The mall was a hive of activity. Voices echoed off the high ceilings, blending with the squeak of rubber sneakers on the slick floor and the tinny sound of music spilling from stores. Ethan stood near a railing overlooking the lower level, arms crossed casually, though his sharp eyes scanned the crowd. Owen stood beside him, hands jammed into his hoodie pockets, looking bored.

  "This is stupid," Owen muttered. "I don't get why we're here."

  Ethan didn't look at him, his gaze still sweeping the crowd. "We're training."

  "No shit," Owen snorted.

  "Language," Ethan replied absently, though his tone lacked any real force.

  Owen rolled his eyes. "Okay, so what am I doing? Because if you think I'm about to, like, start sparring with someone in the middle of a shopping centre, you've lost it."

  Ethan's lips twitched into a smirk. "Yeah, no. I want you to read the room."

  "Read the room?" Owen echoed, raising an eyebrow. He gestured around them with a half-smirk. "This isn't a room. It's like a hundred rooms mashed together, walkways, carparks, food courts. You want me to read all that?"

  Ethan finally looked at him, his expression calm but challenging. "You don't think you can do it?"

  Owen's eyes narrowed, the corner of his mouth twitching upward. "I didn't say that. I just don't want you crying when I show off."

  Ethan stepped back and nodded. "Alright then. Tell me everything behind you."

  Owen tipped his head, a small hush falling over his features as his focus sharpened. The crowd blurred at the edges like bad reception. His pupils tracked invisible lines. Owen's technopathy kicked in, a thin, automatic scanning that turned the mall's electronics into a map. He spoke in a quick, precise blur.

  "How many women?" Ethan prompted.

  "Twenty-three."

  "Men?"

  "Thirty-eight."

  "Kids?"

  "Seven."

  "Purple shirt?" Ethan prodded.

  Owen hesitated for a heartbeat. "Saskia Gallagher. Meeting a friend at Starbucks in thirty. Works at Tech Park."

  "Go deeper." Ethan's voice nudged him.

  Owen's jaw clenched, eyes narrowing.

  "Her birthday was two weeks ago. She turned thirty-four. Born June 2. Her husband got her...ugh, tickets to a Fleetwood Mac tribute band."

  Ethan raised an eyebrow. "Don't rely on messages and emails. Go deeper."

  Owen scowled, concentrating harder. "Lives at 168 Cope Street, two-bed. Jogging route, Centennial Park, stops at Mill Hill. Two Burmese cats, one just had eye surgery. Her brother's been skimming small amounts from her PayPal, under sixty so it flies under the radar."

  Ethan arched an eyebrow. "How do you know it's the brother?"

  Owen grinned, pleased. "Deliveries all go to the same PO Box registered under his name."

  Ethan allowed a smile. "Not bad, kid. Let's up the difficulty. Will's here. Find him."

  Owen blinked and refocused, searching the digital landscape. "Level four, JB HiFi. He's with... Alex. Seriously? Alex? How'd he pull that off?"

  Ethan fought a laugh. "Focus, Owen."

  "He's buying a record by The National," Owen said smugly. "But he wanted to get the new Diablo for the PlayStation . Guess he's trying to impress Alex instead."

  Ethan shook his head, muttering, "That's what he was supposed to get..."

  "He's hoping you'll cut this short so he can grab a beer with Alex," Owen added, grinning.

  Ethan sighed. "Figures. Come on, let's grab a drink."

  Owen perked up. "A drink? Finally-"

  Ethan shot him a look. "You can have a lemonade. I'm getting a beer. And you'll keep reading the room."

  Owen groaned dramatically but followed Ethan. "I'll keep reading, but maybe I'd be motivated if I got a beer too."

  Ethan laughed. "Motivated? You're barely breaking a sweat!"

  They reached the street exit, Ethan's sharp eye catching the flicker of something in Owen's expression. Concern? Hesitation? He slowed his pace, turning to the boy. "What's wrong?"

  "Nothing," Owen said quickly, but the tightness in his voice betrayed him.

