All Chapters of The Veritas Heir : Chapter 11
- Chapter 20
32 chapters
11. THE SILENT TURN
Ash and smoke still clung to their clothes. The city above buzzed with chaos, emergency lights, collapsing news feeds, encrypted Consortium alerts blinking across every hidden channel.Zane, Elen, and Cain lay low in a decaying observatory on the city’s edge, the old dome cracked and filled with rusted telescopes. No cameras. No drones. Just silence. Elen stared at the static flickering across a handheld monitor. The signal from Myles had gone dark ten hours ago. No confirmation if he escaped the blaze, or if Rae Avenir’s men had silenced him.Cain paced. “He should’ve sent something by now.”Zane sat against the wall, legs stretched, eyes dull. “He was laughing when we ran. That man didn’t expect to live.”“No,” Cain said, stopping. “But he expected to be heard.”Zane's jaw tightened. “And they buried his voice.”Elen turned to face them both. “So we raise it louder.” Zane’s gaze slowly lifted to hers. A spark returned.…That night, a click echoed in the room. One of Cain’s traps h
12. The Urban Core
Rain fell in thin lines, steady and cold. It ran down broken concrete and pooled in dark seams along the street.Zane stood at the curb and watched the old substation. Its windows were boarded. Rust streaked the metal doors.A bus passed and splashed water against the sidewalk. No one looked at the building.Zane checked his watch. He tapped the earpiece once. “Clear?” he asked.Rex’s voice came back low. “No motion inside. No heat spikes. Cameras are blind past the fence.”Zane nodded. He crossed the street without rushing. The fence leaned inward. One section was cut and wired back together with care. Zane slipped through and crouched near the wall.Victor waited by the door. He wore a dark jacket and gloves with the fingers cut off. Victor glanced at Zane. He said nothing.Celeste stood a few steps back, phone in hand, screen dark. She watched the street, not the building.Zane raised two fingers. Victor unlocked the door. The metal hinge creaked. Victor froze. He waited. Nothing m
13. Victor’s Ghosts
The warehouse sat under the overpass, half crushed by time. Trucks roared above it, never slowing.Victor parked two blocks away. He walked the rest. His jacket stayed open. His hands stayed clear.A man waited inside, leaning on a crate. Gray hair. Old boots. Eyes that never stopped moving. “Door was unlocked,” the man said.Victor stopped ten feet away. “It always is.”The man smiled without humor. “You’re late.”Victor looked at the shadows. “You’re early.”Silence followed. The man pushed off the crate. “Name’s Harlan.”Victor nodded. “You were Kestrel Two.”Harlan’s jaw tightened. He said nothing. Victor stepped closer. “You run security now.”Harlan spat to the side. “Run is generous.”Victor reached into his pocket and placed a chip on the crate. Harlan didn’t touch it. “Who sent you?” Harlan asked.Victor held his gaze. “No one.”Harlan laughed once. “That’s worse.”Victor turned and walked away. “Wait,” Harlan said.Victor stopped. Harlan picked up the chip. He rolled it betw
14. The Underground Wakes
Rex sealed the hatch behind him and cut the light for three seconds. He waited. Nothing moved. No sound followed him down.He turned the light back on. The beam caught old concrete walls and bundled fiber lines drooping like dead vines. The tunnel sloped downward and narrowed fast.Rex stepped forward. His boots splashed through shallow water that smelled of rust and oil. The air felt cold and stale. Every breath tasted old.He moved slow. One hand on the wall. The other on his tablet. The signal map flickered and broke, then settled into thin blue lines. “This is it,” he said, quiet.No one answered. He did not expect them to. The tunnel split after twenty meters. Rex chose left. The right path showed signs of collapse and fresh dust. He did not trust it.He ducked under a fallen cable rack. The metal groaned but held. His light swept ahead, catching old junction boxes with faded city tags.He stopped at the first access panel. The lock was ancient. He pulled a small cutter from his
15. Weaponized Emotion
The room sat deep below street level, lit by work lamps tied to exposed beams. Old concrete walls held the cold. Cables ran like veins across the floor.Celeste stood at the center table. Screens rose around her in a half circle. Each showed the city from a different angle.Traffic feeds blinked. Transit delays scrolled. Local posts pulsed in moving color bands. No maps showed names. Only zones and numbers.Zane leaned against a pillar near the stairs. His jacket stayed zipped. His eyes never stopped moving.Victor stood farther back, arms folded. Two sentries watched the hall. Celeste tapped a key. The screens shifted. Colors sharpened. “Live,” she said.The city broke into layers. Blocks glowed faint red, yellow, or blue. The colors changed in waves, not lines. Zane stepped closer. “What am I looking at.”“People,” Celeste said. “Not where they are. What they are about to do.”A new feed opened. A market district flared yellow. The color thickened, then faded. Celeste zoomed in. A s
