CHAPTER 57: CHAPTER 57

The walk back to the workshop, Unit B17, felt like a sad and lonely funeral march. Each step Ace took felt heavier than the last, as if he were being weighed down by the crumpled piece of paper in his pocket and the impossible choice he now had to make. The cheerful, normal activity of the city happening around him felt like a cruel joke. How could people be laughing, shopping, and simply living their lives while his own world was collapsing into a nightmare ruled by crime lords and haunted by digital ghosts?

He finally reached the heavy steel door of the workshop and stopped, his hand hovering over the intercom button. From inside, he could hear the faint, tinny sound of music playing—it was Silva’s attempt to create some sense of normalcy. Ace took a deep, steadying breath to prepare himself, then pressed the button and spoke the all-clear code they had established days earlier. "Nighthawk’s perch," he said.

The lock on the door buzzed loudly and then clunked open. He pushed the heavy door inward and was immediately met by the familiar scent of the workshop: the smell of solder, ozone, and coffee.

Evelyn and Silva moved toward him at once. They had been waiting, frozen in the same positions of anxiety he had left them in.

"What happened?" Evelyn’s voice was tight with worry, and her eyes searched his face for any clue. "Are you okay? What did he want?"

Silva just stared at him, his usual loud and confident attitude completely gone, replaced by plain and naked fear.

Ace didn’t answer them right away. He walked slowly to the central workbench, the heart of their fragile operation, and placed the crumpled note on its scarred surface. He smoothed it out flat with his palm, revealing the simple handwritten address and time.

"Ramos is containing the Vincenzo problem," Ace began, his voice sounding hollow and empty. "For now. His people will make sure Vincenzo’s men won’t find us."

Evelyn’s shoulders slumped forward in a great wave of relief. "Oh, thank god," she breathed out. "That’s... that’s good, right? That means we’re safe."

"There’s a price," Ace said, cutting off her fleeting hope before it could grow. He tapped his finger on the smooth surface of the paper. "This is the price. It’s a show of force. And a test of my loyalty."

They both leaned in closer to read the note. Silva let out a low whistle under his breath. "A truck? Headed for Vincenzo’s warehouse? He wants us to hijack it? Ace, we’re not truck thieves! We’re... we’re..." He gestured vaguely at the room full of wires and electronic parts. "...we’re tech people!"

"He doesn’t want it stolen," Ace clarified, the words feeling greasy and wrong as he spoke them. "He wants it stopped. Sabotaged. He wants to send a message to Vincenzo that his goods aren’t safe on Ramos’s streets." He looked at his hands, half-expecting to see them already stained. "It’s a declaration of war, and we’re the ones delivering the message."

TASK REMINER: INTERCEPT TECH SHIPMENT. PREVENT DELIVERY TO VINCENZO.

METHOD: SABOTAGE / THEFT / DESTRUCTION – EFFICIENCY WILL BE RATED.

REWARD: (WITHHELD – BASED ON COMPLETION & STRATEGY)

PENALTY: PROTECTION WITHDRAWN. IDENTIFYING INFORMATION WILL BE EXPOSED TO TARGET (VINCENZO).

The System’s reminder flashed in his mind, a cold jolt of urgency that sharpened his focus.

Evelyn picked up the note, her forehead wrinkled in thought. "4:45 AM. Driver change stop. It’s a logistics company front..." She was already switching gears, her mind moving from fear to practical analysis. She sat down at her main laptop, the one they kept disconnected from the internet for safety and began typing. "Let’s see what we’re dealing with here."

"What are you doing?" Silva asked, sounding completely bewildered by her calmness.

"If we’re going to sabotage a moving vehicle," she said, her focus absolute, "I’d rather not do it with a crowbar while it’s going sixty miles an hour down the highway. We need a plan. A smart one."

Ace felt a powerful surge of gratitude for her. While he had been drowning in the heavy moral weight of what they had to do, Evelyn was already looking for a solution. She was anchoring him, just as she always did.

"Got it," she said after a few minutes of silent typing. She pulled up maps and satellite images on her large screen. "The address is a designated rest stop for long-haul truckers. It’s not a busy depot; it’s mostly just a big parking lot, a diner, and some fuel pumps. The driver will likely be inside the diner for his break or using the restroom. That means the truck will be left alone and unattended for a short amount of time."

"So we sneak up and... what?" Silva asked, throwing his hands up. "Slash the tires? That’ll just delay it for a little while."

"No," Ace said, an idea forming in his mind, born from the constant, quiet hum of the nanites under his skin. "We don’t break anything he can see from the outside. We break what’s inside the cargo."

He looked down at his hands. "The shipment is all electronics. Circuit boards, solid-state drives, motherboards. That kind of stuff is fragile. It’s really sensitive to power surges."

Evelyn’s eyes lit up with immediate understanding. "But you can’t just fry them from the outside. The shipping cases are metal; they’re designed to shield the electronics inside."

"Not from the inside," Ace said. The plan was crystallizing in his mind, a plan that relied entirely on his secret ability. "We will not steal the truck. We will not even open it. We will find the external power port on the trailer. Most of these long-haul rigs have them for the refrigerated units or to power the cabin. I can... I can bypass it." He was weaving the truth of his nanites into a cover story they could believe. "I can create a feedback loop through that port and send a massive power surge back through the trailer’s entire internal electrical system. It will look like a massive manufacturing defect in all the equipment or a freak power accident during transit. Nothing that could ever be traced back to us."