  "Come on. Spit it out."

  Owen hesitated, then took a step closer, lowering his voice. "It's just... I can't read you."

  The words hit Ethan like a gut punch. For a moment, he froze, caught off guard. He knew this day would come, but he'd hoped for more time. Clearing his throat, he tried to recover. "I told you, mine is diff-"

  "Ethan." Owen cut him off, his tone firmer now. "I can't even sense it. Nothing."

  Ethan's heart raced. He forced a calm expression. "It's-"

  "It's fine," Owen interrupted again, offering a small, knowing smile. "I figured it out a while ago."

  "Figured what-"

  Owen's eyes locked onto his, intent and unflinching. "I'm okay with it. Really. It doesn't change anything. But...if I've noticed, it's only a matter of time before someone else does too."

  Before Ethan could respond, a voice called out from behind them.

  "Oi! Are we getting food or what?"

  Ethan turned to see Will approaching, Alex trailing behind him with a bemused expression. Grateful for the interruption, Ethan blinked, let the practiced grin take over, and waved them in. "Yeah, we were waiting. Did you get the game?"

  "What game?" Alex asked, amusement curling at the edges.

  "Yeah...what game?" Will echoed, glaring at Ethan.

  Ethan felt the tension ease, for now. Owen snorted, and the three of them moved toward the pub across the street.

  ***

  The pub was quiet, the kind of calm that only came on a Wednesday afternoon, when the post-work crowd hadn't yet filtered in. Dim light pooled in patches over the tables, and the hum of low conversation mingled with the occasional clink of glasses. The air smelled faintly of stale beer and wood polish. Ethan, Will, and Alex were seated at a corner table, their drinks in hand, while Owen sulked over his soft drink like it was some kind of punishment.

  Ethan leaned back in his chair, beer in hand, as he smirked at the scowling teenager. "You're a minor, in a school uniform, and you think I'm going to buy you a beer?"

  Owen rolled his eyes dramatically. "Old enough to go on dangerous missions, almost get killed, have multiple surgeries and procedures, but too young to have one be-"

  "Yep," Will cut in before Owen could finish. He didn't even look up from his glass, but his deadpan delivery had Owen scowling harder.

  Alex laughed, raising her bottle in a toast toward the 16-year-old. "Hey, cheer up. In two years, you'll be able to sit and enjoy a cold one with us."

  "You're my doctor," Owen shot back, eyeing her with mock disdain. "Shouldn't you be discouraging me from drinking?"

  Alex shrugged as she drained the rest of her beer and set the empty bottle on the table with a satisfying clunk. "Everything in moderation, right?" she said with a grin, before burping unapologetically. She turned to Will, giving him a small smile. "Present company excluded, of course." She looked back at Ethan. "Another round?"

  Owen crossed his arms. "You're the worst doctor."

  "I'll remember that during your next medical," Alex quipped, smirking as she stood up and strolled toward the bar, her hair swinging behind her, completely unbothered.

  Owen watched her go before glancing across the room at the blinking neon lights of the "Deer Hunter" arcade game tucked against the wall. Pushing his chair back, he stood. "I'm gonna go play Deer Hunter."

  Ethan arched an eyebrow, tipping his beer toward Owen. "That machine only takes coins."

  "I don't need coins," Owen muttered, already halfway to the machine.

  Will snorted, shaking his head. "How could we forget."

  Ethan chuckled but soon fell silent, his gaze dropping to his beer. He rolled the glass slowly between his hands, his mind clearly elsewhere. Will frowned, picking up on the shift in his friend's demeanour.

  "What's wrong?" Will asked, setting his drink down. "You've looked sour since we got here. What's going on?"

  Ethan sighed. "Owen knows."

  Will blinked, confused. "Knows what?"

  "He can sense me...or, more accurately, he can't," Ethan said, his voice low.

  Will froze for a moment, then leaned back in his chair. "Oh, shit. So... it's happened."

  "I think it happened a while ago," Ethan admitted, his voice heavy. "He's gotten good. Real good."

