Chapter 1
The rain didn’t just fall on the port city of Oeth; it battered the rusted metal rooftops like a drumline of bad omens.
Inside the subterranean control room of Sector 4, the air tasted of ozone and stale coffee. Detective Marcus Vance stared at the blinking red terminal, his fingers hovering over a keyboard that hadn't seen a legal keystroke in a decade. The screen flickered, casting a sickly green hue across his scarred cheekbones.
Target acquired: 02:14 AM.
The message had no sender, no encryption header, and no right to exist on a disconnected local terminal. Yet there it was.
Across the room, the heavy iron security door groaned. A muffled, rhythmic thud reverberated through the concrete foundations. Someone—or something—was coming down the stairwell, and they weren't using the biometric scanner.
Marcus slid his hand beneath the metal desk, wrapping his fingers around the cold, textured grip of his service weapon. He clicked off the safety. The metallic click sounded deafening in the silence.
"You're late, Vance," a synthetic voice crackled through the room's dead intercom.
Marcus froze. The speaker hadn’t worked since the station was decommissioned.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
The heavy door began to buckle inward, rivets popping like gunshots as an immense pressure was applied from the outside. The green light on the terminal suddenly shifted to a blistering, angry amber, and a countdown timer materialized on the screen: 00:59.
With a final, ear-splitting screech of tortured steel, the hinges blew. Smoke billowed into the control room, and through the haze, a single, silhouetted figure stepped across the threshold, holding a device that hummed with a lethal, blue frequency.
Marcus raised his weapon, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. "Stop right there."
The figure paused, the blue light reflecting off a sleek, unmarked visor. "Too late, Detective. The vault is already open."
