Chapter 28: Entropy Insults

Holographic topiaries warped light around the horticulture quadrant. Vivian Vaughn's neural lace spiked crimson as she witnessed Holly Frost's trembling fingers extend the quantum-core stabilizer - its crystalline lattice pulsing with encoded gratitude. Adrian Stone's thermal signature plunged to -10°C.

Holly: (Thrusting device) "Just a harmonic calibrator..."

Adrian: (Gloved hands locked behind back) "Compliance requires no ornaments."

Vivian: (Stepping from photon-bent shrubs) "Frost's bio-rhythms just crashed, Stone."

Holly's cortical implant emitted panic frequencies as she fled. Adrian's ocular sensors tracked Vivian with glacial precision, his retinal display overlaying violation codes: [Code 7: Unauthorized Surveillance].

Adrian: (Walking past) "Purge your cache, Vaughn."

Vivian: (Blocking path) "My empathy protocols outperform your icebox algorithms!"

Adrian: (Freezing) "Reboot your trajectory."

Vivian: (Neural lace flashing gold) "Care to demo that maneuver?"

His neural-gloved finger tapped her temporal port - a subzero jolt cascading through her occipital lobe. The dismissal carried 0.3 microteslas of contempt, precisely calibrated to trigger Vaughn-class rage responses.

Eldenwood's Calculus Spire hummed with quantum probability fields. Vivian triggered suspension protocols when her cortical chronometer hit T-00:07:33 before Yates' lecture. The neural lock sealed her boots to corridor plating.

Chancellor Yates: (Via holo-emitter) "Initiate isolation protocol."

Vivian: (Slamming fist on energy barrier) "Bladder maintenance overrides your entropy equations!"

Behind polarized classroom windows, Rory Chase's syntax firewall collapsed. His shout fragmented the lecture's quantum coherence field:

Rory: (Overturning holo-console) "Frag your motherboard, Sinclair!"

Yates: (Emitter flickering) "Neural suspension: Activate!"

Rory's exo-suit seized mid-gesture. Three seats back, Byron Shaw's REM cycle terminated when Quincy Xu's neural spike jammed his cortical buffers.

Byron: (Stumbling upright) "Who crashed my delta waves?!"

Quincy: (Pointing to Rory) "His dialectic meltdown tripped the syntax alarm."

Yates' holo-form irradiated ultraviolet fury. Rory's suspension field glitched as he kicked his console. Holly Frost's syntax-correction implant misfired, flooding public channels with Appalachian mining-dialect fragments.

Yates: "Externalize your chaos, Chase!"

Rory: (Straining against energy cuffs) "Frost's firewall breach isn't comedy fuel!"

Byron: (Vaulting desks) "Deactivate his motor functions before he bricks the spire!"

Byron's neural glove bypassed suspension fields. He dragged Rory into the corridor just as Holly's neural lock disengaged, tears crystallizing on her thermal regulator.

Corridor plating vibrated under suspension fields. Vivian monitored Holly's bio-signals spiking like cracked ice formations. Rory's knuckles bled against his energy cuffs.

Rory: (To Holly) "Syntax filters upgradeable. Ignore those circuit-fried leeches."

Holly: (Wiping frost-tears) "Appalachian lexicon isn't malfunction data."

Vivian: (Kicking suspension field) "Stone's the glitch needing deletion."

Byron's cortical chronometer pinged. He phased through Vivian's suspension field using Shaw-family encryption keys.

Byron: (Deactivating her lock) "Yates' drones converge in 120 seconds."

Vivian: (Rubbing temples) "Adrian Stone deployed cryo-insults."

Byron: (Scanning corridor) "His emotional registers flatline at absolute zero."

Rory's exo-suit servos whined as he struggled. Holly's dialect fragments echoed: [Error: Mountain-rise tonalities incompatible with Ivy Protocol]. Byron's neural glove flared.

Byron: "Chase! Stop weaponizing your syntax!"

Rory: "Tell Frost's cortex I'm not her dialect coach!"

Holly: (Shivering) "Cease damage-control protocols. Permit linguistic entropy."

Quincy Xu materialized via holo-projector, his avatar glitching with interference patterns.

Quincy: (Static distortion) "Chancellor deploying tier-3 drones."

Byron: (Grabbing Vivian/Rory) "Initiate ghost protocol!"

Vivian: (Resisting) "Frost stays with us!"

Titanium drones descended like cybernetic hawks. Byron's neural weave coat enveloped Holly as they phased through flooring substrates. Above them, Adrian Stone's thermal signature bloomed on surveillance feeds - watching.

Adrian: (To comm) "Log Vaughn-Shaw field breach."

Surveillance AI: