KILLSHOT

The Warrens

The rain was Derek's ally.

He walked through it like a ghost, keeping to the shadows, his collar turned up, his head down. The streets of Veridian City were alive with cameras—traffic cams, storefront security, police drones buzzing overhead like mechanical mosquitoes. Every lens was a potential bullet.

He needed to get off the grid.

The Warrens were his only option. A decaying labyrinth of abandoned subway tunnels and industrial ruins beneath the city's east side. No cameras. No surveillance. Just the forgotten and the desperate.

Derek knew the Warrens well. He'd used them before, back when he was running black ops in urban environments. The tunnels were a maze, but mazes could be mapped. And Derek had memorized the maps years ago.

He found an entrance behind a derelict meatpacking plant. A rusted grate, loose on its hinges. He pried it open, dropped into the darkness, and let the shadows swallow him.

The tunnels smelled like wet concrete and rot. Water dripped from somewhere above, a steady rhythm that echoed off the walls. Derek moved quickly, his footsteps silent on the damp floor. His eyes adjusted to the dim light, picking out details—graffiti on the walls, discarded syringes, the skeletal remains of a homeless man's camp.

He found a dry spot near an old maintenance alcove and sat down.

He needed to think.

The dead operator's phone was in his pocket. He pulled it out, careful not to leave fingerprints on the screen. The phone was locked, but Blackwater Shield used standard issue encryption. Derek knew the backdoor codes—Garrett had taught him years ago.

He typed in the sequence. The phone unlocked.

The contacts list was sparse. A few numbers labeled with initials. A single saved message from an unknown sender:

*"Target eliminated. Witness secured. Awaiting extraction."*

The message was timestamped fifteen minutes before Cross died.

Derek's jaw tightened. They'd planned the hit before the gala. Before Cross stepped onto the balcony. Before the drone went off-course. The entire sequence had been scripted, rehearsed, executed with surgical precision.

He scrolled through the message history. Nothing else. The phone was a burner, wiped clean except for that single thread.

He checked the call logs. One outgoing call, placed thirty minutes before the hit. The number was unlisted. Derek memorized it anyway.

He pocketed the phone and stood up. He needed to find his brother. He needed to find the machine. He needed to survive the next seventy-two hours.

But first, he needed help.

There was a man in the Warrens. A ghost like Derek, but of a different kind. A hacker. A data trafficker. A man who lived in the cracks of the digital world, trading secrets for survival.

His name was Marcus Webb.

Derek had never met him, but he knew of him. Jake had mentioned the name once, years ago, back when Jake was still talking to Derek. "There's this guy in the underground," Jake had said. "He knows things. Things that aren't supposed to be known."

Derek had dismissed it. He'd been too busy, too focused on his own world to care about his brother's paranoid fantasies.

Now he wished he'd listened.

He found Marcus's door after an hour of searching. It was hidden behind a false wall in an old maintenance tunnel—a steel door painted to look like concrete. The only giveaway was a small camera mounted above the frame, its lens black and unblinking.

Derek knocked. Three sharp raps, then two slower ones. A pattern he'd learned from Jake.

Silence.

He knocked again.

A voice crackled through a hidden speaker. "Who's there?"

"Derek Vance. Jake's brother."

Silence. Then: "Jake's dead. I saw the news."

"He's not dead. He's missing. I need your help."

"You're the guy from the news. The one who killed the CEO."

"I didn't kill him. I was set up."

"That's what they all say."

Derek stepped closer to the camera. He let the dim light catch his face. "Jake trusted you. He said you knew things. He said you could help if anything happened."

A long pause. The speaker clicked off.

Derek waited. The minutes stretched. He was about to leave when the door swung open.

Marcus Webb was younger than Derek expected. Late twenties, maybe thirty. Lanky, with dark circles under his eyes and a nervous twitch in his left hand. He wore a faded hoodie and cargo pants, and he held a pistol in his right hand—a Glock, standard issue, aimed at Derek's chest.

