Chapter 69 The Plan
March 13, 2025. Thursday. 11:22 a.m.
Six days earlier, I sat hunched over a battered PC in so internet cafe outside Markend, the monitor flickering like it wasn’t sure it wanted to be awake. I had a thermos of bitter coffee and a plan that felt half-mad and wholly necessary. I thought of every way to end Crow… ambushes, poison, an airstrike if I could steal one… and every one was an if without teeth. BunnyBlade had been ssaging , helpful little nudges and tips, but I’d decided not to trust that line anymore. I didn’t know then that BunnyBlade was Crow. I thought I was keeping my moves private. I thought wrong, but not yet.
I opened my mail and wrote fast, fingers jittering.
To: 12312745124
Subject: Identification / Proposition
[Michael Hall, SRC Director. I want to talk to you. My na is Nick Caldwell. Otherwise known as Eclipse. I am Nicole Caldwell’s son. I am responsible for several kills you’ve catalogued as cape-on-cape. I want to talk. I want to propose an arrangent.]
I hit send and felt like I’d shoved a lit match under a gas tank.
The reply ca an hour later, short and clinical.
From:
Subject: Re: Identification / Proposition
[Mr. Caldwell. How did you get my ergency number? Your claim is serious. Provide proof or cease contact. We do not bargain on hearsay.]
I typed back before the cafe owner could flip the “closing soon” sign.
[Proof will be specific. Nightgard… two entry points, throat first, then card to the skull. Greyhound, beaheded with my intangibility. The Malufan attack was not spontaneous; I was present, I neutralized the SRC troopers all the sa. If you want to know more, just ask.]
The Director’s next ssage ca slower, tone colder.
[If you are lying, this will escalate. If true, you’re placing us in a bind. Speak to on a secure line. Find a payphone at the north bus loop. When you’re there, dial 031-8-94-2 and follow prompts. Do not use your phone.]
Of course, he knew where I am right now… If he hadn’t sent capes or agents my way, it probably ant he wanted to hear the rest of what I wanted to say.
The payphone was a relic wrapped in graffiti, half of its keypad filled with chewing gum, but the old n still used it to argue over soccer scores, so it kept its secrets well. I pressed the coin return, fed a quarter, and then punched the sequence Hall had given . The line clicked, and a voice that sounded like wet gravel identified itself as the Director.
“Mr. Caldwell,” he said, precise as a scalpel. “Confirm: you are Eclipse. Confirm: you are Nicole Caldwell’s son.”
“Yes,” I said. My voice felt small, like it was coming from the bottom of a well. “I’m Eclipse. I’m asking for a deal.”
There was a pause long enough for the rain to sound like applause. “If this is a ploy—”
“It’s not,” I cut in. “What else do you want to know? Details of the rest of my kills?”
He sounded tired as he continued. “You understand what you are asking. You’re confessing to serial killings that made the newspaper’s headlines over the course of several weeks. If we take you in, we can mitigate, work with the courts, and leverage your cooperation. Surrender, and we shield you, and minimize civilian fallout. Walk into prison and we make your sentence a story we can control. And then… we make a deal.”
I could hear the civic machinery turning behind his words, the way a man in a suit imagines fixing things with paperwork.
“You want to surrender so easily,” I said slowly. “I can do better than that.”
“You will get due process,” Hall insisted. “You will get a chance to atone. We can—”
“No.” My refusal ca colder than I’d intended. “I won’t hand myself to you. I’m not trying to be punished. I’m trying to end sothing. Crow’s not going to be caged by your courts. He’s a network, he’s in half the systems you pretend are secure. He’ll slip free, and he’ll keep killing and hurting. I want him dead. And in order for to do that, I will need your help.”
Director Hall was quiet for a mont on the other end of the line. The silence stretched out so long that I thought he might have hung up, until I finally heard his voice.
“I am sorry, I can’t—”
I cut him off before he could retreat into caution again. “I will kill the Captain of Seamark,” I said sharply, the words more of a blade than a plea. “That will leave the Murder of Crows as the only reigning gang over Markend. You don’t want that… and you know it. Which ans you’ll have to cooperate with . This is your only chance to catch the Crow off his nest. After I kill the Captain, you’ll detain . Then, in a few days, Crow will co for .”