  "So what did you tell him?"

  "I didn't. I didn't have the chance. It caught me off guard."

  Will raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. "Caught you off guard? You've been expecting this for years. How does it catch you off guard?"

  Ethan groaned and slouched forward, resting his elbows on the table. "I don't know. I guess I've been in denial or something. I just... I thought I had more time."

  Will shook his head, exhaling sharply. "I warned you about this from day one, didn't I? So what now? What's your plan?"

  Ethan hesitated, his fingers tightening around his glass. "He says he's fine with 'it.' But I don't know what he thinks 'it' is."

  Will raised his eyebrows again. "And you didn't press him on that?"

  "No. I didn't exactly want to push it in the middle of a mall," Ethan snapped, his voice low but tense.

  Will nodded, conceding the point. "Fair. But you know he's right, right? If he's figured it out, it's only a matter of time before someone else does, too."

  Ethan sighed deeply, leaning back in his chair. "Yeah. He said as much. But...Owen's one of the most gifted technopaths around maybe-"

  "Ethan, stop. That only means Owen got there faster. Others will figure it out. You know it's only a matter of time before Beau catches on or picks up something from Owen."

  "Beau," Ethan repeated, his tone grim. "Right. Well, that's not great. He's not exactly subtle or trustworthy. If he gets even a whiff of what Owen knows..."

  Will finished the last mouthful of his non-alcoholic beer and set the glass down with a sharp clink. "You better figure something out fast, then. Because if Beau gets involved, we both know it's going to get messy."

  Will drained his glass and tapped the table. "Sullivan pushed a registry sweep this morning, staff only, but it's not a one-off. They're rolling this out Hector-wide. Kiosks, checkpoints, clinic intake, everything will ping the implant now. They're not just hunting chop-shops; they're trying to fingerprint every kind of enhancement, chemical cocktails, cyber rigs, even legacy markers, and tie them to clearance and med-checks. Your implant becomes your fob: clears doors, logs you for routine health scans, gives light tracking for ops. If your signature doesn't match something on file, you get flagged. It's just becoming how things work."

  Ethan felt something tight and cold unfurl in his chest, a small, precise panic that yanked the world into sharp edges. He pictured kiosks in every concourse, lights sweeping wrists and faces, a list building itself in a server somewhere with names, signatures, clearance tiers. He ran through options as if ticking boxes: fake paperwork, stay off certain sites, bribe a tech, none of them felt like a plan, just postponements. For the first time since he'd been careful, the thought that there might be no place left to hide slid in and sat heavy in his gut.

  He let out a brittle laugh, half surrender, half sarcasm. "Well. I'm fucked then, aren't I."

  Will waved a hand. "Sully'll protect you. She always has."

  Ethan's jaw went hard. "Sully's Karmal. She can smooth things inside Karmal, but this is Hector-wide. If Hector's systems flag you, Karmal's clout only buys time, if that."

  Will leaned forward, elbows on the table, eyes hard. "So what are you going to do, then? You got a plan, or are we improvising?"

  Ethan stared at the rim of his glass like it might contain a plan. He pictured kiosks in every concourse, routine pings making neat, incriminating lines on a screen: a flagged signature, an automatic referral, an internal review. That review wasn't just bureaucracy, it was the start of a process that could strip his clearance, unmake his rank, and hand him over to tribunals that loved to make examples. Years of careful work, promotions, the respect that kept doors open, gone, replaced by whispers and ostracism. And worse: exposure didn't only end careers, it wouldn't just be his job on the line. It would be exile from everything he'd fought to belong to.

  "Plan," he said at last, the word coming out smaller than he'd meant. He let the rest of the sentence hang unfinished, gaze drifting across the room to where Owen was at the arcade machine, leaning casually against it as the game's soundtrack blared. Ethan watched the kid for a moment, a pang of guilt twisting in his chest.

  "I'll figure it out," he added, quieter now, but the doubt in his voice lingered.

