The new safehouse wasn't a house at all.
It was a forgotten transfer station: a hollowed‑out pocket of concrete where three tunnels met and then changed their minds. Old tracks lay twisted and useless, half‑buried under debris. Someone had carved the Network's sigil into one of the support pillars a rough circle with a broken line through it.
"Home sweet nowhere," Kael said.
His voice echoed more than it should have.
Aiden scanned the space automatically, agent training kicking in: entrances, exits, sightlines. The place had advantages only two usable approaches, natural choke points, plenty of metal to bounce illusions from. It also had a ceiling that had seen better decades.
"How stable is this?" he asked Lysa.
"Stable enough that if it falls, we'll all notice at the same time," she said. "Relax, Lioren. The city's been trying to crush us for years. It hasn't managed yet."
People were already spreading out, claiming corners with bedrolls and crates. A low murmur rose as news filtered through: the collar was gone, Orion was in the tunnels, the feeds were painting them all as contaminated.
Kael drifted toward a stretch of wall and slid down it until he sat with his knees pulled up. He moved more carefully now, like someone whose body kept reminding him of the last twelve hours.
Aiden followed.
"You should sleep," he said.
Kael huffed.
"You have a very optimistic idea of what my brain does when I close my eyes," he said. "Also, have you noticed the whole 'elite kill squad hunting us' thing? Kind of loud."
"Sleep doesn't require quiet," Aiden said. "It requires exhaustion."
"Good news," Kael said. "I have that in abundance."
He rested his head back against the wall, eyes half‑closed.
Aiden sat beside him, leaving a hand's breadth of space between them.
For a while, they just watched the Network move.
Runners came in and out, exchanging packets, coordinates, rumors. A woman in her fifties with a scar across her nose sat at a makeshift table, mapping shifts in patrol routes based on stray reports. Someone heated water over a portable coil, the smell of cheap tea cutting through the damp.
"This is what you signed up for," Kael said quietly. "All this."
"I didn't sign anything," Aiden said. "That was the problem."
Kael turned his head.
"You're allowed to regret it," he said. "You know that, right?"
Aiden thought of Mara's face beneath the grate, the way she'd looked more statue than person as she sent Orion into the tunnels.
"I regret that it took this long," he said.
Kael studied him.
"You really are broken," Kael murmured.
"Probably," Aiden said.
Lysa approached, dropping into a crouch in front of them.
"Status update," she said. "Taro's group made it to the west line; they're setting up decoys fake power spikes, ghost signatures, that sort of thing. We've got eyes on two Orion teams moving through sectors we're already abandoning."
"And Mara?" Aiden asked.
"Still on the ridge," Lysa said. "Runners say she's splitting her unit smaller, sending pairs instead of squads. She's trying to cover more ground with fewer eyes."
"That's a risk," Aiden said.
"For them or for us?" Lysa asked.
"Both," Aiden said. "Two‑person teams are agile, but easier to isolate. It also means she trusts their individual judgment, which narrows our margin for tricking them."
"So we make sure the first judgment call they have to make goes badly," Lysa said.
Kael opened one eye.
"You're planning something," he said.
"I'm planning not to wait passively while they box us in," Lysa replied. "The city's already being told we're contaminating agents just by breathing near them. If we keep running, that story solidifies. We need leverage."
"And what does leverage look like for you?" Aiden asked.
"Information," she said. "Proof. Something that says, 'the Order is lying, and here's how.' You and Kael are walking contradictions of their narrative. That makes you valuable. It also makes you targets. So we use that."
Kael's expression sharpened, fatigue pushed back by curiosity.
"How?" he asked. "We can't exactly march into a news station and give an interview."
"Not yet," Lysa said. "But the Order isn't a monolith. There are cracks. People who see what's happening and flinch. We find one of those cracks in Orion, and we push."
Aiden felt an old instinct recoil.
"Turning agents is not simple," he said. "They're vetted, conditioned, monitored. Any hesitation gets flagged and 'corrected.'"
"Right," Lysa said. "So we don't try to turn them. We give them something they can't unsee. Something that makes them question the orders they're about to follow. Doubt is a slow weapon, but it's effective."
Kael frowned.
"And to give them that," he said, "we have to get close."
"Exactly," Lysa said. "Close enough to talk. Close enough not to die in the first three seconds."
She looked straight at Aiden.
"That's where you come in," she said. "You speak their language. You know their hierarchy, their reflexes. You can read when someone's about to pull the trigger and when someone's about to hesitate."
"You want to use me as bait," Aiden said.
"I prefer the term 'messenger,'" Lysa said. "But yes. Bait with good posture."
Kael sat up a little straighter.
"No," he said. "Absolutely not. They've already decided he's compromised. The second they see him, they'll shoot first and write the explanation later."
"Some will," Lysa said. "Some won't. Our job is to force the encounter where 'won't' wins."
"And if you misjudge?" Kael demanded.