16. First Blood on Concrete
The warehouse sat between two apartment blocks and a closed laundromat. Its lights were off. A faded mark on the side wall showed it was tagged for Urban Core use.Rain slicked the street. Trash bags hugged the curb. A stray cat ran when an engine cut.Two vans rolled in without headlights. They stopped hard. Doors slid open at the same time.Men stepped out in dark jackets. They carried rifles wrapped in plastic. One man kicked the warehouse door and checked his watch.Across the street, a light flicked on in a third-floor window. A woman pulled a curtain back an inch. She froze.The first shot hit the door lock. Metal screamed. The second shot blew the hinges.Automatic fire followed. Short bursts. Clean and fast.Inside the warehouse, empty space echoed. Pallets and dust. A ladder fell over.The men moved in pairs. One covered. One advanced. Boots crunched glass. A shot cracked from inside. It hit the doorframe. Wood splintered.The men answered with more fire. Bullets tore through
17. The Man Who Didn’t Run
The clip begins shaky and loud. Gunfire cracks across a dark alley, lights strobing as power surges and dies.A man in a hood moves into frame. He pulls a woman down behind a concrete planter. A child stumbles. The man reaches, yanks the child close, and turns his back to the shots.The camera dips. Someone screams. The man stands and fires twice, controlled, then kicks a metal door closed with his boot. Sparks fly as rounds hit the steel.The clip ends with the man crouched over three people, arms wide, head down. The clip loops.Phones glow across the city. In buses, bars, kitchens, and stairwells, the same ten seconds play again and again.Someone zooms the frame. The hood slips. A face appears for half a second. The name spreads fast.Zane.News feeds split into columns. Headlines push hard and loud. “Masked Vigilante Interferes in Gang Violence.”“Unidentified Extremist Uses City Systems.”“Hero or Terrorist?”Veritas releases a statement within the hour. Clean fonts. Calm tone.
18. Nerissa, Reintroduced
The substation sat under the freeway, hidden by concrete pillars and old warning signs. Water dripped from a cracked joint and pooled near a rusted drain. The hum of power filled the space, steady and low.Zane stood near the breaker wall with Victor and Rex. Celeste watched a bank of screens on a folding table. The lights flickered once, then held. Boots scraped on concrete.Victor turned first. His hand went to his jacket. Zane stepped forward, blocking the narrow aisle.A woman walked out of the shadow between two transformers. She moved without hurry. She wore a dark coat and gloves. No weapon showed. She stopped ten feet away. “Evening,” she said.Victor raised his chin. “You’re lost.”She shook her head once. “No.”Rex glanced at the cameras. His fingers froze above the keyboard. “We didn’t flag anyone.”The woman looked at the ceiling, then at the breaker wall. “Your west camera is blind. Glare from the sodium lamp outside. You keep forgetting to tilt it.”Rex stared at the scr
19. The Symbol in the Slums
They entered the slum district just before dawn. Low fog clung to broken streets. Power cables sagged between leaning buildings. Trash burned in metal drums. People watched from doorways and did not wave.Zane walked first. Victor stayed a step behind him. Rex and Celeste followed, heads down, eyes scanning. Nerissa moved last, calm, hands in her coat pockets.Their comms stayed silent. Rex had killed all open signals. The city felt wrong here. Not quiet. Held.They turned onto a narrow street where the pavement had split open. Water ran through the crack, glowing faintly.Zane stopped. On the wall to his left, carved deep into concrete, was the symbol. A circle cut by three lines. The same mark Nerissa had drawn from memory.Victor touched the wall with his glove. “Fresh.”Rex crouched. He scanned the cut. “No tool marks.”Celeste stepped back. Her eyes moved across the buildings. “They know we’re here.”A door opened down the street. An old woman stepped out. She carried a bowl of w
20. Gods in Concrete
The slum smelled of wet concrete and burned wiring. Broken neon signs flickered overhead. Water dripped from a broken pipe, landing in shallow puddles.Zane crouched against a wall. He traced his fingers over the symbol etched in the brick. His skin tingled. The air felt heavier here.Rex whispered from behind. “Nothing in the network is normal. The sensors are alive.”Zane didn’t answer. He stared at the wires hanging from the ceiling. They pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat.Nerissa moved beside him. She didn’t touch the walls. She just watched. Her eyes glimmered. “The city remembers its gods,” she said.“What do you mean?” Zane asked.She gestured to the surrounding buildings. “Look at the junction boxes. The water pumps. The streetlights. Every system here is part of something bigger. Something conscious.”A nearby streetlight blinked on. Then another. Then the whole block glowed, even though the main power lines were dead.Zane felt it again. The control he’d had over doors and li