Marcus Chen did not believe in luck, only in the precise intersection of intelligence and opportunity.
He sat in his office at the pinnacle of the Chen Heavy Industries tower, idly watching a swarm of automated drones verify a shipment of high-tensile composite plating on the tarmac below. The hum of the city was a distant, secondary concern. His primary focus remained on the high-risk investment he had placed in John Reese.
A sharp, intermittent tone sounded from his private terminal.
Marcus straightened, his eyes narrowing. He pulled the map to see the location ping; on a recessed 3D wireframe map of Cyber City's Lower Industrial District, a singular crimson diamond flickered. The signal was a raw geographic coordinate—a beacon from beneath kilometers of reinforced concrete.
He actually did it.
The beacon's depth signature was staggering. It wasn't just in the district; it was hundreds of meters below the surface, far beneath the known foundation of the Forge. Reese had penetrated the Inner Sanctum.
Marcus didn't hesitate. He swiped a series of encrypted commands across his console. "Initiate Code Obsidian. Emergency meeting in the War Room. Five minutes."
When the heavy blast doors of the War Room sealed, the atmosphere was already thick with hostility. The holographic projections of Chairman Elias Vance, Geoffrey, and the other board members flickered into life around the oval table, their expressions ranging from weary to indignant.
"Marcus, it is six in the evening," Elias Vance began, his voice a dry rasp. "This better not be another update on the Sultanate shipping manifests."
Marcus tapped the central console. The 3D map expanded, occupying the center of the room. The crimson ping pulsed with haunting regularity.
"This is the heartbeat of the Reformers," Marcus said, his tone devoid of emotion. "An active location beacon from within their central neural hub. I have the Inner Sanctum's coordinates."
The room went silent for three seconds. Then, Geoffrey scoffed.
"An active location beacon? From where?" Geoffrey scoffed. "You realize how flimsy that data is right now? It could be a trapped signal—a mercenary trying to sell us old news, or worse, a Reformer trick to draw us out."
Marcus felt a familiar, hot flare of frustration. He looked around the table, seeing the same hesitation mirrored in the eyes of the other directors. They were merchants playing at being lords—cautious, stagnant, and terrified of a bad quarter.
They see a risk to their velvet chairs, Marcus thought, his pulse quickening. I see the chance to cut the throat of the Machine God.
"We have been blind to their movements for years," Marcus countered, his voice steady. "They have been siphoning our tech and trafficking our people under our very noses. This beacon didn't come from a captured asset. It came from an operative who reached where our people have never reached. Every second we sit here debating the 'flimsy' nature of the data, the Reformers will be relocating their Inner Sanctum."
"The Forge is a fortress, Marcus," a female board member chimed in. "To hit this coordinate, we'd have to breach three reinforced layers or find a geological fault line we don't even know exists. The resource cost alone—"
"Is negligible compared to the cost of letting them run around undermining our authority!" Marcus snapped, slamming a palm onto the table. "I am tired of this board's cowardice. We have a beat on the heart of their operation in OUR CITY! We need to hit them where it hurts. Only then, can they know not to cross us."
The discussion dissolved into a cacophony of projected logistics and risk-assessment models, but Marcus kept his eyes on that single, pulsing red dot. Somewhere, deep in the dark, John Reese was likely already a dead man. Marcus intended to make sure that sacrifice paid the highest possible dividend.
"How much trust," Vance asked, his voice cutting through the babble like steel, "do you place in the source? And how accurately do you gauge the necessary immediacy of this situation?"
"The source is trustworthy," Marcus replied, leaning back slightly, hands laced. "Volatile, certainly, which is why I withhold the name, but the intel is solid. Based on the necessary movement parameters established for high-profile Reformer assets, my analysts place the probability at ninety percent."
"Has it truly reached a point," Vance asked, pausing a beat, "where openly hostile engagement with the Reformers is necessary?"
"It has," Marcus insisted, his gaze locking with Vance's. "Based on the data gathered in the last year alone, the Reformers have already absorbed every minor outfit around Cyber City."
He glanced at Geoffrey, who gave a reluctant confirmation.
"If they are left unchecked," Marcus stated, addressing the entire room before turning his attention directly to Camille, "they will not halt at minor outfits. They have already absorbed three of your primary material outposts covertly, and you didn't even know it."
He shifted his focus to Luca, who oversaw the ocean shipping lanes. "As for your shipping, Luca, they have four of your captains already on their payroll. And that," he insisted, "is only what my evidence can prove."
The hall fell silent after that.
Camille and Luca's faces twisted.
"Clearly, Marcus has presented a strong contention," Vance stated, steering the room back. "The choice remains: Do we hit the forge openly? Full breach, full force? Or, knowing the coordinates, do we allocate resources to finding an alternative vector of entry? We must be quick."
He looked around the table. "Let's vote."