“And what makes you think he will rescue you?” Hall asked, his tone skeptical, but I could hear the unease beneath it.
“I don’t think,” I answered coldly. “I know. The man’s obsessed with , and far too eager to exploit my talents. I don’t care about his obsession; I’ll use it against him. I know that your detainnt facility keeps exclusive nullifier tech. That’s where you’ll trap him. Lock Crow in a room with , and I’ll take him down. This will be the only opportunity you’ll ever have. You know his reputation… how he kills anyone who even delays him. Better to set the bait with than risk your capes.”
“And if he doesn’t save you?” Hall pressed.
I let out a grim laugh. “Then you can have your way with . Either way, you win, Director.”
There was silence again, this ti stretched thin with calculation.
…
..
.
Present day.
March 19, 2025. Wednesday. 9:00 a.m.
I let go of Crow’s beating heart, slick and hot between my fingers, as it fell at my feet,no longer beating. I stood over the dead Crow, breathing hard, covered in his blood.
The sound system crackled above , and Director Hall’s voice filled the chamber with authority. “Stay put,” he instructed. “My people will collect the body. The dics will check you imdiately afterward.”
“Stop beating around the bush,” I said, feeling pissed at myself of even hoping SRC would cooperate. “You have no plans of making a deal with , didn’t you?”
“You are too dangerous a cape for society. The Warden would be able to take care of you better.”
“I thought so,” I laughed. “I shouldn’t have expected any less.”
There was never going to be negotiation. Hall wasn’t a man of compromise; he was a man of locks and cages. And yet, even he didn’t know how thin his walls truly were.
The sound system crackled suddenly, an intrusive hum slicing into the conversation. Then ca the voice: distorted, jagged, and soaked in malice. “I am going to kill you if you don’t have our money.”
Six days earlier I’d been desperate, sitting at a payphone outside an internet café, the city slick and indifferent around . That night I’d rung the Triplets for a job of a lifeti… A break-in.
The walls behind shrieked and splintered. tal and concrete peeled apart like paper, light and dust exploding into the room as a powered-armor truck forced its way through. Troopers shouted, and alarms wailed.
Question… How did they managed such an accurate timing? The Triplets’ hacker had been more than capable to find the perfect timing to enact the break-in at my requirents, allowing to kill Crow and them following up just as quickly. The hacker probably have a Researcher rating that SRC hadn’t flagged.
Another question… How could I hire the Triplets after Onyx and I had sent ‘killed’ two of them already? Because their Replicator ratings was probably higher than they let on. If not, they would not have agreed to take on a job from , considering the existing bad blood.
The money I’ve been offering helped, since it seed Pride’s blacklisted them after the failed attempt on , damaging there reputations. They needed a score bad enough to bite the hand that once smacked them. It had been just as risky as my gamble of dancing around SRC hands. But it worked. I reckoned this one job alone would raise there reputation to greater heights, which was another reason why the Triplets agreed so readily.
Paying them in hefty amounts in cash didn’t sound so bad.
One of the Triplets crouched on the hatch, machine gun barking to keep SRC troopers pinned and yelling orders over the roar. “Get inside! Smoke and move!” he snapped, voice smoothed with the kind of rehearsed nace that made n scatter. “Fucking move, faster!”
The hacker behind the truck didn’t look up from his laptop; his fingers moved like the heart of a trono as he rerouted feeds and looped security cams. “Caras baking in three… two… hold,” he muttered, not bothering to hide the pride in his voice. “We’re clear for forty seconds on the external loop. Go! Go! Go!”
I slid into the front passenger seat. The driver kept both hands on the wheel with one boot imdiately stomping on the accelerator. “What’s next?” he grunted. “You better not hold back on us. Trust , you won’t like it if you cross us.”
“My building’s on Verity Lane… private vault in the sublevel. Cash will be waiting there.”