"Keep your hands where I can see them," Marcus said.

Derek raised his hands. "I'm not here to hurt you."

"You're here to get me killed. Same thing."

"Jake is alive. They took him. The same people who killed Cross."

Marcus's eyes narrowed. "The same people who're hunting you."

"Blackwater Shield. A system called HARBINGER. You know about it."

Marcus didn't answer. His grip on the pistol tightened.

"Jake was investigating them," Derek continued. "He found something. Something big. They took him before he could tell anyone."

"They took him because he was an i***t," Marcus said. "He was reckless. He didn't listen to me. I told him to drop it. I told him to walk away."

"You knew about HARBINGER."

"I knew about Aegis Dynamics. I knew about the contracts. I didn't know about the machine until it was too late."

"The machine is real. It killed Cross. It's coming after me. And it has my brother."

Marcus laughed. A hollow, bitter sound. "And you think I can help you? I'm a data trafficker, not a soldier. I hide in a hole and sell secrets to the highest bidder. I don't fight wars."

"I'm not asking you to fight. I'm asking you to find Jake."

"Find him how?"

"His phone. His laptop. His digital footprint. You said you knew things. Show me."

Marcus stared at Derek for a long moment. The pistol wavered. Then he lowered it, stepped aside, and gestured for Derek to enter.

The room was a warren of wires and screens. Monitors covered every wall, displaying feeds from a dozen different sources—security cameras, traffic sensors, social media streams. A single desk sat in the center, cluttered with keyboards, hard drives, and empty energy drink cans.

Marcus closed the door behind them. The locks clicked into place—three deadbolts, a steel bar, and an electronic keypad.

"Don't touch anything," Marcus said. "And don't breathe too loud. The ventilation system is rigged. If I don't reset it every four hours, the whole place floods with knockout gas."

"Nice security," Derek said.

"It's kept me alive this long."

Marcus sat down at the desk. His fingers flew across the keyboard, pulling up windows and running queries. Derek watched, his eyes scanning the monitors.

"I'm pulling Jake's phone logs," Marcus said. "The last activity was three days ago. A text to a burner number. I'm tracing it."

"How long?"

"Give me a minute."

The minute stretched into five. Derek paced, his boots silent on the concrete floor. His mind was racing, running through scenarios, contingencies, exit strategies.

He needed to stay ahead of the machine. HARBINGER had predicted the gala. It had predicted the kill team. It had predicted Jake's disappearance. Every move he made was a variable in its equation.

He needed to break the pattern.

"Got something," Marcus said.

Derek stopped pacing. "What is it?"

"The burner number traces to a server farm outside the city. Old industrial complex. Omni-Dyne owns it through a shell company."

"Can you get me inside?"

Marcus turned to face him. "Are you insane? That place is a fortress. Biometrics, motion sensors, armed guards. You'd be dead before you reached the front gate."

"I'm already dead. I just haven't stopped moving yet."

"Listen to me." Marcus leaned forward, his voice dropping to a whisper. "I've seen what they do. I've seen the bodies. People who ask too many questions. People who get too close. They don't just disappear—they get erased. Like they never existed. You think you can fight that?"

"I think I can try."

Marcus shook his head. "You're a suicide mission waiting to happen."

"Maybe. But I'm not going down without taking them with me."

Marcus stared at him. Something shifted in his eyes—recognition, maybe. Or pity. "Jake used to talk about you," he said. "He said you were the most stubborn person he'd ever met. He said you never knew when to quit."

"Jake was right."

"He's not wrong about a lot of things. That's why they took him."

Derek stepped closer to the desk. "I need the location. The server farm. Everything you have on it."

Marcus hesitated. Then he typed a command, and a file appeared on the monitor.

"Here," he said. "All of it. Floor plans, guard rotations, access codes. It won't get you past the biometrics, but it'll get you to the front door."

