2026-01-05 23:58:52
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The safehouse wasn’t safe.That was the first thing Davion understood the moment the door sealed behind them. The building—an old community library repurposed and abandoned years ago—had been chosen because it sat in a blind spot of the city’s surveillance grid. Too obsolete to monitor closely. Too unimportant to upgrade.Which meant no one expected anything important to happen here.Davion leaned against a dusty bookshelf, chest still tight from the run. Beverly immediately began unpacking equipment, spreading cables, drives, and screens across a long wooden table like a surgeon preparing for an operation. Mira stood near the boarded-up window, watching the street below through a narrow crack.Jared sat on the floor.Unrestrained.That alone felt wrong.“You’re quiet,” Mira said without turning.Jared smiled faintly. “I’m enjoying the irony. For years, I controlled rooms like this. Now I’m a guest.”“Don’t get comfortable,” Beverly muttered. “You’re here because you’re useful. The mo
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They didn’t argue.That alone told Davion how serious the moment was.Sirens echoed closer now, bouncing off concrete and steel, overlapping into a single, rising pressure. Red-and-blue light flickered through broken warehouse windows, cutting through smoke and dust like warning signals from a future that was already collapsing.“We move,” Davion said.Beverly didn’t hesitate. She yanked her bag higher on her shoulder, fingers already flying across her device. “I can jam local feeds for thirty seconds. Maybe forty if nothing glitches.”Mira grabbed Jared by the arm and shoved him forward. “Walk. Don’t try anything stupid.”Jared laughed quietly. “You really think you can hide me?”“No,” Mira said. “But I think I can choose who doesn’t get you.”That shut him up.They slipped out through a side exit just as the first official patrol vehicles screeched to a stop at the front of the warehouse. Beverly’s jammer pulsed, knocking nearby cameras into static. Davion led them into the narrow s
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The warehouse didn’t feel victorious.It felt hollow.Smoke drifted lazily through the broken rafters, curling around dead drones and collapsed machinery like ghosts that didn’t know where to go. Emergency lights flickered weakly, bathing everything in a dull red glow. Jared sat against a shattered crate, wrists bound with reinforced cuffs Beverly had scavenged from his own equipment.He didn’t look defeated.He looked thoughtful.That unsettled Davion more than rage ever could.“Don’t take your eyes off him,” Beverly said quietly, still pacing the perimeter with her scanner. “People like him… they don’t stop planning just because they’ve lost.”Davion nodded but didn’t answer. His attention was fixed on Jared, who was staring at the floor like he was reading invisible code written into the concrete.Mira broke the silence. “Extraction teams will be here in twelve minutes. That’s assuming no one reroutes them.”“Someone will try,” Beverly said flatly.Outside, the city was waking up t
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The warehouse loomed like a tomb, its massive doors groaning as Davion pried them open. Inside, shadows stretched long across rusted beams, abandoned crates, and broken machinery. The faint hum of electricity and the soft whir of hidden drones created a tense, mechanical heartbeat.Davion moved first, leading the way with Mira slightly above on a catwalk and Beverly covering the sides. Every step echoed, bouncing off the steel walls. Every shadow seemed alive.“You hear that?” Mira whispered from above, her disruptor humming. “Drones… lots of them.”Beverly scanned the room with her portable device. “And some kind of automated traps. He’s making sure we can’t just walk in.”Davion clenched his fists, jaw tight. “Then we go in slow, methodical. One step at a time. Watch each other’s backs. We end this tonight.”The first trap revealed itself almost immediately.A row of pressure-sensitive plates embedded in the floor lit up faintly as they moved forward. Small drones swooped out from h
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The plaza was silent now, smoke curling lazily from the wreckage of Jared’s mobile fortress. Sparks hissed from fried circuits, and the acrid smell of scorched metal hung in the air. For a moment, Davion, Beverly, and Mira allowed themselves to breathe, though it was short-lived. Jared had vanished during the chaos, disappearing before they could capture him.“We can’t let him escape,” Davion said, voice low but sharp. “If he gets away now, everything we’ve done… it’ll be meaningless.”Beverly tightened her grip on her devices, scanning the plaza for any trace. “He’s smart. He probably has multiple escape routes. Hidden tunnels, vehicles, drones… we need to anticipate him, not chase blindly.”Mira frowned, eyes scanning the surrounding streets. “I know a few passages he might have used. Old service tunnels, abandoned metro lines… he could be anywhere, but those are the likely exits.”Davion exhaled, already plotting. “Then we split. Not far, but enough to cover multiple paths. We trac
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The plaza lay in ruins, smoke curling from broken drones and toppled turrets. Sparks danced along scorched asphalt, and the acrid scent of burned circuits hung heavy in the air. For a brief moment, Davion, Beverly, and Mira allowed themselves to breathe. They had disrupted Jared’s control, dismantled the hub, and forced the city’s mechanical enforcers into chaos.But calm was fleeting.A low hum began to rise from beneath the plaza. It was subtle at first, almost imperceptible beneath the crackle of fires and the groan of twisted metal. Then it grew, a deep vibration that made the ground tremble.“What now?” Mira muttered, eyes scanning the shadows.Beverly’s gaze narrowed, fingers tightening around her devices. “That’s not his hub… that’s something else. Something bigger.”Davion’s jaw clenched. “He’s got a backup. He wouldn’t put all his control in one hub. Prepare yourselves. This is going to get worse.”Before they could react further, the ground beneath the plaza shifted violentl
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