Chapter 3:The scent of damp asphalt and earth thickened the air, mingling with the soft rustling of leaves from the trees lining the outskirts of the alley. Beyond the array of warehouses, dense foliage swayed under the weight of the rain, their canopies shrouding the distant hum of suburban life. The neon glow of flickering signs cast fractured shadows through the downpour, splintering across the figures hidden within the tree line.

  Four figures lingered amongst the vegetation: their forms half-distorted by the neon haze. Rhea, positioned at the centre, murmured into her intercom, voice steady as she gathered intel, ready to rey it to the team. Lira, heels pressed against the brown, moist bark of a towering tree, silent yet watchful, her sharp gaze cutting through the dimly lit alley ahead. Arden sat on a fallen log, his broad frame exuding an unshaken presence—solid, reliable, a quiet anchor amidst the rain-soaked night. Above them, Selene crawled along the tree branches delicately, intensely observing the warehouses and beyond.

  Rhea lifted a hand, the group all waiting in anticipation. “Warehouse #14. Security’s light, Jax’s disabled the cameras and sensors but we gotta move fast.”

  Lira and Arden remained unreadable; their expressions gave nothing away. Selene jumped up and down, maintaining her bance on the branch like a tightrope, her face gleamed with excitement. Rhea, sensing Selene’s energy, calmly confirmed, “We get in, grab what we can, and get out. No heroics.”

  Through the thick curtain of trees, Warehouse #14 loomed not far from camp, its shadow barely visible through the trees. As the other’s moved ahead, Lira hesitated, hanging back at the treeline. One hand remained steady, gripping her wrist, while the other twitched involuntarily. She exhaled, slow and controlled, before finally stepping forward into the rain.

  Selene surged ahead, her movements fluid as she vaulted onto the warehouse rooftop. Crouching low, she scanned the area, eyes sharp against the rain-streaked metal. A lone guard stood near the edge, his focus elsewhere, unaware of the predator in the shadows.

  Keeping her steps feather-light, she darted behind a drone pad, the hum of machinery masking her presence. With practiced ease, she circled around, striking fast. One arm coiled around the guard’s neck, the other wrenching his wrist before he could react. His grip sckened, fingers twitching as his body crumpled to the floor without a sound. Selene gnced down at the team; their figures barely visible in the dim light as they waited for her signal. Catching Rhea’s gaze, she fshed a quick wink before slipping back into the shadows. Rhea, spotting the signal, slid down, ready to clear out the rest of the defences.

  The warehouse stretched high, its towering height making the drop below all the more perilous. Selene struck fast, dropping from above and smming an unsuspecting sentry to the ground with a bone-jarring thud. On the opposite side, Rhea scaled a stack of crates, then unched from the highest one, crashing down on another unsuspecting patrolman. On either side of Warehouse #14, they harmoniously dismantled the guards, mimicking each other’s movements.

  The warehouse entrance was a reinforced composite alloy door, its surface marred with deep scratches and grime from years of use. A colourful logo sered into the centre, “Biotech”. The door itself slid horizontally into the wall on silent magnetic tracks, though a subtle hiss of pressurised air betrayed its movement.

  The neural-link panel beside the door pulsed red, its rejection gre painting their faces in warning-light crimson.

  Selene rocked back on her heels. "Anyone got the password?" The words barely left her mouth before she caught Rhea's withering stare. "Right, right, not the time. My bad." The apology came with a crooked grin and a distant look in her eyes, like her mind had already wandered off to something far more interesting. Arden let out a quiet chuckle, but it faded quickly when no one else joined in. Lira, standing just behind her, gave a brief smile that was too quick to be noticed by most, but it faded almost immediately, as though she’d second-guessed it.

  Rhea's eye roll could've powered a small generator. She didn't need words, just a gnce and Arden was already cracking his knuckles.

  Muscles coiled, then his fist punched clean through the alloy like it was rice paper. Metal screamed as he wedged his hands into the breach and pulled, tendons standing out in sharp relief as the door peeled open like a tin can.

  "Show-off," Selene muttered, but she was already ducking under Arden's arm to be first through the breach.

