The old checkpoint slled like lted plastic and ghost fire.
Safehouse 17-B had once been a rail junction beneath District 10’s southern freight yard — before Black Halo set it ablaze during a siege. Now it was just carbon-scarred walls, half-dead terminals, and a trickle of warm, recycled air that barely qualified as breathable.
Hernan shut the door behind them.
Aya dropped onto the nearest supply crate, exhaling like her bones had been holding in screams. The light caught the burn mark below her collarbone — red, raw, ringed with torn fabric. She winced as she peeled her coat off.
Renz said nothing. He leaned against the wall, arms folded, goggles still in place. Too still. Too centered.
Hernan knelt beside the d kit, silent.
He’d already morized Renz’s posture. No signs of adrenaline fatigue. No sweat behind the neck. The man hadn’t exerted himself. Not in that hellfire of a fight. Not once.
"Let see it," Hernan said, voice calm.
Aya tilted her shoulder toward him. Her breath caught when he pressed the cleaning swab to the wound, but she didn’t flinch.
Hernan didn’t speak.
Silence, he’d learned, made people fill space. Words were distractions. Reactions were data.
Aya didn’t look at Renz.
That was another data point.
She knew sothing was off too.
The burn hissed as he sealed the flesh with synth-skin. Aya flexed her arm. "Thanks," she muttered, then added, "I’m not stupid, you know."
"I never said you were."
"I saw where Renz was standing. Just saying."
Hernan gave her a look — soft, unreadable. "What did I teach you about saying things twice?"
She exhaled through her nose, nodded once, and rose.
Renz still hadn’t moved.
Hernan turned toward him now. Smile easy. Relaxed.
"You held your nerve back there," he said. "Those Vaskari blades would’ve had bleeding if you hadn’t called that guard shift."
Renz’s head tilted slightly. "Did what I could."
"You did well," Hernan said.
Aya squinted at him.
Hernan clapped Renz on the shoulder. Not hard. Just enough for contact.
He crossed the room and keyed the portable terminal open, lines of encrypted code flickering across the cracked screen. Nico’s trace algorithm was running — feeding from the tracer dart he’d buried in the buyer’s bloodstream.
A blinking green ping.
The signal was moving — not fast, but steady — toward the eastern freight corridor. That line wasn’t on the public registry anymore. Hernan knew why. Three months ago, an informant in D9 had leaked rumors of Zodiac-owned biotech moving through it. Controlled by Scorpio. Or soone acting under them.
Hernan tapped the screen once. Saved coordinates. Sent a ping to Nico with a silent tistamp.
Aya walked over, glancing down at the screen. "We following that now?"
"Not tonight," Hernan said. "You’re off rotation for 48 hours. Nico will check your burn."
"I’m fine—"
"That wasn’t a request."
She nodded again. Less defiant this ti. Just tired.
Hernan turned his head toward Renz.
"Walk with ."
Renz pushed off the wall, no hesitation.
Aya looked between them. She didn’t say a word. But her eyes said everything.
The air changed the deeper they went.
The sound of the surface faded — no city hum, no echo of distant freight rails, just the low, oppressive silence of forgotten things. The walls down here were moist with condensation. Rust slicked the pipes like old blood. Hernan’s boots hit the cracked stone in slow, deliberate steps, his pace easy, shoulders loose. Relaxed. Friendly.
Renz followed behind him, matching his stride.
Neither of them said a word until they reached the circular chamber at the underpass’s heart — where the old ergency train switch once stood. Now it was just a rusted stump in the middle of the room, surrounded by broken concrete and oil-burned tiles.
Hernan stopped beside it. Rested one hand on the edge.
Still smiling.
"You know," he said conversationally, "back in year three of my fake Academy term — they ran a live-sim ambush on a collapsed power station. Group mission. Six of us."
Renz stayed still. Listening.
Hernan turned slightly, just enough for the light from his wrist to half-illuminate his face.
"We had a traitor planted among us. They set off a decoy pulse bomb. Classic misdirection — got two of our team cooked in the first five minutes."
Renz nodded once, neutral. "You fail the sim?"
"No," Hernan said. "I passed."
He tilted his head slightly.
"Killed the traitor myself. Throat. Quick. Never even broke cover. Best part? No one ever found out. Faculty thought the traitor got hit by crossfire."
He let the sentence linger. Heavy.
"I only ever told one person. Before now."
Renz’s brows pinched, just for a split second.
Just long enough.
Hernan watched it — the microexpression. A twitch at the eye. A mont where the story grazed sothing real.
He turned fully now, eyes locked on the man in front of him. The smile didn’t fade.
"I’ve been thinking about ambush drills again," Hernan said, voice quieter now. "You mind?"
He reached into his coat. Drew a training knife from his inner holster — dull edge, safe-tipped, standard Academy practice gear. He held it out, hilt-first.
Renz looked at the blade. Then at Hernan.
"Show how you’d have handled the hit," Hernan said softly. "Last night. Auction floor. You’re . Walk through it."
Renz hesitated — but only for a breath. Then he took the knife.
No tension in his shoulders. No fidgeting.
He stepped forward, planting his feet with the sa quiet discipline he’d shown earlier. Then he moved.
His hands were precise.
He demonstrated an angle of approach from the target’s blind spot. A two-step flank. A turn of the shoulder. A knife drawn in silence. Then a clean, upward strike — just beneath the ribs. A second pivot to widen the wound. Then a release.
Exactly the kill Hernan had executed last night.
Exactly.
Hernan smiled wider.
"You’ve been watching closely," he said, voice calm as still water.
Renz handed the knife back with a respectful dip of the head. "I study patterns."
"Apparently so."
They stood there in silence for a few seconds. Renz shifted his weight — the first subtle cue of discomfort. Hernan held his gaze just long enough to asure it.
Then he stepped aside, gesturing toward the tunnel exit.
"Let’s get out of here."
Renz nodded, turned, and walked past him, back into the corridor.
Hernan stayed behind for a mont, the dim light tracing the faint bloodstain on his boot — from the real blade, not the training one.
He didn’t move. Didn’t blink.
The smile was gone now.
What replaced it was sothing sharper.
Quieter.
More certain.
Now I know what you sound like when you lie.
POV Shift: Renz
The tunnel was darker on the way back up.
Renz kept his pace steady, steps soft. He didn’t look over his shoulder.
But he felt the weight of it.
The test had been subtle. The story? Just enough truth buried in fiction to trigger mory. He shouldn’t have reacted. But he had. Damn.
Still — Hernan hadn’t stopped him.
Not yet.
He suspects. But he’s still unsure.That ant there was ti.
And ti, in this ga, was everything.
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