The chaos was immediate and total.
Jax ran through the Free Level corridors, shouting: "Now! Move now! Get to the upper levels!"
Gammas poured from their quarters, from workshops, from hiding places. Hundreds of them, thousands station-wide. All moving toward the level gates that had trapped them their entire lives.
At the first checkpoint, a group of fifty Gammas approached the biometric scanner. It flickered, showed contradictory readings, then gave up and let them through.
They were through. Actually through.
Someone screamed in joy. Others followed, running toward Level 8, toward Level 7, toward freedom they'd never imagined.
Jax watched them go, heart pounding. It was working. The virus was actually working.
"Jax!" Elara appeared beside him, breathing hard. "SSS is mobilizing. We have maybe an hour before they shut down every gate manually."
"Then we use that hour." He grabbed her hand. "Come on. We need to go too."
Together they ran toward the Level 8 gate. A crowd of Gammas pressed forward, overwhelming the confused guards. The biometric system read some as Alpha, some as Beta, some as error. It couldn't enforce restrictions it couldn't verify.
They broke through.
Jax stood on Level 8 for the first time without being rejected. Without alarms. Without being marked as lesser.
The scanner read him as Alpha. As Beta. As nothing. As everything.
He was free.
Actually free.
Beside him, Elara watched with tears in her eyes. "You did it. We did it."
"It's not over," Finn warned, catching up. "Authority response teams incoming. We need to keep moving, get people as high as possible before they lock it down."
The mass movement continued. Gammas flooding upward, seeing levels they'd only heard about. Gardens. Clean air. Spaces that didn't smell like rust and recycled water.
And the rage built.
"They kept this from us," someone said, staring at a Level 6 hydroponics garden. "All this time. They kept this from us."
"Made us live in filth while they had paradise."
"Made us think we deserved it."
The anger spread like fire. As Gammas saw what had been denied them, as they understood the depth of the oppression, something shifted.
This wasn't just about freedom anymore.
This was about justice.
This was about making them pay.
On Level 3, SSS tactical teams began setting up checkpoints. Manual enforcement. Blocking further progression.
"Authorization required to proceed," an agent announced. "All non-Alpha personnel turn back."
The crowd of Gammas stopped. Hundreds of them, facing dozens of armed agents.
"We're not going back," someone in the crowd shouted.
"Turn back or we open fire."
"Then fire!" A woman stepped forward. "I've been Gamma for forty years. Told I'm subhuman. Treated like trash. If I'm going to die anyway, I'm dying free!"
The crowd surged forward.
The agents fired.
Three Gammas fell. The crowd didn't stop.
And just like that, the violence began.
Revolution wasn't peaceful. Wasn't clean. Was blood and screaming and rage finally unleashed.
Jax watched it happen, feeling sick and exhilarated and terrified.
This was what they'd started.
This was freedom's price.
And there was no going back.
The system had crashed.
Now came the war.