  ★゜?。。?゜゜?。。?゜☆゜?。。?゜゜?。。?゜★

  Inside the Biotech warehouse, the low hum of dormant generators pulsed through the darkened space. Overhead, strips of moonlight filtered through the grated ceiling, casting pale lines across the metal floor—just enough illumination for the team to see by. The air was thick with the tang of heated metal and lingering gasoline, sharp and acrid, clinging to the back of the throat like the aftertaste of burnt wires.

  The shipment containers towered like steel monoliths, stacked row after row beneath the flickering ceiling lights. Each one was rumoured to hold some form of bcklisted tech, too advanced that it never released into the market. The sight was impressive... until the reality sank in.

  A collective groan swept through the team like a wave.

  Rhea, brushing off the tension with a shrug, directed, “Lira, Selene, you take the eastern side. Arden and I’ll cover the west. Keep your comms on. Shout if you find anything.”

  Lira and Selene advanced shoulder-to-shoulder, boots scuffing concrete as they skirted the eastern perimeter. The container maze loomed, half-corroded doors yawning wide. Nothing inside. Just shadows, stale air, and the occasional skitter of rats fleeing their light. Most holo-panels were pitch bck, devoid of light, indicating emptiness.

  Selene’s boot scuffs a loose pipe, cttering along the floor like broken machinery. Lira froze, shifting into a fighting stance, her eyes anticipating an unwanted confrontation.

  “That was me.” Selene whispered directly into her ear. Lira, pulling back at the voice, covered her ear and stared into Selene’s eyes – as if trying to mimic the withering stare done previously.

  As they approached a closed container – 09, Selene’s fingers lifted toward the holo-panel, its crimson glow painting their surroundings in warning-light. She darted forward, spping a spider-drive onto the interface. Selene’s spider-drive flickered, an unusual interference. Like something was jamming signals. The screen died, then spasmed back to life in a stutter of green code. A hiss. A fsh.

  The container’s lock thunked like a dislocating jaw.

  Lira and Selene heaved the doors apart, the shriek of grinding steel giving way to hollow silence. Empty. Just scuff marks on the floor and the stale tang of disinfectant.

  Selene kicked the container wall. "Who the hell locks an empty box?"

  Rhea's voice crackled through the comms, that stubborn hope still clinging to her words: "Regroup at centre. We've got a hit. Unless you two struck gold first?"

  "Copy. Negative on gold," Selene said, jerking her chin at Lira to move. "Just another goddamn empty box."

  After arriving at the centre, Selene and Lira dropped into position beside Rhea, their shoulders nearly touching as they surveyed the container. It stood out like a sore thumb—rger than the others, its locking panel gleaming under the dim lights, reinforced seams practically screaming valuable contents inside.

  Arden rose to his full height, casting a shadow over the group. His knuckles cracked as he rolled his shoulders.

  "Wait—" Lira grabbed his wrist, her voice a hushed hiss. "Why not use the spider-drive?"

  Rhea tapped the empty slot on her belt. "Burned it out on the st one. Your boy's got the magic touch anyway."

  With a grunt, Arden drove his fist through the panel in one fluid motion, the metal crumpling like thick cardboard around his careful fingers.

  The team crowded around as Arden wrenched the front panel free, revealing rows of gleaming bio injectors. Lira's usual icy composure cracked, just for a second, as the corner of her lips rose.

  Rhea let out a slow breath, the tension in her shoulders easing for the first time in hours. "Jackpot."

  Selene wasn't celebrating. Her head snapped left, then right, fingers twitching toward her holster. The carefree smirk was gone, repced by razor focus.

  Wasting no time, bio injectors disappeared into bags, pockets, even clenched between teeth. Then:

  Jax's voice exploded through their comms: "Company! Security breach, north side—" A pause. A curse. "Fuck, they're Enforcers. Move your asses!"

  North side. Where they’d entered. Where the only exit was.

  Selene was already moving, boots skidding as she pivoted toward the southern shadows. The team followed, a silent pack—until the beam of a fshlight cut across the far wall.

  Ahead: dead end. No door. Just a chain-link fence and the glint of Enforcer body armour rounding the corner.