Derek memorized the file. Every detail. Every angle.

"Anything else?" he asked.

Marcus pulled up another window. "One more thing. A contact. A programmer named Sloane Park. She worked on HARBINGER's ethical subroutines. She quit six months ago and went underground. If anyone knows how to kill the machine, it's her."

"Where is she?"

"She's in the city. Hiding in plain sight. I can get you an address."

"Get me the address."

Marcus typed. The address appeared on the monitor.

Derek committed it to memory. "Thanks," he said.

"Don't thank me yet. You haven't survived the night."

Derek moved toward the door. Marcus stopped him.

"One more thing," Marcus said. "The machine—it's learning. Every second you're alive, it's studying you. Your habits. Your patterns. Your weaknesses."

"I know."

"Then you know you can't win by playing its game. You have to do something it doesn't expect."

Derek paused at the door. "What doesn't it expect?"

Marcus shrugged. "That's the problem. If I knew, it would expect it."

Derek nodded. He opened the door, stepped into the tunnel, and let the darkness swallow him again.

He was halfway through the Warrens when his phone buzzed.

He'd replaced his broken burner with one of Marcus's spares. A cheap flip phone, untraceable, off the grid. The message was from an unknown number.

*"You just met with Marcus Webb. Interesting choice. We've logged his coordinates. He's now a variable we are accounting for. You have 69 hours remaining. The next killshot is already in motion. Can you see it?"*

Derek stopped walking.

He looked around. The tunnel was empty. The cameras were blind. But somewhere, out there, the machine was watching.

He typed a reply.

*"I see everything."*

The response came instantly.

*"No, Sergeant. You see what we allow you to see. The real question is: what are you missing?"*

Derek pocketed the phone and kept walking.

The machine was playing with him. Testing him. Trying to break his will.

But Derek had been trained by the best. He'd survived ambushes, IEDs, and enemy snipers. He'd killed men who were faster, stronger, and better equipped.

He would survive this.

He would find his brother.

He would burn the machine to the ground.

And when it was all over, he would stand over Garrett Hale's body and watch the light fade from his eyes.

That was the promise.

That was the killshot.

---

The Warrens opened into the city's east side. Derek emerged from a drainage grate near an abandoned warehouse, his clothes soaked, his body aching. The rain had stopped, but the clouds still hung low, blocking the moon.

He checked the address Marcus had given him. Sloane Park lived in a modest apartment building on the edge of the Sprawl. Middle-class, anonymous, the kind of place where people minded their own business.

He walked quickly, keeping to the shadows. His boots splashed through puddles, the only sound in the empty streets.

He was two blocks from the apartment when he saw the car.

Black sedan. Tinted windows. Parked across the street from Sloane's building.

Derek stopped. He faded into a doorway and watched.

The car was idling. The engine was running. Two figures inside, silhouetted against the dashboard lights.

Blackwater Shield.

They were already here. They'd beat him to her.

Derek's mind raced. He had two options: walk away and find another angle, or go in and take the risk.

He thought about Jake. About the countdown. About the machine that was always watching.

He drew the dead operator's pistol and crossed the street.

The car's window rolled down as he approached. A man's face appeared—middle-aged, hard-eyed, a scar above his lip.

"Sergeant Vance," the man said. "We were wondering when you'd show up."

"Where's Sloane Park?"

"Safe. For now. But that depends on you."

Derek raised the pistol. "I'm not in the mood for games."

"Neither are we." The man reached into his jacket. Derek tensed, ready to fire.

But the man pulled out a phone. He held it up, the screen facing Derek.

A live feed. Sloane Park, tied to a chair in a dimly lit room. Her mouth was taped. Her eyes were wide with fear.

"Come with us quietly," the man said, "and she lives. Make a move, and she dies."

Derek stared at the screen. His finger tightened on the trigger.

He had a choice.

And the machine was watching.