The world on the other side of the invisible fence was quiet.
Too quiet.
Jinx landed on the damp asphalt with a soft thud, her body coiled like a spring.
The blind spot had worked.
Michael's insane, suicidal, beautiful plan had actually worked.
She didn't have time to celebrate.
The silence here was different from the tomb-like silence of the tunnels.
This was the silence of a held breath.
The silence of a predator waiting.
She flattened herself against the cold, corrugated metal of a storage unit, her rifle held low.
Her scanner showed the blind spot was gone. The energy grid was back online, a solid, seamless cage once more.
She was inside.
Alone.
"Okay, Jinx," she whispered to herself, her breath fogging in the cold night air. "Just another job."
The words felt hollow.
She began to move, a ghost in a graveyard of forgotten belongings, her boots making no sound on the wet ground.
Aisle one, clear.
Aisle two, clear.
Her destination was Unit 347. Far side of the complex.
This was the easy part. A simple infiltration.
She was the best scrapper in the Undercroft. Locks were her specialty.
This should be a cakewalk.
Then she heard it.
The crunch of gravel.
Two pairs of boots.
A patrol.
Crap.
She ducked behind a row of overflowing industrial dumpsters, the stench of old garbage a welcome cloak.
She peeked through a gap.
Two DGC black-ops soldiers. Full tactical gear. Energy rifles at the ready.
They were moving slowly, methodically, sweeping their flashlights in overlapping arcs.
They weren't on the patrol route she had mapped.
The shift change. The chaos. It had scrambled their patterns.
"Come on, come on," she muttered, urging them to pass. "Nothing to see here. Just some high-end garbage."
The soldiers stopped.
They were ten feet away.
One of them raised a hand, signaling a halt.
His helmet turned, the dark visor seeming to stare directly at her hiding spot.
Double crap.
Did they see me? Hear me? Smell me?
They started walking towards the dumpsters.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
Her heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic drumbeat of pure panic.
Her hand tightened on the grip of her pistol.
She could take them. Maybe. One quick burst before they could raise their rifles.
But the sound would bring the whole damn facility down on her head.
It was over.
Trapped.
She was going to end up as a cloud of dust, just like the Rust Dogs.
Just like her family.
----------------------------------------------------------
From his perch on the rooftop across the street, Michael watched the tiny drama unfold through his scavenged night-vision goggles.
He saw the patrol deviate from its path.
He saw them zero in on Jinx's hiding spot.
"No, no, no," he breathed, his own heart sinking into his stomach. "Failed stealth check. Come on, Jinx."
He felt a surge of helpless frustration.
She was trapped. And he was stuck up here, a useless spectator.
He had to do something.
A diversion. He needed a diversion.
His eyes scanned the street below.
The blue sedan. The one that was too clean. The one that screamed "DGC."
Perfect.
My brilliant plan is to throw a rock at a car, he thought, the sarcasm a bitter taste in his mouth.
Dad would be so proud. S-Rank rock-throwing. It's a family legacy.
He searched the gravelly rooftop, his fingers closing around a loose chunk of concrete. It was heavy. Solid.
It would make a nice, loud, attention-grabbing noise.
It would also pinpoint his general location to every sniper and Ghost in a five-block radius.
But Jinx was out of time.
He saw the lead soldier raise his rifle.
Michael stood up, pulling his arm back, ready to throw the rock and his entire life away.
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Two blocks away, in another, far more meticulously organized sniper's nest, Chloe Ryland lowered her high-tech listening device.
"Amateurs," she muttered, her voice a low, clinical hiss of pure annoyance.
She had been monitoring this lockdown for hours, her entire setup a masterpiece of professional surveillance.
Her mission was simple: identify key personnel in General Gideon's black-ops division. Gather data. Find the names of the men who had signed her partner's death warrant.
This whole operation was a golden opportunity.
And these two… these two rogue elements were ruining everything.
A reckless girl with a jury-rigged rifle and a boy who moved like a glitch in reality.
They were noisy.
They were chaotic.
They were going to compromise her entire intelligence-gathering operation.
She watched through her own powerful scope as the boy on the rooftop prepared to do something catastrophically stupid.
She sighed, a sound of pure frustration.
Her finger hovered over a button on her tablet, ready to pack up and scrub the mission.
Let them get caught. It would be cleaner.
Then, a priority comms burst crackled through her headset. It was an encrypted channel, a direct line she had spent weeks trying to break.
The signal was weak, full of static, but the words were clear.
"...Commander Rourke reporting to Gideon's office. The trap is set."
Chloe froze. Gideon.
"Initial contact with the anomaly was successful. Energy signature consistent with… Arcana lineage."
The world seemed to stop.
Arcana.
The name from the redacted files.
The missing piece of the puzzle behind the Ever-Gate disaster. The case that had gotten her partner killed.
"...designation Echo-01 is confirmed on-site. Proceeding with neutralization protocol."
Echo-01.
The anomaly.
The boy on the roof.
He wasn't just some amateur.
He was the key.
He was the weapon she had been searching for, the one thing sharp enough to cut out the cancer of Project Chimera.
Her entire mission objective shifted in the space of a single heartbeat.
She was no longer just an observer.
She was a player.
Her fingers flew across the screen of her tablet, her movements economical and precise.
She activated a signal spoofer, a piece of illegal tech that had cost her a small fortune on the Undercroft black market.
She typed a single, simple command.
----------------------------------------------------------
The lead DGC soldier raised his rifle, his flashlight beam fixed on the gap between the dumpsters.
"On my mark," he murmured into his comms.
Suddenly, a panicked voice screamed in his ear.
"Code Red! Code Red! Containment breach at the south gate! All units respond! Repeat, all units respond!"
The two soldiers froze.
They exchanged a confused look.
"Command, confirm," the lead soldier said.
"This is Command!" the voice shrieked. "We have a breach! Move your asses! Now!"
The order was absolute.
The two soldiers didn't hesitate. They turned and sprinted away from the dumpsters, their boots pounding on the asphalt as they raced towards the south gate.
Jinx stared, her mind struggling to process what had just happened.
A containment breach?
It made no sense.
She risked a peek over the dumpster.
The alley was empty.
She was safe.
She felt a wave of dizzying confusion, but a survivor's instincts were stronger.
Don't question good luck. Use it.
On the rooftop, Michael stood frozen, the heavy rock still in his hand.
He watched the soldiers run away.
He watched Jinx slip from behind the dumpsters and continue her silent infiltration.
What just happened?
It wasn't a coincidence.
It was too perfect. Too clean.
Someone had intervened.
A third player.
A ghost on the field.
Who?
Why?
From her perch two blocks away, Chloe Ryland watched the chaos she had created.
The false alarm was sending half of Gideon's forces on a wild goose chase.
The girl, the scrapper, was now moving unhindered towards her target.
And the boy… Echo-01… was standing on the rooftop, looking around with a confused, wary expression.
She raised her rifle.
She wasn't aiming to fire.
She looked at him through her powerful scope, the crosshairs settling directly on his chest.
The on-screen display analyzed his energy signature, the numbers scrolling too fast to read, the readings off the charts.
Impossible.
He was a beautiful, terrifying, perfect weapon.
He was the key to her revenge.
Her face was a mask of cold, hard calculation.
A faint, cruel smile touched the corner of her lips.
"Alright, Echo-01," she murmured, her voice a low, chilling whisper that was swallowed by the night.
"You have my attention."