  The warehouse ceiling sealed with a thunderous cng of reinforced steel alloy, plunging everything into suffocating darkness. For three heartbeats, absolute bckness—then emergency lights kicked in, bathing the space in hellish crimson. The arms weren't just sounding; they screamed, each pulse of light searing the team's retinas like camera fshes at an execution.

  Footsteps. Not just heavy—methodical. The kind that made the concrete vibrate through boot soles. Left. Right. Behind. Too many to count, closing in from every shadow between the light strokes.

  Selene's pistol hissed as she charged it. Rhea’s sword caught the red light like bloody teeth. Lira spat out the bio injector her mouth was holding and jabbed it into her arm. Somewhere in the dark, Arden readied his fists.

  They didn't need to see the Enforcers to know: the killing box was sealed.

  No way out. Only through.

  ★゜?。。?゜゜?。。?゜☆゜?。。?゜゜?。。?゜★

  Enforcers-two, both using monowires, close-combat and high agility is preferred, Arden might have to sit this one out. They don’t look high-css though; Lira can probably take one of them by herself.

  “Lira, that one’s yours. Selene, back me up. Arden, keep the other gonks off us!” Rhea’s voice cut through the chaos, leaving no room for hesitation. Arden moved first, smming a container forward with enough force to send a row of robotic guards crashing like bowling pins, slowing their advance. He absorbs the incoming hits, his toughened skin barely yielding, carving out a space for the battle about to erupt within the maze of containers.

  The moment the enforcers flick their wrists, the monowires hum to life, carving shallow grooves into the metal crates around them. Lira's eyes narrow—she lunges forward without hesitation, cws snapping out with a metallic hiss. She darts low, avoiding a fsh of wire that slices the air above her. Sparks fre where the wire meets metal, but Lira is already moving, a blur of dark fabric and hostility.

  Lira shifts her stance constantly, feinting left before circling right, forcing the enforcers to react. One wrong move with the wires could mean slicing each other, a risk she exploits ruthlessly. She ducks beneath a looping wire, pnting her hand on the ground to pivot sharply. Her cws rake upward, catching an enforcer’s wrist—metal screeches, a gust of red follows. She catches her breath, darting behind a container.

  Lira dashes around the make-shift arena, recouping her strategy and finding an opening. Eyeing a loose piece of debris, she kicks it towards the enforcer’s face, a split-second distraction that allows her to advance. The moment he flinched, Lira is there—cws carving through his armour with a brutal efficiency. The enforcer’s helmet shatters, his scream crackling through the helmet. A gloved hand retaliates, its iron-tight fingers tching onto her ankle.

  Lira’s bance shifts dangerously, her body yanked downward. She twists, but not fast enough—the hiss of a monowire fills the air. A bright, electric thread whips toward her, slicing through the air with lethal precision. She jerks her leg away, just in time to avoid the lethal arc, but the wire finds contact elsewhere.

  A fsh of light as the wire connects, a sound like metal snapping, and then an ear-screeching scream.

  A gasp escapes out of her throat. One of her cws, severed cleanly, ctters to the ground. Her fingers throb, nerves screaming as if the cw had been a living part of her. The sensation is raw, electric, a serrated edge running up her arm.

  The Enforcer tilted his head, savouring her shock, pytime before the kill. Lira shifted her focus Rhea and Selene. Seeing the enforcer lying motionless below them, her eyes rexed, a weight lifted off her chest. Rhea turned to check on Selene - back exposed, the air suddenly humming with tension—something sharp, unforgiving, and fast closing in behind her.

  There’s no time.

  Lira winced as she lunged forward, the door to death swinging wide in-front of her, each step she took pulling her closer to it. Her body resisted gravity; boots began to levitate away from the comfort of the ground. Her hands reaching out, closing in on her target.

  The force from Lira’s hands sent Rhea’s skidding across the harsh concrete, her palms scraping against the ground as she struggled to halt her momentum. Her breath came in short bursts as she staggered back to her feet. She turned sharply, eyes wide with confusion and arm, only to find Lira clutching her arm, blood sweeping between her fingers. She trembled slightly as she held up her hand, forcing a reassuring gesture. ‘Okay’, she signalled, though the tightness in her jaw betrayed the lie. Rhea hesitated, the chaos around them pressing in, but Lira's eyes already shifted past her—twisting her body to resume the fight she left unresolved.