The siren shrieked through the Inner Sanctum, a high-pitched digital wail that drilled into Raymond's skull like a needle through the temple. His jaw tightened, teeth grinding just enough to feel the pressure in his molars. Not from pain. From the sheer, invasive noise.
He remained still behind the decommissioned hydro-pump, its cold metal pressing against his spine. Rusted joints held silent under his weight. Sentinel-5 rested against his shoulder, stock snug, grip firm, barrel angled low and steady. His finger hovered near the trigger guard—not touching, not yet—but ready.
Too loud. Too exposed.
He waited, letting the noise wash over him, mask his breath, and drown out his own heartbeat.
The next move had to be flawless. No room for error. No margin for hesitation. Not here. Not now.
The rifle held steady, and his hands also remained steady. The body might be new, but the reflexes remained old, hardened, and tested, and they still belonged to him.
He peeked out behind the cover.
Thirty meters away, Vryn Ta'las moved. No hesitation. The Lieutenant's left hand blurred across the central console's interface, and the massive holographic projection of the Dahran Sultanate collapsed inward.
A new holograph flared to life—red wireframe grid lines mapping the chamber in three dimensions. Every surface. Every structure. The supercomputer hummed, a bass note beneath the alarm's scream.
Thermal scan.
Colors bloomed across the projection. Blue for ambient temperature. Yellow clusters where the server banks radiated heat. Orange veins along the walls where plasma conduits still held warmth.
And gold.
A pulsing gold sphere highlighted the eastern maintenance section. Right where Raymond crouched.
Spent too long positioning.
Vryn's head snapped toward the highlighted area. His blue eyes locked onto the exact position.
"How did—" Vryn's voice cut through the alarm's metallic shriek, sharp and cold as surgical steel against bone. "How did you bypass the security? The outer checkpoints should have been—"
The words snapped off mid-sentence, bitten clean as his jaw muscles visibly tightened, the cords of his neck pulling taut beneath pale, scarred skin.
A beat of silence. Just the scream of the siren and the low hum of the supercomputer cycling through diagnostics.
"Doesn't matter," he said, and his voice dropped lower, stripping it of all analytical curiosity; it sounded flat and final. "You're already a corpse."
His mechanical right hand reached behind the structural pillar beside the console. Metal fingers closed around something.
When Vryn pulled the weapon into view, Raymond's stomach tightened.
The weapon was slender and smooth; its dark composite finish displayed a faint purple pulse along the centerline. The cooling system beneath the barrel exhaled steam when it activated.
Unknown model. Custom build.
Vryn fired first.
A bolt of ionized plasma screamed across the thirty meters, violet light painting the chamber in harsh strobe. The shot struck the top edge of the hydro-pump. Metal hissed and bubbled, slag dripping in molten ribbons.
Raymond dropped [ Basic Sneak ], feeling the Stamina drain halt. He leaned out from the left side of his cover and put three rounds center-mass.
The 5.56mm rounds sparked against empty air. A translucent blue barrier shimmered ten centimeters in front of Vryn's chest—hexagonal panels of hard light that absorbed the kinetic impact and dispersed it into faint ripples.
Personal shield. Of course.
Vryn adjusted something on the rifle's side panel. The violet core brightened.
Raymond pulled back as the second plasma bolt punched through his cover entirely, cutting a fist-sized hole through rusted metal and vaporizing the concrete behind it. Heat washed across his face, sharp and chemical.
He rolled left, putting a stack of supply crates between himself and the Lieutenant. Sentinel-5 barked twice more. Both rounds deflected off the shield.
"You lack the tools," Vryn called out, his voice calm again. Clinical. "Your equipment is outdated. Inefficient."
Raymond didn't answer. He cycled through his options. The Sentinel-5 wasn't penetrating the shield. The plasma rifle outperformed anything he had. And Vryn controlled the room from a fortified position.
A mechanical whir echoed from above.
Raymond's eyes snapped to the ceiling. Two panels slid open on articulated hinges. Automated turret pods descended, twin barrels extending as targeting lasers painted red dots across the floor.
The dots swept left. Right. Converging on the supply crates.
Fuck.
The turrets opened fire.
Rounds chewed into the crates, splintering composite material and shredding packing foam. Raymond flattened himself against the floor as bullets tore through the space where his head had been half a second earlier. They stopped firing to reload.
Can't stay here. Turrets have the angle. Vryn's got the range.
He made the call.
Raymond materialized the [ K-FRM-05b 'Cascade' ] directly in front of him. The metallic case hit the floor with a heavy thunk, latches disengaging with pneumatic hisses. The lid split open, revealing the aethertech plating inside—matte gray composite lined with faint blue circuitry.
He shoved his legs into the lower assembly first. The greaves snapped shut around his calves and thighs. Torso next—the chest plate locked across his ribs with a pressurized seal. Arms last. The gauntlets closed around his forearms with a faint hum as the power cells synced.
The HUD flickered to life across his vision. Green status indicators. Structural integrity at 100%. Power reserves full.
