I slipped into the storm‑drain the way a thief would slip into a pocket watch—quiet, intentional, the metal grate muffling the world above. The tunnel smelled of rust and rain, the concrete cold against the soles of my boots. My breath was measured, each exhale a thin plume that vanished before it could touch the slick walls. My mind, a blade honed by a decade of hunting men who thought they were ghosts, was razor‑sharp.
The Tinkerer's hideout was a maze of forgotten service tunnels. He'd chosen it for the same reason I chose it now: anonymity. But he wasn't the only one who knew the layout. Deadshot—real name Floyd Lawton, a mercenary with a reputation that made even the most seasoned assassins flinch—had come in hot, and his crew was sweeping the building like a pack of blood‑hounds.
Above, the faint echo of boots thumped against steel. The sound traveled down the shaft in a low, rhythmic thrum, a metronome that kept time with my pulse. I pressed my back to the wall, letting the damp concrete absorb the vibrations. Every step I took was deliberate; any misplaced footfall would betray me, and the last thing I needed was a dead‑eye sniper's attention.
Deadshot doesn't miss. That was the first thing I told myself when I learned who was after the Tinkerer. He doesn't waste words. The second. I'd learned both truths from a dozen contracts and a dozen bodies. I had no interest in testing either.
The tunnel branched ahead, a Y‑shaped cut in the concrete that led deeper into the belly of the city. I chose the left, the longer path that sloped toward the waterworks. As I rounded the bend, something caught the edge of my peripheral vision: a faint white line, almost invisible against the grime.
I knelt, the flashlight on my helmet flickering over a fresh chalk mark. Someone had written on the wall in neat, confident strokes:
"You're not the only ghost here."
My eyes narrowed. Chalk didn't linger long in these tunnels; the damp would dissolve it in an hour. Yet here it was, crisp as if drawn moments ago. I ran a finger over the dust‑caked letters; they were a warning, a taunt, a message. Not random graffiti. A signal.
My mind raced. Deadshot knows I'm here. The only way to know that is to see me, to anticipate my moves. The marks were placed deliberately where he knew I'd look. He was playing a game of information warfare, not just intimidation. He wanted me to feel watched, off‑balance, as if the walls themselves were eyes.
I pressed forward, the tunnel's low ceiling brushing the back of my hood. My boots splashed in shallow pools; each step was a silent echo that seemed louder than it was. Further down, another mark—more ornate, an arrow pointing deeper into the darkness:
"You breathe too loud."
I inhaled again, deliberately shallow now, feeling the cool air curl around my throat. The sound of my breath seemed amplified, a whisper against the hum of distant generators. I forced it down, a private rhythm that only my own ears could hear.
The third message was even more chilling, etched directly into the concrete where the chalk would have washed away, the stone itself marred by a steel stylus:
"I don't miss. Remember that."
A faint grin tugged at the corner of my mouth. He was reminding me of his reputation, but also of something else—his certainty. He knew where I would be, or at least where I intended to go. He had set up a trap, perhaps, or a test. Either way, the game had escalated.
A muffled voice floated down from above, the cadence of a soldier's radio chatter. "Boss, we've cleared the west wing. Nothing down there."
Deadshot's reply was a measured sigh over the comms, the kind that carried weight without ever raising his voice. "That's what worries me. He's here. I can smell him. Leave him a message."
The words hung in the stale air like a promise.
My heart hammered against my ribs, not from fear but from anticipation. I knew the next thing would be a demonstration, a live warning. A noise—a metallic click—reverberated down the tunnel. I turned, eyes snapping to the ceiling grate. A single bullet, sleek as a silver thread, slipped into the shaft above me, striking the concrete with a clean crack and ricocheting down the tunnel like a lightning bolt.
For a heartbeat, I saw the bullet's trajectory in my mind: from Deadshot's rifle, from somewhere in the upper levels, its path true and unerring. The projectile whizzed past my head, the sound of it tearing through air louder than the storm‑drain's rumble. The impact sent a spray of dust and concrete shards into the tunnel, a small cloud that settled as quickly as it rose.
