"Who is monitoring this frequency right now?" a cold, unfamiliar voice demanded through the encrypted earpiece channel.
Arsenio did not flinch, nor did his footstep falter as he walked down the dark, rain-slicked alleyway outside his apartment building. He casually reached up, tapped the hidden pressure sensor behind his earlobe, and instantly cut the signal link.
He knew that the automated trap script on his apartment network had triggered a decoy ping to throw off any stray listeners. The voice belonged to a syndicate network warden, but the trace would lead them directly into a dead-end server node in a different city entirely.
The drizzle turned into a steady, cold downpour, washing over the neon-drenched streets of central Kaelen City. Tall glass skyscrapers towered overhead, c
