Dawn seeped through Zenith's smog like pale wine, tinting the Rusted Oak's hallway a bruised violet. Alaric eased the door shut behind him, leaving Lia still asleep, one arm draped over his empty pillow. Her silver hair fanned across the sheets, framing a serene face that belied the steel coiled beneath. He let the image steady his heartbeat, then headed into the city with the living lockbox slung beneath his jacket.
First stop: the Crossroads. Trash fires guttered beside morning vendors; the night-shift gangs swapped places with pickpockets and salvage haulers. Kieran's usual noodle stall sat vacant, steamers cold. Instead, a scrap of holo-paper fluttered beneath the counter:
Warehouse 17, Dock Row, noon.
Cryptic, but typical fixer etiquette. Alaric memorized the coordinates and vanished before prying eyes lingered.
He spent the next hours ghosting through information dens—cyber cafés run off stolen grid taps, bulletin walls plastered with bounty tags. Every whisper about last night's freight raid said the same: three Syndicate dead, shipment missing, crimson bounties posted on an "unknown courier." No mention of a porcelain-masked hunter. Good. The fewer who knew about the Shroud, the better his odds of understanding her game.
At ten thirty he tailed a garbage truck to Dock Row, hopping its rear bumper to avoid security scans. Warehouse 17 rose like a rusted leviathan, windows boarded, roof half-collapsed. Inside, daylight knifed through broken panes, illuminating crates stacked in chessboard rows. Kieran lounged atop a forklift, twirling a data-stick between gloved fingers.
"Courier boy shows." He hopped down, boots crunching glass. "You still breathing—impressive."
"Your intel missed three Syndicate hounds," Alaric said.
"I said it was risky, not suicidal." Kieran grinned. "You have the box?"
Alaric tapped his jacket. "But we trade information first. Who owns this cargo?"
Kieran's brows rose. "Getting bold."
"Someone sent the Shroud after it. I want a name."
The fixer weighed him with shrewd eyes, then flicked the data-stick over. "Encrypted dossier," he said. "Worth more than what's inside that case. Speaking of—your payment's in crypto. Drop box key on the file."
Alaric pocketed the stick. "Pleasure."
As he turned for the exit, a rumble shook the concrete. Warehouse doors slammed down, sealing. Crimson Jacks spilled from catwalks, shotguns raised, neon skulls painted across masks.
Kieran's grin faded. "That wasn't my doing."
"No. It's theirs."
A massive Jack with chrome augments stepped forward. "Boss says hand over the courier." Metal fingers flexed; servo-motors whined.
Alaric drew the stolen pistol, firing once—bullet tore through a railing, forcing the gangers to dive. He sprinted down an aisle, crates exploding behind him. A slug hammered his shoulder, glanced off bone; Vitality slowed the bleeding to a hot trickle.
He vaulted a conveyor, slid under a swinging bat studded with nails, and slashed upward with his knife. Tendons parted; the bat wielder dropped, screaming. Another Jack lunged; Alaric sidestepped, grabbed the man's coat, and used his momentum to hurl him into a stack of crates that collapsed in a thunder of splinters.
Chain-saw augments revved—chrome giant charged, cleaving a crate in two. Alaric kicked a loose pallet into the saw teeth; sparks erupted as the motor jammed. He dove inside the giant's guard, drove his blade into cybernetic neck seals. The big man roared, backhanding Alaric across the floor. Pain flared; the pistol skittered away.
The giant ripped the blade free, but coolant spurted from the severed conduit. His movements slowed. Alaric rolled onto a fallen pipe, hoisted it like a spear, and rammed it through the aug-joint in the giant's chest. A crack of breaking hydraulics—chrome titan toppled, rattling the floor.
Kieran, crouched behind a forklift, shouted, "Exit on the roof!"
Alaric sprinted toward stacked cargo. A shotgun blast ripped open a crate ahead; shattered glass rained down. He leaped, rebounded off a container wall, grabbed a dangling chain, and swung upward to a skylight frame. Boots scraped metal as he hauled himself onto the roof, lungs burning.
Kieran scrambled after him, cursing. They raced across corrugated panels while shot pellets punched holes at their heels. At the far edge, a maintenance ladder offered escape. Kieran jumped, slid down two stories, hitting pavement with a grunt. Alaric followed, landing in a crouch that jarred every rib.
Sirens wailed in the distance—dock security drawn by gunfire. The fixer wiped sweat from his brow. "You're a magnet for mayhem, courier."
"Last job you'll offer me?"
"Hell, no," Kieran panted. "Chaos sells."
Alaric backed away. "We're even."
The fixer nodded, vanishing into a maze of containers. Alaric pressed a palm to his bleeding shoulder, grin tugging at his lips despite the pain. [Stealth proficiency +2.1%] scrolled faintly; the system drank combat like oil to a fire.
He limped through alley networks until the Rusted Oak's sagging outline appeared. Lia flung the door open before he touched the knob, eyes going wide at fresh blood. She dragged him inside, ripped a bandage packet with her teeth. Her hands trembled—not from fear, but fury.
"They shot you!"
"Just grazed." He hissed as antiseptic stung. "Syndicate ambush. Warehouse thirty blocks east."
"I'll burn it to the ground."
He caught her wrist. "Not yet." She glared, cheeks flushed with murderous devotion, but eased the gauze against his skin, breath warm on his collarbone.
Night settled before the bleeding stopped. Alaric rested against the headboard while Lia curled beside him, protective as a blade in silk. He slid the data-stick into the pocket terminal Tavros had lent him. Files bloomed on-screen:
PROJECT SERAPHIMPrincipal: Dr. H. ValeCargo: Genetic key 1 of 3Buyer: Obsidian Syndicate Executive Council
His heart jerked. Dr. H. Vale—his mother. The lockbox didn't hold money. It held a fragment of whatever secret destroyed his family.
Moonlight spilled across Lia's sleeping face. He closed the terminal, mind racing. The Syndicate wanted Seraphim. The Shroud wanted it too. And now he possessed one-third of the key.
Another line from an anime whispered in memory—"When destiny hands you a sword, grip it with both hands." Alaric vowed to wield this secret like steel.
Two ambushes still waited, quests unfinished, but a path had formed: unravel Project Seraphim, expose the Syndicate, and carve a throne from Zenith's underbelly.
He stroked Lia's hair, pulse steadying. She murmured his name in sleep, a possessive sigh. Tomorrow would bleed again, but tonight they breathed, and that was victory enough.