"Then I lose a valuable asset," Lysa said coolly. "And you lose the person who dragged you out of that convoy."
Kael flinched.
Aiden rubbed a hand over his face.
"She's not wrong," he said.
Kael rounded on him.
"You're agreeing with her?" he asked. "You want to walk into Orion's line of fire just to see if any of them feel guilty enough to miss?"
"It's not about guilt," Aiden said. "It's about fault lines. The more pressure the Order applies contamination narratives, hunt orders the more likely some agents will break under the strain. If we find one at the right moment…"
"We get an ally on the inside," Lysa finished. "Or at least someone who hesitates at the worst possible time—for them."
Kael shook his head.
"This is insane," he said. "You just got out. They're rewriting you as a brainwashed puppet, and your plan is to prove them… what? Wrong? Right?"
Aiden met his eyes.
"My plan," he said slowly, "is to make sure when they say 'the Deviant twisted him,' someone in that squad remembers seeing us and thinking, 'that's not what twisted looks like.'"
Kael stared at him.
"You're going to get yourself killed for a nuance," he said.
"Nuances change outcomes," Aiden said. "Ask anyone who's ever read a badly worded law."
Lysa stood.
"I'll give you both time to argue," she said. "But not much. We don't have the luxury."
She walked away, already calling for scouts.
Kael let his head fall back against the wall again.
"Do you trust her?" he asked.
Aiden listened to the rhythm of the room: running feet, low voices, the distant rumble of something heavy moving in another tunnel.
"I trust that she hates the Order more than she likes me," he said. "That makes her predictable."
"That's not an answer," Kael said.
"It's the only one I have," Aiden replied.
Silence stretched.
Finally Kael sighed.
"Fine," he said. "If you're going to be bait, I'm not staying behind."
Aiden turned sharply.
"You're still recovering," he said. "You can barely control your output."
"All the more reason not to leave me unsupervised," Kael said. "Besides, if they think I 'manipulated' you, it'll confuse them to see us together by choice. Confusion buys time."
"Or gets you shot as a package deal," Aiden said.
Kael's smile was thin.
"We were always a package," he said. "That's the problem."
He pushed himself to his feet with a soft groan.
"Also, if Mara shows up," he added, "you're going to need someone who can fry a shield faster than she expects."
Aiden couldn't argue with that.
He stood too.
"All right," he said. "We do this my way, then Lysa's. We control the conditions as much as possible."
Kael raised an eyebrow.
"And what does 'your way' look like?" he asked.
"Pick a likely patrol route," Aiden said. "Create an illusion of something they can't ignore—a fake energy spike, a wounded civilian, whatever fits their protocols. Draw in a small team, not the whole squad. Then we talk."
"Talk," Kael repeated. "You really think that works?"
"It worked for you," Aiden said quietly.
Kael stared at him for a long beat.
"Does that mean you're going to tell them the truth?" he asked. "About why you did it?"
"Yes," Aiden said. "They deserve to hear it from someone not reading a script."
Kael's throat worked around words that didn't quite make it out.
Finally, he nodded.
"Okay," he said. "Let's go test how breakable your old world really is."
Two levels up and three tunnels over, an Orion patrol moved in tight formation.
Mara wasn't with this one.
Lin led, eyes flicking between the corridor ahead and the portable scanner in their hand.
"Reading minor fluctuations," the tech behind them said. "Could be leftover from the collar surge. Could be standard grid noise."
"Nothing about this week is standard," Lin replied. "Log everything. If we're wrong, Internal can yell at us later."
They advanced another twenty meters.
The scanner chirped, a softer note this time.
Lin frowned.
"What is it?" the tech asked.
"Localized distortion," Lin said. "Light scatter in the next junction. Could be an illusion."
"Lioren's tricks," the tech said.
"Maybe," Lin replied. "Or maybe the Network learned from watching him."
Protocol dictated a slow approach, shields up, weapons ready.
Lin signaled accordingly.
They rounded the corner.
At the far end of the junction, half‑hidden by shadow, someone slumped against the wall hood up, one hand pressed to their side.
A civilian, by the look of the clothes.
The scanner flickered, then stabilized.
"No immediate Deviant signature," the tech said, low. "Could still be a mask."
Lin hesitated.
The briefing played back in their mind: Mara insisting they treat anything unexpected as potential threat. The feeds talking about manipulation, contamination, influence.
But there was also the training older than this crisis check casualties, secure noncombatants, stabilize the scene.
"Cover me," Lin said.
They moved forward, slow, weapon angled downward but ready.
The figure lifted their head.
Light caught their face.
Lin froze.
"Aiden?" they breathed.
He looked older than the file photos, more tired than the footage from the ambush. No armor now just a dark coat, hands empty, eyes very, very awake.
"Hello, Lin," he said.
Behind him, the faint outline of another shape shifted a second figure just outside the main light, electricity humming like a distant storm.
Lin's throat went dry.
Every protocol screamed at once.
Threat.
Opportunity.
Trap.
Choice.