  ***

  Ethan sat at his desk in the bullpen, the steady churn of keyboards and low conversations folding into the background. His screen was a scatter of open tabs, surveillance logs, a half-finished memo, yet his attention drifted to the corridor where Caleb was falling in beside Karen Sullivan, her heels clicking like a metronome.

  Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  "Karen," Caleb called, voice brittle, closing the distance in two quick strides. "We can't wait. That clinic is killing people. If we don't act, we're complicit."

  Karen kept walking, her posture a deliberate calm. She didn't break stride until she reached the bank of monitors showing the clinic's footprint: timestamps, delivery routes, a map of linked P.O. boxes and burner phones. She glanced at the screens without needing them explained. "I know what they are," she said evenly. "We have eyes on supply chains, payment flows, handlers. We're not blind."

  "Eyes don't save people tonight," Caleb snapped, matching her pace. "They save data. People die while you're cataloguing the breadcrumbs."

  Karen stopped, turning to face him with a small, exacting motion. The softness in her voice was gone. "And if we shut this one down today, the network disperses. Three clinics open elsewhere within a week, routed through suppliers we no longer can observe. We'd lose their handlers, the ledgers, the cross-border links. That's not just a temporary hit...it's a lost dismantle. Intelligence buys dismantling. Hasty raids buy headlines."

  Caleb's jaw worked. "How many more have to suffer for your intelligence? How many names on your spreadsheets?"

  "Enough that we don't make the same mistake twice." Karen's eyes hardened. "We dismantle networks. Not symptoms. A week of intel. Then we move. Your update in seven days. That's the plan."

  Caleb hovered there, fixing her with a hard look, every muscle wound tight.For a moment, Ethan thought he might argue again, but Karen's expression left no room for debate. Her decision wasn't just final, it was absolute. With a reluctant nod, Caleb backed down, his defeat evident in the slump of his shoulders as he turned away. He walked past Ethan's desk, his gaze distant, muttering something under his breath about wasted time. Ethan watched him go, the tension from the exchange still hanging in the air. Karen, on the other hand, continued on her way as if nothing had happened, her composure unshaken. Ethan leaned back in his chair, his thoughts churning. He understood Caleb's frustration, but Karen wasn't wrong, this wasn't just about one clinic. Still, the ethical weight of it all sat heavily on his chest. Sometimes, it felt like there were no right answers, just choices that were slightly less wrong.

  A thought grazed Ethan and held, Caleb had slipped into one of the briefing rooms down the hall. He watched the door click shut a second, then another, then pushed himself up and moved after him without thinking too hard about the pretence of work.

  The briefing room was dimer than the bullpen, lit by a single strip above a table. Caleb stood with his back to the door, shoulders knotted, arguing with Eddie, who had her arms folded and an exasperated half-smile that said she'd heard this exact speech before. "Sull won't authorise a raid," Caleb was saying, voice low and urgent. "She wants a week of intel. A fucking week. They're bleeding people while we wait."

  Ethan paused in the doorway long enough to be noticed, then let his expression fall to casual. "Hey," he said, sliding in and letting the door thud closed behind him. "What was that about with Sullivan out there?"

  Caleb spun, eyes bright with the need to unload. "I found one," he blurted. "A proper underground clinic...not a squat with a saw and duct tape, a place with real hands, organised. I've got delivery routes, payment nodes, a list of names that cross-reference with a couple of offshore shells. We could move on it now, take the team in, cut the supply chain, a proper strike. But Sullivan wants to map their supply chain first. She thinks dismantling the network in one clean operation is worth the wait." He jabbed a thumb at the screens lining the far wall. "I've got enough to act."

  Eddie made a small noise that was half sympathy, half warning. "You sound like a man with a warrant in his pocket," she said. "Sull's right in principle. We can't blow the network because we spook one node and everything scatters. That's how you lose the trail."

  Ethan let his face stay bland, folding his arms on the lip of the table as though he'd wandered in to gossip. "Where is it?" he asked, deliberately casual. "General area. How deep are they buried?" His tone was light, the kind of question you ask about the weather, but his eyes were calculating, waiting for the pieces.