Raymond dismissed the Sentinel-5 back into Inventory and summoned two [ Raptor-9 ] SMGs. One in each hand. Thirty-round magazines. Nine-millimeter. High rate of fire.
The turrets adjusted their aim, barrels tracking his new position.
He didn't give them the chance. Raymond charged.
Raymond closed the distance at a dead sprint, both Raptor-9s bucking in his hands. The SMGs roared, muzzle flash strobing the chamber in rapid-fire bursts. Spent casings arced through the air, pinging off the floor in a brass rain.
The hexagonal shield flared bright blue with each impact. Thirty rounds. Sixty. The barrier rippled under the sustained assault, panels flickering as the energy matrix struggled to compensate.
Vryn's eyes widened behind the failing shield. He snapped off a plasma bolt, but the shot went wide as he stepped back.
"Cascade-pattern plating," Vryn shouted over the gunfire, his voice sharp with recognition. "You're using our equipment—how did you—"
The shield collapsed.
Yes, just a bit more.
The barrier winked out with a sharp electric crack, and Vryn threw himself behind the structural pillar. Raymond's next burst chewed into concrete where the Lieutenant's head had been a half-second earlier.
Ten meters.
Raymond released both SMGs, letting them clatter to the floor. His right wrist snapped forward, and the aethertech blade extended from the gauntlet with a metallic shing. Twenty centimeters of serrated tungsten carbide. Close-quarters configuration.
Five meters.
He angled left, boots hammering the floor, ready to swing around the pillar and drive the blade through Vryn's throat—
A sleek robotic arm emerged from behind the pillar at waist height.
The wrist was angled down, the hand gone—transformed. The forearm ended in a cylindrical blaster array, three prongs extending around a central aperture. Sapphire energy crackled between the prongs, building charge with a high-pitched whine.
Raymond tried to pivot, to change direction mid-stride.
Too late.
The EM blast erupted in a blinding blue-white flash.
The discharge hit Raymond square in the chest. Every muscle in his body locked. The Cascade armor seized, servos grinding to a halt as the electromagnetic pulse fried the circuitry. His HUD died instantly—green indicators vanishing, replaced by static and black.
Dammit!
Electricity arced across the plating, crawling over his limbs in jagged lines. His teeth clenched involuntarily. His vision blurred, tears streaming from the intensity of the light.
He couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. The armor had become a cage.
Raymond shoved the armor back into Inventory.
The Cascade plating vanished in a shimmer of blue light, disappearing mid-seizure. His body hit the floor hard, knees slamming concrete. The electrical aftershocks still crawled through his muscles, nerves firing wrong signals. His left hand spasmed. His right leg twitched.
Move. Get up. Move.
Vryn stepped out from behind the pillar, the plasma rifle gripped in his organic right hand. The weapon hung at a forty-five-degree angle, barrel pointing toward the floor. His posture relaxed—shoulders dropping, chin lifting slightly. Victory assured.
"The armor won't save—"
He stopped.
His blue eyes locked onto Raymond's kneeling form. No plating. No aethertech shell. Just flesh and fabric.
"How did you..." Vryn's voice trailed off, confusion cracking through the clinical tone.
His mechanical eye shifted. The iris contracted, a rapid focus adjustment that didn't match the movement of his organic eye. The prosthetic lens rotated a fraction, zooming in on Raymond's chest, his hands, the empty air where the armor had been.
The red glow in the mechanical socket brightened for half a second.
Raymond didn't wait for Vryn to process it.
His right hand pushed off the floor, forcing his legs under him. Five meters. Four. His left hand dropped to his thigh, fingers closing around the combat knife strapped there.
Vryn's eyes widened. He swung the plasma rifle up, trying to bring the muzzle to bear. The barrel swept left to right, angling upward—
Raymond lunged.
His left hand drove the knife forward in an upward thrust, aiming for Vryn's stomach.
Vryn jerked backward, stumbling half a step. The blade missed flesh by centimeters and punched into the plasma rifle's underslung cooling vent instead.
A sharp hiss. White vapor exploded from the vent in a freezing spray as the nitrogen compression chamber vented violently.
"You Motherfucker!" Vryn snarled, hurling the rifle to the floor as the cooling system ruptured. His mechanical arm came up, chrome fingers flexing. "You broke a custom-built—"
Raymond lost his grip on the embedded knife, stumbling back as the blast of nitrogen caught him in the face. His eyes watered. His lungs burned with the cold.
Three meters of separation.
Raymond's right hand reached behind his back. Fingers found the secondary blade strapped horizontally at his lower spine. He pulled it free and flipped it in his palm, blade pointing down along his forearm. Reverse grip.
Close-quarters. No room to maneuver. Just steel and bone.
He settled into stance, knees bent, weight forward.
Vryn's cybernetic limb shifted, servos grinding as metal fingers folded tight into a fist.