Inside the warehouse, the Vanguard gathered near the open bay doors. Navarro adjusted his rifle straps and stared upward with a stiff jaw. “They are coming,” he muttered.Landon listened. He heard it too. The faint buzz of rotors. The soft whisper of engines that were too smooth, too clean, too controlled. Aether Dominion had sent their first wave.Claire stood beside him, arms folded, eyes narrowed as she watched the sky through the night-blue haze. “We knew they would move fast,” she said quietly. “But not this fast.”Jin rushed in from the back workbench, carrying two tablets and a roll of cables. His fingers shook slightly. “Dominion mercenaries just struck a Syndicate research branch near the harbor. Nonlethal weapons, but the kind that shut down nervous systems. They are not here to kill. They are here to collect.”Marcus stepped forward. “Collect what?”“Researchers,” Jin answered. “Scientists. People who built divine-tech prototypes. Aether Dominion wants them alive.”Priya app

The whole team gathered in the dim room as Priya projected the stolen files across the wall, as rain slid down the tall steel windows of the Vanguard’s hideout. Lines of corporate mergers, coded agreements, payment trails, and secret communications lit the space with cold blue light.Claire stood with her arms tight across her chest. Her jaw was rigid. She looked as if she had not slept. None of them had.“Aether Dominion is making their move,” Priya said. Her voice was steady, but her eyes showed fear. “They want everything left behind by the Syndicate. Every lab. Every company. Every patent.”Jin tapped on his tablet. “They are also planning a closed-doors shareholder summit tonight. It is not public. It is not legal. It is happening on the top floor of the Aether executive penthouse.”Navarro leaned forward. “So we break in.”“No,” Claire said quickly. “We infiltrate. Quiet. Clean. We get the data. We get out.”Marcus smirked. “When do we ever get out clean?”Claire gave him a tire

The old train depot stood in the center of the industrial district. Its huge steel doors were rusted and scarred, and broken windows covered the walls like hollow eyes.Landon, Claire, Priya, and Jin crouched in the shadows behind a line of abandoned rail cars. The metal around them groaned in the wind. The whole place felt like a trap waiting to spring.Priya adjusted her glasses and whispered, “The Syndicate auction is happening inside. Weapons. Artifacts. Data keys. Everything Wolfe’s people still use. It is all being sold off tonight.”“And Aether Dominion knows,” Jin added quietly. His hands hovered over his tablet like a pianist ready to play a dangerous song. “Their signals are moving into place.”Claire checked the ammo on her rifle. Her hands shook slightly, but her eyes stayed sharp. “Three sides in one place,” she said. “Wolfe’s lieutenants. Syndicate dealers. Aether Dominion’s soldiers. This will get ugly fast.”Landon scanned the depot with narrowed eyes. He felt his Kinet

Landon stood at the edge of an abandoned loading yard. The metal containers around him were rusted and lined up like sleeping beasts. His breath fogged in the cold air. His Echo flickered faintly under his skin, like a spark too small to survive the wind.Claire walked beside him, tightening the strap on her shoulder rifle. Jin checked a cracked tablet, though its screen glitched from the destruction of the previous night’s networks. Priya scanned the shadows, her hand resting on the hilt of her shock baton. Navarro motioned for them to stay low. “We are close,” he whispered. “Wolfe moved his personal enforcers into this sector. The Serpent Triumvirate. If they are here, something important is happening.”Claire frowned. “Why now?”“Because Aether Dominion pushed him,” Navarro replied. “And now he is pushing back the only way he knows.”Landon felt a cold unease settle inside his chest. “If Wolfe sent the Triumvirate, then he is done playing games.”The group moved slowly between the

The night sky above the financial district glowed with cold white lights. Landon Hale stared up at them from the roof of a parking garage. He felt the pressure in the air, a strange heaviness, as if something dangerous waited behind every building.Priya stood beside him, her tablet glowing in her hands. The screens flickered like nervous eyes. “The Syndicate is doing something reckless,” she said in a tense voice. “This is not a normal operation. They are trying to use an artifact as a weapon.”Landon tightened his gloves. “Why here?”Priya lifted her head. “Because the financial district controls the city’s heartbeat. If they make it fall, everything shifts.”Below, Claire watched the streets through binoculars. Her voice came through the comms in a quiet hiss. “Movement at the far end. Trucks. Syndicate markings. They look desperate.”Jin checked his gear one last time and muttered, “Desperate Syndicate members make the stupidest choices.”Navarro cracked his neck. “Or the most dang