The woman’s grin faltered. She had not been expecting that response from him.She looked into the raw, unyielding conviction in his eyes and realized she wasn’t negotiating with a boy playing hero; she was negotiating with the heir to a dynasty that didn’t know how to lose.“The sub-basement,” she whispered, her voice finally losing its edge. “Level Seven. It’s not on the maps. It’s a pressurized chamber behind the main server stack. The Warden calls it the Heart. She might be there, Tedmond. But the only way in is through the Warden’s private lift.”She paused, her amber eyes searching the silver mask as if trying to see the flesh beneath it.“I wasn’t sure you would actually find her here. It’s been years since I last saw Mill. Back then, I didn’t know who she really was. In this place, people are just numbers or shadows. No one knew what she truly looked like… she was kept in the deep dark.”She leaned closer to the glass, her expression turning uncharacteristically soft.“But now

Marek’s hand shot out as Tedmond reached the top of the shaft, swinging onto solid floor just as the lift car snapped its final tether and plummeted into the abyss.Tedmond hit hard, coughing up the sweet taste of gas. He ripped off his mask, gasping for the smoke-filled air of the upper levels.“The transport,” Tedmond wheezed, looking at Marek. “Where is it?”“The hangar,” Marek grunted, helping him up. “But they’ve already cleared the roof. If we want to catch them, we have to take the Warden’s personal interceptor.”Tedmond stood, legs shaky but gaze as sharp as a bayonet. He glanced at the book in his hand, then toward the path to the hangar.“Then we take it,” he said. “And we shoot down anything that gets in our way.”The hangar was a cavernous expanse of polished chrome and reinforced steel, echoing with the distant groans of the facility’s dying infrastructure. In the center sat the Warden’s personal interceptor, a sleek, predatory craft that looked more like a shard of obsi

The secondary cooling tower was a brutalist spike of concrete and rusted iron, leaning out over the cliffside, isolated from the main facility. It had been designed to vent the Heart’s thermal energy, but as Tedmond, Lottie, and Marek sprinted across the connecting gantry, it was clear the tower was being repurposed for something far darker.The air grew colder, heavy with salt spray from the waves crashing hundreds of feet below.“Albert,” Tedmond barked into his comms. “Status on the tower’s structure.”“Not good, Master Tedmond,” Albert replied, his voice tight. “The Warden has initiated a Scrub protocol. He isn’t just venting gas… he’s triggered the explosive bolts in the foundation. The tower is standing on prayers and gravity alone. You have approximately seven minutes before it shears off the cliff.”“Seven minutes,” Tedmond repeated. He slammed a hand against the heavy blast doors at the base of the tower. It was locked.“Marek,” he commanded.Marek didn’t hesitate. He step

Hugo immediately held out his hand. “I—I was just trying to warm it up!” Hugo wailed, cowering as Marek loomed over him.Tedmond ignored the pathetic display, eyes fixed on the terminal Lottie had just bypassed.“Albert,” he snapped into his comms. “The image. Show me exactly who was loaded onto that medical shuttle.”“Uploading the freeze-frame from the sub-hangar camera now, Master Tedmond,” Albert replied.The screen flickered, then resolved into a grainy, high-contrast image. Two women were being hurried toward the shuttle by Enforcers. One wore the uniform of a Syndicate logistics officer… Molly Webb. The other wore a grey, nondescript shift, her face partially obscured by a fall of silver-blonde hair.Tedmond’s breath hitched. For a moment, his tactical shield nearly shattered. That hair.“Wait,” Lottie whispered, leaning closer. “Look at their wrists, Tedmond.”He saw it. In the chaos of the Scrub protocol, the Enforcers had been frantic. One woman had a yellow Asset band

Thomas stared at them, mouth hanging slightly open. “That is… that is the most strategically vacant reasoning I have ever heard in my professional life. ‘The ground feels honest’? ‘Enjoy the scenery’? You’re going into a Syndicate processing hub, not a Sunday picnic!”Thomas didn’t like what he was hearing. All he wanted to do was make the whole thing easy, and now Ma,rek and Lottie were trying to make it even harder.Tedmond didn’t laugh, but the corner of his eye twitched with the faintest shadow of a smile. He met Thomas’s gaze, the intensity of his stare anchoring the absurdity of the moment.“The air is monitored, Thomas,” Tedmond said evenly. “Every flight plan leaves a signature. But a car… a car is just one of ten thousand vehicles on the highway. We need to stay invisible, until the moment we choose not to be.”“Fine,” Thomas groaned, throwing his hands up. “Go ahead. Take the long way. Drive until your tires melt. I’ll stay here and try to keep the satellites from losing y