  Caleb's rant spilled on, grateful for the ear. Caleb's rant spilled on, grateful for the ear. He named a district on the industrial fringe and the building, an old decommissioned substation, rusting signage and a boarded-up fa?ade that everyone dismissed as derelict. The real entrance was a service hatch below a pile of pallets; a metal stair led down past rust-streaked concrete into low-ceilinged rooms humming with improvised, but legit, kit. He rattled off odd-hour shifts, the number of people processed in the last month, and a handler who went by Marta. He sketched timelines and delivery patterns without censoring himself; the more he spoke, the more certain he sounded that inaction would be culpable.

  Ethan let the details settle around him and kept his face neutral, the practiced neutrality of someone who could listen without revealing his own agenda. "You'll send me a copy of that log?" he asked after a beat, as if volunteering. "If you're sitting on a file like that, it'll help me with outreach, contacts, paperwork, whatever Sullivan wants to see at the seven-day mark."

  Caleb looked at him for a long moment, suspicion warring with relief. "I don't want you running off half-cocked," he said finally. "If Sull's got a restriction, don't be the one to blow it."

  Ethan shrugged, a careful little motion. "I'm not looking to start a war. I'll keep it tight." Inside, his mind was already turning the shapes Caleb had named into possibilities, a building, a name, a rhythm, and the thought that made his chest tighten was practical and ugly: if there was a clinic that worked like that, sooner or later it would be where people went to change what their implant looked like to a scanner. He pushed the thought down, let his voice stay light. "Then sit on it. Send me what you can. I'll help shore up access studies for your timeline."

  Caleb nodded, still wary, then reached for his tablet and began to pull together a package. Ethan watched him work and kept his face an island of professional concern. He left the room with the file request lodged in Caleb's hands and a quiet, careful plan beginning to sketch itself in his head, all the while making sure nothing he said or did hinted at the private use he intended for the information.

  ***

  Ethan crossed the compound in a blur, outrunning the polite stares of cadets and instructors. Breath burned in his lungs by the time he reached the training field, Will's voice cut the air, barking cadence into a line of sweating recruits. Ethan's footsteps sounded too loud in his own ears as he made for him.

  Will clocked him the moment he stepped into the corner of the field, eyes narrowing. "Everything all right?"

  Ethan didn't bother with small talk. "Chop shops." The word landed like a stone.

  Will's posture shifted, the grin flecked out of his face. "What about them?"

  Ethan glanced at the cadets, then back at Will, keeping his tone casual. "There's one. Caleb found it." He let the sentence sit. "Under an old substation. Proper set-up. Runs shifts. They process people fast."

  Will barked an order. "Laps! Now!" The cadets sprang up, boots thudding away. He turned back to Ethan with a faint smile that didn't reach his eyes. "You interrupt my class to tell me about illegal clinics? Cute."

  Ethan leaned on the rail, trying to look like a man with an idea rather than a man cornered by options. "I thought of something," he said. "If I get a clean, off-reg implant, something that won't show up in Hector's registry but still presents a plausible signature to their scanners, I can step out of their net. Scanners will read a legit implant where they'd otherwise find... nothing. No absence to flag, no lineage questions. Nobody will suspect my abilities are innate. It gives me a permanent cover."

  Will's smile died. "Permanent?"

  Ethan kept his voice low and urgent. "Yes. Permanent. If Hector can reconcile a signature, they won't look for a bloodline. It closes the one obvious window they have into testing 'what you are.'"

  Will's face went hard. "And if they find out you engineered that signature off-system?"

  "Then I'm done," Ethan said bluntly. For a second his composure cracked, a flicker of exhausted calculation passing over his features. "But I'm done anyway once they find out I don't have an implant. What I am."

  The words hung between them. Will searched Ethan's face. "You want to get an illegal implant," he said slowly. "To hide. From the registry."

  "Yes." Ethan's voice was measured, urgent.