  Lira’s body refused to turn, locked in pce as if snagged on something. For a heartbeat, she thought she had smmed the door to death shut—but it hung open still, waiting for its true owner. A sickening pressure bloomed in her chest, releasing a sudden warmth that crept down her torso. Her breath hitched, eyes dragging downward, her brain faltered—desperately trying to erase the jagged, crimson-stained cw that jutted through her ribcage.

  The metal glinted under the harsh lights, glistening with a fresh coat of her blood that dripped, hot and relentless, onto the cold concrete. Pain exploded, sharp and hot, stealing the air from her lungs. Lira’s fingers twitched, reaching instinctively for the wound, but the sight of her own blood pooling at her feet—thick and almost bck in the shadows—made her knees give out.

  She choked, iron filling her mouth, every heartbeat forcing more warmth to spill past her lips. The cw withdrew with a nauseating slickness, leaving behind a raw, gaping absence that pulsed with agony.

  Selene bolts toward Lira, shoving the enforcer out of the way so he couldn’t finish her off. Rhea, desperately trying to keep her composure at the sight, screams into her earpiece,

  “Jax, where’s the closest exit. NOW!”

  “Closest is the northern side of the warehouse!”

  We won’t make it with all this heat.

  Rhea's gaze fixed on the enforcer responsible for taking Lira down, her fingers trembled—not from fear, but the effort to not strangle the Enforcer where he stood. Neither of them dared to strike first, weighing each move carefully, even the slightest misstep could hand their opponent the opening they need. She tapped her earpiece, changing the channel,

  “Arden, the tunnel’s our only shot, you know what to do.”

  On the other side, Arden moved quickly, shoving a container in front of the robot guards, giving him a brief opening. With a single punch, he shattered the ground beneath their feet, exposing a hidden corridor, lined with brightly coloured pipes, each marked with ominous chemical symbols.

  Arden wraps his arm around Lira, lifting her up with ease, while Selene continued her work, making sure her teammate remained stable. Lira jumped in and out of consciousness, confused between what was real and what was just a fleeting fragment of her fading mind.

  Selene’s hands were slick with Lira’s blood, but a familiar pipe caught her eye pipes. A white-striped valve gred like a beacon, hydrogen gas – fmmable, a grim smile curled her lips. She grabbed a jagged piece of broken concrete and hurled it at the white pipe. The impact sent a burst of smoke billowing into the tunnel, creeping upward out into the warehouse above.

  The enforcer’s armour lights flickered through the dense gas, his silhouette shifting like spectres in the haze. He still locked eyes with the motionless figure before him, swinging his monowire—only for it to slice cleanly through empty space. The shadowy form wavered, dissolving like mist, a mere afterimage burned into the smoke. She was already gone.

  ★゜?。。?゜゜?。。?゜☆゜?。。?゜゜?。。?゜★

  A faint green glow pulsed outside Container-09, barely visible through the smoke-choked air. The light flickered like a failing heartbeat, slowly lowering the time between contractions. Then, with a sound like peeling tape, the illusion shattered.

  Camoufge pixels dissolved, revealing a hunched figure in the corner: a teenager, knees pulled tight to his chest. His wrist bore a fading tattoo, fresh enough to still weep ink - 09. His breath came in shallow hitches, fingers cwing at the steel floor as if it might swallow him whole. The scaled disguise clinging to his skin still shimmered faintly, tech sparking at the seams.

  Thud.

  A gauntleted fist smmed against the container’s exterior. The boy flinched so hard his teeth drew blood from his lip.

  Beyond the dented metal, the Enforcer’s ruined mask leered through the haze. One lens was cracked, the other reflecting the boy’s wide, wet eyes. A wet chuckle rattled from the vocoder.

  "All of that shit... and they didn’t even smell you."

  Something hot and salt-bitter tracked down the teen’s cheek. He didn’t wipe it away.

  ★゜?。。?゜゜?。。?゜☆゜?。。?゜゜?。。?゜★