CHAPTER 23: THE ENEMY’S RHYTHM

Two blocks away, inside the cramped, sterile mobile command van, Captain Helena Valerius sat tense and uneasy.

On the outside, she looked calm and disciplined – uniform crisp, posture straight, like a perfect soldier.

But inside, she felt like a cog in a great, grinding machine she no longer understood, its gears chewing up laws and lives with equal indifference.

The air was a suffocating cocktail of hot electronics, burnt coffee, and her own mounting frustration.

On the main screen before her, a mosaic of a dozen video feeds displayed the silent, patient lockdown of the Red Hook storage facility.

Her men, the uniformed DGC agents, held the outer perimeter, a visible and reassuring presence for any civilians who might stumble by.

But inside that perimeter, a different breed of hunter moved.

They were Commander Rourke’s men, handpicked from Gideon’s shadowy Special Operations division.

They didn’t wear the standard blue and grey of the DGC.

They wore matte-black, non-reflective tactical gear that swallowed the faint city light.

They moved with a predatory grace, a silent, terrifying efficiency that spoke of countless operations that never made it into the official reports.

They were not soldiers.

They were scalpels, honed for one purpose: excision.

"Status report, Commander Rourke," she said into her comms unit, her voice a clipped, professional monotone that betrayed none of her inner turmoil.

Rourke’s voice came back, smooth and laced with a condescending confidence that grated on her nerves.

"The web is spun, Captain."

"Now we just wait for the fly to show up."

"My teams are in position."

"No blind spots."

"The target has nowhere to run."

Valerius’s eyes flicked to a feed showing a two-man sniper team on a nearby warehouse roof.

Their forms were like ghosts against the darkening skyline.

"Your men are too exposed, Commander."

"A visible presence will only make the target more cautious."

"My recommendation is to pull them back, maintain a covert posture until the asset reveals himself."

Rourke chuckled, a low, grating sound like stones being ground together.

"With all due respect, Captain, your ’covert posture’ is what let Echo-01 slip through our fingers in the first place."

"This isn’t a negotiation."

"It’s a hunt."

"General Gideon wants this resolved."

"Quickly."

Valerius’s jaw tightened.

Asset.

The word was a piece of ice in her gut.

He wasn’t a person to them.

Not a boy.

Not Marcus Arcana’s terrified son.

He was a thing to be collected, a resource to be exploited.

"My orders are to contain this situation, not to start a firefight in the middle of Brooklyn," she countered, her voice dangerously low.

"My orders," Rourke purred, the veiled threat unmistakable, "are from General Gideon himself."

"The objective is to secure the asset."

"Alive, if possible."

He paused for a beat, letting the unspoken part of the order hang in the air.

"But secured, above all else."

"If that requires a public demonstration of the Bureau’s reach, then so be it."

The line went dead.

Valerius stared at the screens, a cold knot of dread tightening in her chest.

She remembered Marcus, his face a mask of quiet dread in that warehouse.

The fierce, protective fire in his eyes.

He had been a legend, a hero who had saved this city a dozen times over.

Now, the very Bureau he had served was hunting his son like an animal, using tactics that belonged in a black site, not on the streets of New York.

The sins of the Bureau were coming home to roost.

And she was standing on the front porch, forced to welcome them in.

This was a mistake.

She knew it in her bones.

Rourke and Gideon, in their arrogance, saw a prize to be won.

They saw a tool to be reclaimed.

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Back in the sniper’s nest, the sun dipped below the horizon, spilling brilliant shades of orange and purple across the sky.

The city lights blinked on, one by one, and the rhythm of Red Hook changed.

The daytime workers went home, replaced by the creatures of the night.

Michael watched as Jinx finalized her plan, her face illuminated by the green glow of her tablet.

She was no longer the frightened survivor from the tunnels.

Here, surrounded by her gear, with a clear objective, she was a master of her craft.

"Here," she said, her voice a low murmur, pointing to a schematic of the facility’s guard rotations she had somehow acquired.

"Midnight."

"That’s our window."

"The DGC shifts change every eight hours."

"It’s the moment of maximum confusion."

"Comms are switching over."

"The new guards are getting their briefings."

"The old guards are tired and sloppy."

She looked up from the screen, her eyes locking onto his.

"It’s a ninety-second window of calculated chaos."

"That’s all we get."

Chloe’s voice, a calm, disembodied presence in his ear, confirmed Jinx’s assessment.

"Analysis is correct."

"During the shift change, command response time will be at its lowest."

"It is the optimal moment to initiate your diversion."

Michael nodded, his heart a slow, heavy drum in his chest.

He stood up and walked to the gaping hole in the wall, looking out at the fortress across the street.

It was no longer an impossible, terrifying monster.

It was just a puzzle.

A complex, deadly puzzle box, and he finally knew the first move.

Jinx moved to stand beside him, her small frame radiating a tense, focused energy.

She had reloaded her rifle with one of the precious Phase-Disruptor rounds.

The air around them felt charged, electric with anticipation.

"So," she said, her voice quiet.

"This is it."

She glanced at him, her expression unreadable in the gloom.

"You sure you want to be the bait?"

"Once you ring that dinner bell, there’s no going back."

"These guys don’t play."

Michael thought of his father, sitting in a cold DGC cell, paying for a crime he didn’t commit.

He thought of his mother, a lonely ghost trapped in a dying Gate, who had sacrificed everything for him.

He thought of the 1.2% corruption tainting his soul, a creeping darkness he had to fight on a battlefield no one else could see.

The fear was still there, a cold knot in his stomach.

But something else was growing alongside it.

A hard, sharp resolve that felt both foreign and deeply, fundamentally his.

"They built a cage for a monster," he said, his voice quiet, but filled with a certainty that surprised even himself.

"It’s time to give them one."

Jinx looked at him for a long moment, then gave a single, sharp nod.

The debate was over.

They were in this together, two ghosts about to haunt the machine.

"Alright, kid," she said, raising the rifle to her shoulder and peering through the scope.

"The stage is set."

Chloe’s voice came over the comms, cold and final as a ticking clock.

"It’s time."

"Good luck."

Michael looked at Jinx, then back at the city.

He took one last, deep breath.

"Ready."