"They’re pinning both ends of the alley!" Mara yelled, firing two rapid shots from the passenger window before ducking as a hail of heavy slugs chewed the brickwork above them. "Move, Kaelen! Now!"Kaelen slammed his foot down, the truck’s engine roaring in protest as he threw it into reverse, tires spinning wildly on slick asphalt before catching traction and careening backward into a narrow, dark loading bay."Where are we going?" Leila demanded, clutching the canvas satchel containing the ledger against her ribs as the dashboard rattled violently. "This is a dead end!""Not if we take the maintenance ladder behind the old steam plant," Kaelen shouted, cutting the ignition before the truck even rolled to a complete stop. "Out! Out, out, out!"Zaid groaned, clutching his side as Mara hauled him bodily out of the back seat. "My ribs feel like they’ve been run over by Vance’s personal transport," the older man wheezed, a fresh bout of coughing wracking his frame."Save your breath for

"Watch your step there, Kaelen. The grating hasn't held weight since the second municipal strike," Zaid whispered, his breath pluming in the freezing, metallic air as he leaned heavily against a stacked pile of rotting cardboard boxes."If I wanted a tour of the city's structural failures, I would have stayed in the truck," Kaelen muttered, his hands working furiously with a rusted set of lockpicks jammed deep into the grease-chKST-crusted mechanisms of the sub-basement intake hatch. A sharp clack echoed through the corridor, followed by the heavy groan of iron giving way. "Got it. But keep your voices down. The perimeter sensors on these old municipal buildings run on thermal triggers, and Vance didn't turn them off just because the paperwork stopped."Mara dropped silently from the upper ventilation duct, her combat boots hitting the damp concrete without a sound. She raised her night-vision scope to her eye, scanning the vast, cathedral-like expanse of the abandoned record halls st

"That hum isn't municipal power. That's a localized tracking beacon," Mara whispered sharply, her boots sliding silently across the damp concrete as she edged back from the archway. "Vance's sweep team didn't just stumble on this sector. They caught the signature off the lockbox the second we started messing with the wall panel."Leila froze, her wrench slipping from her fingers and clattering against the iron base of the heavy lockbox with a sharp, echoing ring that sounded like a gunshot in the cavernous silence of the sub-basement. "Damn it, Kaelen, you said these old lead-lined walls would block any outgoing frequency!""They were supposed to!" Kaelen hissed back, dropping to his knees beside her and throwing his entire weight against the stubborn steel wedge jammed behind the rotting panel. "The civil engineers who built this place forty years ago didn't plan on corporate mercenaries using military-grade spatial scanners! Stop staring at me and help me pry this damn hinge before

"Watch your footing, the rungs on this ladder are completely rusted through," Kaelen barked over his shoulder, his voice echoing tight and metallic inside the narrow confines of the municipal steam shaft as he hauled his body up through the maintenance hatch. "If you miss a step, you're taking a fifty-foot plunge straight into the sump-drain, and I am definitely not climbing down to fish you out.""Just pull me up, you cynical bastard," Leila snapped, gritting her teeth as she shoved the heavy, freezing bulk of the iron lockbox upward into Kaelen’s waiting hands. Her shoulders burned with a deep, searing agony, every muscle fiber screaming in protest from the relentless physical strain of the past hour. Behind her, Zaid let out another shallow, ragged breath, his boots scraping heavily against the corrugated steel rungs."I've got it, I've got it," Kaelen muttered, his boots slamming back onto solid concrete as he heaved the lockbox out of the shaft and shoved it aside. He reached dow

"Keep the pressure on that gauze, Leila!" Kaelen barked, his hands still shaking slightly as he dropped the smoking thermal torch onto the greasy concrete floor of the mechanic's pit. "If the bleeding doesn't slow down, his lungs are going to fill completely before we even finish sorting these receipts!""I am pressing as hard as I can!" Leila shouted back, her voice cracking with raw panic as she pressed both palms against the thick, crimson-soaked linen pad clamped over Zaid’s chest. The metallic stench of fresh blood instantly overpowered the sharp, chemical odor of burnt steel and cutting oil in the cramped underground workspace. "Zaid, look at me! Keep your eyes open, damn it! You don't get to check out now after dragging us through half the municipal archives!"Zaid let out a wet, agonizing rattle that echoed hollowly in the narrow pit, his eyelids fluttering weakly against the harsh glare of the overhead work lamp. "I... I told you..." he wheezed, a bright pink bubble of froth