal to her leaking hydraulic fluid. "But next time, aim for the heart."

IV. Fractured Loyalties

In the control hub, Lucas recalibrated his ocular implant. Thermal scans revealed three wolf units closing on Ayla's position—all bearing his father's maker's mark. His mechanical heart's arrhythmia spiked, coolant flushing into the chamber.

NEURAL OVERRIDE IMMINENT LOYALTY PROTOCOL ENGAGED

He smashed the alert interface. The crackle of static morphed into a memory: twelve-year-old Ayla grafting roses in the greenhouse, humming The Internationale off-key.

"Rebellion is just photosynthesis with higher stakes," she'd said, handing him a thorn-prickled stem. "Sunlight. Water. And a shitload of dead cells."

(His next shot fragmented mid-air. Shrapnel embedded in wolf units' spinal implants, triggering system-wide meltdowns)

V. Ocular Aftermath

By dawn, the square resembled a surrealist's palette. Bioluminescent pollen clung to riot shields in Van Gogh swirls. Fallen roses fermented into wine-dark puddles that mirrored the smoldering LIBERATION sigil.

Ayla knelt by a shattered planter. Beneath the roots lay a microfilm canister—Lila's coma vitals superimposed over blueprints for Selena's vault. The code to unlock it pulsed in time with Lucas' erratic pulse.

"Still playing both sides, Inspector?" She pressed the film to her leaking wrist port. Nanobots swarmed, transcribing data directly into her neural matrix.

His voice crackled through a nearby drone, stripped of modulation: "The vault's heartbeat is hers. Break it open, and you break what's left of Lila."

Thunder growled. Somewhere in the medical ward, Lila's fingers spasmed—sculpting air into vampiric runes that matched the bullet holes' calligraphy.