  Will's reaction was immediate and physical: a hard exhale, a flash of disgust. "You've gone mad. You know those places are garbage, unsafe surgeries, fake firmware, tunnelled wiring. If you get near one, you don't just risk a career. You risk being hauled into an inquiry, losing clearance, hearings, even detention. There's more than your badge at stake."

  "There's just as much at stake if I don't try," Ethan shot back. "Worse than a career gone...they'll question my fitness as guardian. They'll pull Owen into interviews, ask what he knows, use the fact Owen saw me against both of us. My clearance, my rank, the respect that keeps doors open here... gone. Ostracised. Stripped of custody. That's not just a professional hit. It's everything."

  Will's laugh was short and humourless. "You really think that's the answer then?" he asked, voice low enough that only Ethan could hear. He stepped closer, the noise of the field shrank to a thin hiss. "You think slipping into some backroom and grafting a dodgy signature onto your skull is going to solve it?"

  Ethan met him, steady. "What else am I supposed to do? Sit and wait while Hector's kiosks roll out and someone draws a family tree with my name at the root? If they find what I am, they won't just take my clearance. They'll take Owen. They'll make an example." His tone was tight and controlled, no drama, only hard logic.

  Will ran a hand over his face, jaw working. "So you mutilate yourself to look like everyone else? That's your plan? You're talking about illegal surgeons, people without licences, without backups, without sterility. You think that gives you permanence? Or is it just a paper shield ripped off at a hearing?" He jabbed a finger toward the compound as if the gesture could puncture the idea. "You're high-ranking. You've spent years building credibility here. You want to burn that on a hunch?"

  Ethan didn't flinch. "It's not a hunch. It's mitigation. If Hector's scanners only ever see an implant signature, there's nothing to link me to a legacy marker. They look for anomalies. I give them none."

  Will watched him for a long beat, the field noise folding back into place while his eyes stayed on Ethan. He knew the man in front of him, the way Ethan set on a thing and wouldn't be moved by argument or fear. That look wasn't stubbornness, it was resolve. Will had seen it since they were kids, and he'd learned a long time ago that arguing with that kind of resolution only hardened it.

  "You really mean it, don't you?" Will said at last, not accusing so much as cataloguing. "You're set on this." He rubbed the back of his neck and let a rueful half-smile creep out. "Look...if you're trying to avoid dragging Owen into it, there might be a cleaner angle than a back-alley table. That kid's...extravagant, in his own way. He probably has half a dozen off-reg modules stashed in his room at home. He could get you a legit-looking signature or at least help us find the right contact and a quiet window. I can pull strings; he can pass leads. We'd try to make this as surgical as possible."

  Ethan's face went tight, gratitude and guilt flickering across it like signals. "I know," he said slowly. It was a small admission.

  Will watched the hesitation, then pushed, softer. "Look...I get why you want to keep Owen out of it. I'm with you there. But he could help you do this cleaner. Hell, that kid probably has seven implants stashed away that are better than what a run-of-the-mill underground clinic will offer. He can vet people. He can give you windows."

  "I know," Ethan repeated, quieter.

  "You going to bring him in?" Will pressed, stepping closer.

  Ethan hesitated, the first crack in his mask. The answer tasted dangerous. "No. Not yet. Not unless I have to." He swallowed. "Caleb's given me a lot. Hopefully it's enough."

  Will's jaw loosened with a slow exhale. "Fine. Then we do it with eyes open. You bring me the file. I'll start pulling contacts. We map an extraction and keep it surgical."

  Ethan nodded, the plan slotting into place like the first piece of a map. He pushed off the rail. "I'll get it to you," he said.

  "Okay." Will barked once, half-order, half-encouragement. "Now get out of here before I make you run laps." Ethan let himself be swallowed by the field and the cadets, the small, dangerous plan already beginning to move.

  ***

  We're officially edging closer to the Karmal team now and honestly... I love them all. Truly. But things are already getting a tiny bit complicated for them (because of course they are), and some of the choices here are going to matter later!

  Who are you wanting to see more of?