It didn't take long for the war table to turn savage. Jane Navarro planted both hands on the surface, her posture daring anyone to try and move her. The penthouse's command center was dark save for the city map projected overhead—Nueva Arcadia pulsing, every district a potential grave—and for the first time since the crisis began, even the air inside the room felt raw.
"We finish the contract," Jane said, each word flayed down to the bone. "That's what we do. I don't care if every goddamn CEO and child prodigy in this city wants us dead. We said we'd deliver."
Hazel stood at the far end of the table, a barricade of tablets and comms gear between her and the rest. "She said not to come," Hazel shot back, voice trembling with the effort to keep it level. "That message was a release. Blood or not, the contract's broken."
Ellen hovered by the windows, silhouetted by the soft glow from the Crystal District. Her arms were crossed, but her voice was ice. "That's not how it works and you know it. If we walk away now, we're nothing. The only reason we're still alive is because nobody expects us to quit."
Hazel's fingers twitched, calling up the still of Shiori's face from the last message. "She's dead, Ellen. Or worse. We stick to the plan, we die like her."
Owen broke his silence, his tone a scalpel. "That's the job, Hazel. Every time. We take the contract because no one else can, or will. Doesn't matter if the client gets themselves killed or betrays us or burns the city to ash—there's nothing else out there for us." He let the words hang a moment, then added, "If you want to walk, you do it now."
Nobody moved. The map flickered, a new alert cycling through: increased Nexar activity at the Sombra border, three new AVs converging on the east canal. Jane's lips twisted—not a smile, not quite a snarl.
"We're going to need two teams," Jane said. "Owen, Hazel—you hit the black site. Ellen and I go for the Bridge. In and out, max noise. Hit them so hard they think it's suicide."
Hazel met Jane's stare, and for a heartbeat, neither looked away. Then Hazel nodded, sharp and small, and started locking out the firewalls. "Fine," she said, "but if this goes bad, I want it on record that I was right."
Jane almost laughed, but didn't. "If it goes bad, you won't have to tell anyone."
Ellen was already at the vault, pulling her custom kit from the wall: a sheath lined in zero-gauge frost wrap, and a blade that shimmered with runes so faint they looked like fractures in the air. She checked the edge, her face unreadable.
"Two hours," Ellen said. "That's how long you have before they call in air support and lock the whole plant down. We get in, we get out, we never look back."
Hazel worked in silence, pulling her tactical bodysuit and platecarrier, checking the fit with nervous tugs at the sleeves. She looked up once, catching Owen's eye, and for a moment her face softened. "If we die—"
"We're not going to die," Owen said, voice dead calm.
Hazel nodded, but the tremor in her hands didn't stop.
Jane watched them both, then turned back to Ellen. "This isn't about the Bridge anymore. It's about them knowing we can't be erased."
Ellen's expression was almost bored. "We'll see if they get the message."
For the next few minutes, the penthouse was a flurry of action—last-second code swaps, comms checks. Hazel wired a new kill switch into her headset, then checked the black box with trembling fingers. Owen loaded his custome rifle. Jane flexed her heat-resistant gloves, the kind rated for handling molten mana. Ellen polished the blade one last time, then holstered it.
When it was time to go, nobody said goodbye.
Jane and Ellen slipped through the service corridor, dropping into the tower's blind spot and vanishing into the storm-wet night. Their path ran parallel to the city's own nervous system, dodging patrols and automated sensors with the grace of old predators. Every shadow was a potential kill zone; every lit window, a possible sniper's perch.
Hazel and Owen took the lower exit, down the elevator shaft and into the sub-basement, then out through a refuse tunnel that ran beneath the canal. The air stank of chlorine and spent magic, but it was safe, for the moment. Hazel led, her frame small and tense, ears twitching at every echo. Owen followed, his pace measured, keeping the noise of his boots to a minimum.
On the last turn before they hit open ground, Hazel stopped.
"What?" Owen whispered.
She shook her head. "Nothing. Just… never mind."
He waited, and she said it: "I never hated the contract. I hated that it's all we ever had."
Owen let it sit. "You finish this job, you get to choose what's next. That's the rule."
She almost smiled, then cinched her hood tight and moved on.
Above, the city howled with the static of a thousand unfinished stories, every one a warning.
UMBRA split, each half fading into the dark, their futures uncertain, but the contract—whatever it meant—still in play.