Silva stared at him, his jaw slightly open in amazement. "You can actually do that? With, like, some kind of gadget?"

Ace tapped the side of his head, a gesture that felt like a small betrayal of his real secret. "I’ve been reading up on electronics. It’s all about knowing exactly where to send the power. But I’ll need to be right at the port on the truck. It’s the only way to make it work."

Evelyn was already nodding, a grim smile touching her lips. "It’s brilliant. It’s a ghost job. No broken locks, no missing cargo. Just a truck full of expensive, useless bricks arriving at Vincenzo’s warehouse." She looked from Ace to Silva. "Ramos wants a message? Well, that’s one hell of a message to send."

The plan was set. The hours leading up to 4:00 AM were a blur of tense and quiet preparation. Evelyn used her offline maps to carefully plot their route to the rest stop. Silva, despite his fear, fully embraced his role. He gathered dark clothing for them to wear, found a pair of binoculars, and prepared himself to be the lookout.

Ace sat quietly by himself, focusing inward. He held a broken smartphone in his hands, not to fix it, but to practice. He concentrated on the feeling of the nanites, that warm, living energy he felt in his palms. He imagined directing that energy, not into the phone he was holding, but through the air toward a specific, tiny component on a circuit board all the way across the room. It was like flexing a strange, new mental muscle he never knew he had. The intense concentration and willpower it required gave him a pounding headache.

They left the workshop under the cover of deep night, with the city asleep around them. Silva drove an old, inconspicuous sedan they used for picking up parts. The atmosphere in the car was thick with a nervous silence.

The rest stop was exactly as Evelyn’s research had shown: poorly lit and mostly empty. They parked in the shadows of the diner’s parking lot, a good distance away from where the big trucks were parked. Silva lifted the binoculars to his eyes. "I see it," he whispered. "I can see the logistics company logo on the side. The driver is just heading into the diner now. This is our chance."

Ace’s heart was beating like a frantic drum solo in his chest. This was it. He slipped out of the car, pulling his hood low over his face to hide it. He moved like a shadow between the other parked trucks, his senses on high alert, making every sound seem louder. He found Vincenzo’s truck. It was massive, a silent giant in the night.

And there it was: a heavy-duty power port near the rear of the cab, just like he’d hoped.

He placed his palm flat against the cold metal housing of the port and closed his eyes. To anyone who might be watching, it would just look like he was checking the connection or maybe planting a small device. But on the inside, he was focusing everything, every ounce of his will, every bit of the System’s strange energy into his hand. He wasn’t planting a device; he was the device. He guided the nanites, picturing a river of microscopic particles flowing from his palm, through the truck’s wiring, into the dark trailer, and spreading out to seek the delicate electronic hearts of the valuable devices inside.

It was an immense strain. A sharp and immediate headache began to pound behind his eyes. He felt a hot trickle from his nose—a nosebleed. He ignored it, gritting his teeth and pushing forward.

More. Further. You have to reach all of it.

In his mind, he could almost see them, a silent, destructive swarm descending on stacks of unopened boxes. He gave the final, mental command—not a violent explosion of energy, but a precise, overwhelming pulse, like flipping a switch for a billion circuits at once.

A faint, almost imperceptible smell of ozone, like the air after a lightning strike, tickled his nostrils.

It was done.

He pulled his hand away, staggering back a step. He felt dizzy and completely drained, as if he had just run a marathon. He wiped the blood from his nose with his sleeve, then melted back into the shadows and returned to the car.

"Well?" Evelyn asked, her voice tight with anxiety. "Did it work?"

"It’s done," he breathed out, slumping into the passenger seat. He hoped they would just think his exhaustion was from adrenaline and fear. "Let’s go. Now."

As Silva pulled the car silently out of the parking lot, they saw the truck driver exit the diner, clutching a large Styrofoam cup of coffee. He climbed up into his cab, completely unaware that his multi-million dollar cargo was now just a worthless load of scrap metal and plastic.

No one spoke a word on the drive back. There was no feeling of triumph, no celebration. They had succeeded. They had been brilliant, even. They had avoided violence and left no physical trace behind.

But as the first rays of dawn began to paint the sky, Ace looked down at his hands. They looked perfectly ordinary. Yet, they had just destroyed thousands of dollars of property on the command of a crime lord, using a power that no one else could see or understand. He had used his curse—the very thing that was supposed to be his tool for finding freedom—to become a better, more deniable attack dog.

TASK: INTERCEPT TECH SHIPMENT - COMPLETE

METHOD: NON‑VIOLENT SABOTAGE MAXIMUM DENIABILITY.

EFFICIENCY RATING: 98%.

REWARD: NANITE SWARM LEVEL 2 - RANGE AND PRECISION INCREASED BY 25%

A notification from the System appeared in his mind. It was a message of cold, emotionless praise. It had measured his efficiency and his creativity in causing destruction. It was now rewarding him for becoming a more effective weapon.

Ace closed his eyes. The System’s cold approval felt like a brand on his soul. They were safe from Vincenzo for another day. But the cost of that safety was getting higher and higher, and he wasn’t sure how many more pieces of himself he had left to pay with.