I could almost taste the copper of the bullet's whisper. It landed inches from my boots, the perfect distance to kill, to carve a shallow crater into the water that pooled at my knees. The message was clear: Deadshot wasn't guessing. He knew I was down here. He had a line of sight, a trajectory calculated with the kind of precision that turned men into legends and myths.
I crouched, feeling the vibrations of the bullet's strike through the concrete floor. My gloves flexed, the leather creaking as I rolled the small piece of grit back into the water. I didn't need to get out of the tunnel—you can't outrun a bullet. You have to anticipate it.
My eyes fell onto the wall just ahead, where a fresh smear of white chalk outlined a rectangle. Inside, in hurried, almost frantic strokes, another message emerged:
"Run while you can."
Below it, a crude drawing of a crosshair, the intersecting lines crisp, as if drawn by a hand that knew exactly where to aim.
My pulse steadied. The crosshair was a promise, a threat, and a reminder that the hunter was closing in. I slipped my hand into the pocket of my jacket and felt the weight of my notebook—my cache of observations, coordinates, and, most importantly, the Tinkerer's schematics. It was thick with pages of ink and torn photographs, the only thing I could bring out of this place if I survived.
The tunnel stretched ahead, narrowing into a fissure that opened onto a culvert where the stormwater rushed into the river. The sound of water grew louder, a roar that threatened to drown out the thoughts in my head. I could hear the mercenaries above, their boots now a chaotic rhythm, the occasional shouted order in a language I'd heard only in brief interceptions. Deadshot's voice, calm as ever, cut through that chaos:
"Search the east conduit. He's trying to slip out. I'll take the west."
He was dividing his forces—shepherding me toward a corner of the labyrinth where his crosshairs could be set. The more I thought, the more I realized: Deadshot wasn't just hunting the Tinkerer; he was hunting me, too. He wanted to remove a variable before taking the prize.
I pressed forward, the concrete walls closing in like the ribs of a coffin. The water at my feet rose, a thin sheet of cold that seeped through my boots and into my skin, chilling my nerves. I found a rusted pipe protruding from the wall, its end near the water's surface. I shoved my hand inside, feeling the slick metal, and pulled out a small, custom‑made collapsible ladder—an emergency exit I had placed there a few days before, anticipating a need for a quick escape route. It unfolded with a soft metallic sigh, its rungs glinting in my helmet's light.
I hoisted myself onto the ladder, inch by inch, feeling the water lapping at my calves, the darkness of the tunnel above like a void. Above me, the sound of a rifle cocking echoed through the steel grate.
He's waiting. I thought, as I neared the top, the cold spray of water turning to a mist that clung to my face. My hand slipped on a rung; a momentary loss of balance sent a shiver up my spine. I caught myself, heart thudding louder than any drum.
The ladder emerged onto a narrow catwalk that spanned the open drain, a concrete slab slick with rain that reflected the city's neon glow like a warped mirror. The sky above was a bruised violet, the first hints of dawn barely cutting through the oppressive clouds. The river below roared, a living beast that threatened to swallow anything in its path.
I slid down the catwalk, moving laterally toward the far side where an old service door hung ajar. The door was half‑rusted, its hinges protesting with a screech as I forced it open. Beyond it lay a narrow alley, lit by a single flickering streetlamp—an oasis of light in the damp, darkness of the underground.
I slipped through, the door closing behind me with a hollow thump. The alley was littered with debris: broken crates, a discarded can of spray paint, a few newspapers clinging to the damp ground. I crouched behind a stack of wooden pallets, drawing my pistol from its holster. The barrel was warm from the earlier shot; I could still feel the echo of Deadshot's bullet ricocheting in my bones.
A sudden clatter made me spin. A mercenary—one of Deadshot's men, I recognized the insignia on his shoulder—stumbled into view, his flashlight sweeping the alley. He was breathing heavily, his rifle slung over his shoulder, the muzzle still smoking from a recent discharge.