The driver slamd the pedal down and the truck lunged like a living thing. The gunner kept a steady burst at the SRC vans trying to box us in, while the hacker barked directions from behind his rigged console. SRC vans ca at us like iron dogs and went down like they were nothing, overturned, smoking, their crews thrown into the street. I held the handle above my head as the armored truck slamd through potholes and the city blurred.
The Triplets looked the sa as the last ti. They wore white camo, faces covered in bonnet masks and goggles. More vicious. If anything, they reminded of wolves that hadn’t eaten in days. One of them leaned out to shout over the roar. “Spike’s ahead! Turn!”
The hacker glanced back, curiosity in his tone. “I never knew you were just a kid.”
I let the hand on the handle tighten. “I’m no longer a kid.”
He smiled without warmth. “Nicholas Caldwell, huh? Exposing yourself like that… it kills the cover. You think life gets easier after Markend? With your face out, your life as a cape is practically over.”
I’d already accepted that the mont I took the mask off. It was a price I’d decided to pay later. For now there were other priorities. For example, where’s Onyx?
“It’s Garuda!” the gunner yelled from above, voice ragged. The sky split open with a wind and a thrum as Garuda dove, wings a forcefield that shimred like a mirage.
“Do you have any explosives?” I snapped.
“We got an RPG,” the driver growled.
The hacker slid a launcher toward , hands steady on the laptop as he bypassed feeds. I phased through the truck’s roof, shoulder cracking through tal for a second as I vaulted up and slung the RPG to my shoulder. Garuda’s forcefield blurred the air around him, but I let the rocket phase through, timing the launch so the warhead passed harmlessly through the forcefield and detonated on the other side. Garuda reeled; his wings shuddered under the impact. He was hurt. I phased back into the seat as the hacker called out, “Looping CCTVs. Faking our tracks. SRC vans forming a net… right, right, left… now!”
“We’ve got a chopper!” the gunner warned from above.
“Any more explosives?” I asked.
“Almost there!” the hacker snapped.
We took a hard turn as another wave of vans tried to cut us off. Bullets chewed at the side of the truck. The gunner answered with more lead and the city beca a cacophony of tal grinding against tal.
Without warning, Promise appeared inside the van, her pistol aid square at the driver’s temple.
Ti crawled.
I lunged, shoving my hand in line with the barrel. The gun cracked, deafening in the cramped space, but the round passed through , harmless, phasing through my flesh, the driver’s head, and right out the windshield.
“You’re annoying,” I snarled.
Promise’s smirk said she agreed.
I dropped my intangibility in bursts, micromanaging it, until I blinked behind her, pistol clutched tight after phasing it straight through her grip. She vanished again, and I cursed under my breath. Her invisibility was too clean and quiet, though I’d noticed she couldn’t keep it up when attacking. That told sothing. Not enough, but sothing.
The van rocked violently, the hacker scrambling to the front seat, laptop wires trailing behind him.
Promise reappeared in front of , but no longer human. Her body stretched and warped into a silver-furred weretiger, her claws glowing with an edge that warped the air itself. When she slashed, pain seared across my arm; she had cut even through my intangibility.
Sword ister’s powers. Damn it. Even dead, the man had been causing trouble.
“I’m going to kill you,” she growled, voice distorted, guttural. “And that’s my promise to you.”
I forced the floor beneath her to phase just enough that her legs sank into the tal, then locked it tangible again. Her snarl turned to a shocked scream when her own montum betrayed her as her limbs were torn.
I raised the stolen pistol and fired, making each bullet intangible until it was just about to touch her skull, then snapping it solid. Promise’s claws sparked against them, parrying each shot by hair’s breadth, but not all of them. Her silver fur blood red where the rounds struck ho.
The hacker pitched his laptop forward, one hand smacking a command key. “Backdoor opened,” he hissed. “Get her!”
With a savage kick, I sent Promise tumbling backwards. She clawed, cursed, and then clumsily landed on the road as she bled.
I emptied the last rounds into her falling shape, bullet holes blossoming across her chest and throat, but even as she hit the ground, I knew better than to assu she was dead. A Shifter’s body could take more punishnt than that.
Still, she was gone for now.
And that had to be enough.
"Onyx, you better be still alive.”
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