Singapore glimmered like a beacon of order in a world crumbling under shadows.
Glass towers pierced the sky, their mirrored surfaces reflecting a city too clean, too calm. But beneath the surface—beneath the traffic drones and artificial greenery—Helix Dynamics ruled with silent precision. It wasn't a headquarters.
It was a fortress in disguise.
From a perch on the rooftop of a neighboring hotel, Tanya Volkova scoped the Helix compound through a long-range lens. Reinforced perimeter. Guards with non-standard loadouts. Drones on a 30-second flyby pattern. Someone had tightened security.
"A lot of firepower for a logistics firm," she muttered into her comm.
Reyes responded from the van below. "They're running more encryption than a NATO strike group. I'm tunneling through their thermal sensors now… slowly."
Inside the van, monitors glowed with live feeds—public and hacked. Reyes hunched over his console, fingers dancing as he fed Grimm updates through a custom earpiece.
"Surveillance AI is active. No facial ID triggers so far. You're clear—for now."
Grimm stood at the edge of the plaza, dressed in civilian clothes, a messenger bag slung over his shoulder. His Reaper gear was stashed in a duffel half a block away, just in case. All he carried now was a burner phone, a sidearm, and the resolve to walk into the trap.
"I've got eyes on the drop point," Grimm said, crossing the plaza toward a sculpture of twisting steel that towered over a dry fountain. Tourists snapped photos nearby. No one noticed the man approaching with measured steps and dead eyes.
The phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
He answered.
"Alone," the voice on the other end said. Digitally scrambled. Genderless. "Good."
"You're Cipher," Grimm said.
"No. I am what Cipher left behind. A trace. A flicker. But I can help you."
He glanced around. "Why?"
"Because you were never supposed to survive Norway. And because Breakpoint is more dangerous than even Kessler knows."
"Talk."
"There's a second protocol hidden beneath Phantom. Autonomous. Adaptive. It's already been deployed to Helix's drone fleet. The target parameters include predictive civilian threats—journalists, activists, even politicians. Anyone the algorithm deems destabilizing."
Grimm's jaw tightened. "They're planning to kill civilians—on a global scale."
"They already have," the voice replied. "And you have only one chance to stop what comes next."
"Why the games? Why bring me here?"
"To give you this."
A file appeared on his phone screen—encrypted coordinates, codenamed: Archangel.
Grimm opened his mouth to ask another question—but the line went dead.
Volkova's voice crackled in his ear. "You've got company. Five men. Suits. Moving fast."
Grimm turned just in time to see them emerge from the crowd. Not police. Not PMC.
Clean-shaven. Earpieces. Suppressed pistols hidden under their jackets.
"Reyes. Mask me."
"Working on it—"
The security cameras around the plaza glitched, then looped.
"Go, go, go!" Reyes yelled.
Grimm bolted toward the underground tunnel, heart pounding. The first shot cracked past his ear—suppressed but lethal. He ducked behind a kiosk, drew his sidearm, and fired two rounds. One agent fell.
Volkova's sniper round dropped another before he even hit the ground.
Grimm sprinted down the stairwell as bullets shattered tile around him. Reyes overrode the exit locks remotely, triggering fire doors to slam shut behind Grimm, cutting off pursuit.
In the van, Reyes exhaled. "You're clear. For now."
Minutes later, Grimm slipped into an alley where a hidden access panel opened into a utility tunnel. Bull was waiting at the end, shotgun in hand.
"You get what you came for?"
Grimm handed him the phone. "Coordinates. A site called Archangel. East Kazakhstan."
"Cold place for answers," Bull muttered.
"They're trying to wipe the slate clean," Grimm said. "Everything—everyone—deemed 'dangerous to stability' is going on their kill list."
"And we're the tip of that list," Volkova added, stepping out from the shadows.
Grimm nodded. "This is it. Archangel's where the kill switch lives."
Reyes's voice came through. "Then we've got a window. Helix is regrouping. I can jam their drones for maybe six hours. After that—hell rains down."
"Then we move tonight," Grimm said.
As the sun dipped below Singapore's skyline, casting false light across the city's sterile facade, the team disappeared into the shadows—one step closer to the truth, and to the storm waiting in the snowfields of Kazakhstan.