I didn't bother with a greeting. I raised my pistol, my finger laying lightly on the trigger. The shot was clean, a single burst that hit the mercenary's chest and sent him sprawling backward, his flashlight clattering to the ground, its beam rolling across the wet pavement.
The flash illuminated a face I didn't expect: the Tinkerer's. He was there, half‑hidden behind a pile of trash, eyes wide, his hands trembling. He wasn't the scientist I'd imagined—a man of cold calculations and careful design. He was a ragged figure, a man who had been driven to the edge by his own creations.
He looked at me, then at the blood on my gun. "You… you're Ghost," he whispered, voice hoarse.
I lowered my weapon, the adrenaline receding just enough for reason to take over. "You have something that belongs to a lot of people," I said, the words feeling more like a promise than a threat. "You need to get out of here before they find you."
He nodded, his eyes flicking toward the river, toward the direction of the storm‑drain's exit. He turned back to me, clutching a small, battered briefcase—the Tinkerer's archive, the proof of the technology he'd been developing, the thing Deadshot wanted more than any bounty.
"Will you… help me?" he asked, desperation seeping through every syllable.
I weighed his request against the heat of the moment, the distant sound of gunfire echoing from the building above, the knowledge that Deadshot's men would be converging on this spot within minutes. I thought of the chalk marks, the messages, the way Deadshot had been toying with me—testing my resolve, watching my breath.
I made a decision.
"Follow me," I said. "We take the service tunnel at the far end. It leads to the old maintenance shaft. We'll lose them there."
The Tinkerer hesitated, then slipped into the shadows behind me, clutching the briefcase like a lifeline. We moved together, the wet pavement squelching under our boots, the alley's narrowness forcing us into a single file. I kept my pistol pressed to my side, the barrel still warm.
We reached a metal door set into the side of the building, a relic from a time when the city's infrastructure had been less polluted. I kicked it open with a practiced swing, the hinges groaning. Beyond was a dark stairwell that descended into a depth of piping and tunnels that had not seen maintenance in decades.
We descended, the air growing colder, the smell of oil and rust thickening. The walls were slick with condensation, and the sound of our footfalls was swallowed by the cavernous space. I felt the presence of dead eyes watching us from every hidden nook, the memory of the chalk marks lingering like phantom fingerprints.
Halfway down, a sound cracked through the tunnel—a deafening, metallic clang as a heavy door slammed shut above us. The echo reverberated, a reminder that someone was sealing our escape route.
I quickened my pace, pulling the Tinkerer along, the briefcase clutched to his chest like a heart. The stairwell opened onto a narrow passage that led to a service hatch overlooking the river. The hatch was open, a slab of steel that would allow us to slip into the current and disappear downstream.
I motioned to the Tinkerer. "You go first. Jump in. I'll cover you."
He looked at me—eyes wide, fear and hope tangled. Then he jumped. The cold water hit him like a fist, the current dragging him away, his silhouette swallowed by the dark.
I waited a heartbeat, then dove after him. The river surged, pulling at my limbs, the water a raging beast that threatened to turn us into debris. My training kicked in: I swam with the current, kept my head above water, and guided the Tinkerer toward the far bank where a rusted crane—once used for loading cargo—provided a foothold. With a final, desperate thrust, I hauled us both onto the metal structure, the current rushing past us, a furious roar that threatened to pull us back.
The city's skyline loomed ahead, the first light of dawn breaking over the horizon. The river's surface glittered, reflecting the reds and oranges of the sunrise. The storm that had rattled the drains above was finally easing, a calm that mirrored the settling of my own mind.
I lay on the crane's cold steel, the Tinkerer panting beside me. My notebook was still in my jacket, its pages damp but intact. I opened it, flipping to the last page I'd written in the tunnel—a crude sketch of the chalk marks, the coordinates of the hideout, and a note in my own hand:Deadshot is watching.