Page 77 - SurprisingTruthFinal

Nicholas Boothman
Chapter 8:
The Weight of Unprocessed
Reality
The 72 hours passed in silence. No grand explosion.
No final, dramatic collapse. Just a slow, gentle,
agonizing fade.
When the clock hit zero, the lights didn’t go out,
they had already been out for days in most sectors.
Instead, the final automated systems that had been
running on stored momentum simply stopped issuing
orders. The air traffic control towers, which had been
guiding planes on automated landing patterns, ceased
broadcasting. The minimal power grids, managed by
last-ditch AI, shut down their output calculations. The
city didn't die; it simply forgot how to function.
Henry was alone in the community center, the only
light coming from Lina’s server screens, now running
on battery power. Lina was asleep under a pile of
server blankets, having fought for three days to keep
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