The tunnel narrowed as they moved deeper, boots soft against damp metal. Henry signaled slow, one hand raised, fingers tight.
"We know basic intel only." Arcee muttered under her breath.
Blyke glanced up at the ceiling. "Comms are dead. Hard jammed. No calling for backup even if we scream nicely."
Cagaro's eyes tracked the walls. Cameras are old modeled, lenses dull but active, red indicators pulsing faintly. "Exits?"
"Blocked." Henry said. "Emergency doors sealed. Lifts locked from above. Once we're in, we're in."
Cagaro swallowed, then asked quietly, "Cities have names… right? What's this arcology called?"
Arcee didn't waste time to answer. "Mercurion."
They kept walking further.
Henry walked infront. Blyke followed, alert despite his earlier laziness. Arcee scanned ahead, smirk gone now, eyes sharp.
Mercurion closed around them waiting to see what kind of intruders they were.
Cagaro's steps slowed without him meaning to, more like the absence of the tunnel's rhythm.
His ears caught a scrape, distant but deliberate.
"…Someone's coming," he whispered.
Blyke stopped instantly. His casual posture vanished like a switch flipped. He raised two fingers, then clenched his fist.
Enemies.
Henry dashed first first, pulling Cagaro sharply into a recessed maintenance alcove. Arcee slipped in beside them, already crouched, while Blyke melted into the shadows opposite, pressing flat against a column of piping. They didn't speak.
Footsteps heard closer. Then voices.
"Check this section again." a rough voice said. "Command said the sensors glitched."
Heavy boots entered the tunnel's stretch of light. Three—no, four figures. They wore wolf masks, matte black, elongated snouts carved with crude symbols.
Body armor layered over scavenged uniforms. Rifles held loose but ready, fingers close to triggers.
"If someone's here," another voice muttered, "they didn't come through the main routes."
A flashlight beam swept across the tunnel, passing inches from Henry's shoulder. Cagaro's muscles screamed to move. He didn't.
One of the hijackers laughed softly. "Ghost stories. This place is sealed."
The wolves spread out, guns raised, scanning corners, alcoves—their alcove.
Arcee's jaw tightened. Blyke's eyes locked onto the nearest throat, calculating distance.
Henry's mind remained mapping trajectories and consequences.
"Hello?" one of them called, voice mocking. "If you're hiding, come out now. We will make it quick."
The hijackers exchanged glances behind their masks, suspicion crawling in. Safety clicks whispered off.
Because the first move here wouldn't just start a fight. It would decide who walked out of Mercurion.
One of the guards drifted closer to Blyke's position, boots crunching softly on grit. Blyke's muscles tensed to wait.
Henry saw it at the same time. Without looking, he scooped a dented tin can from the floor and flicked it sideways. It clipped a rusted rack of old cookware.
CLANG!! CLATTER!!
Pots spilled, metal crashing against metal, the sound was ugly and loud in the narrow tunnel.
"All units, take position!" one of the hijackers barked.
They repositioned immediately. Two peeled off toward the rack, rifles raised, steps cautious. The other two stayed back, covering them in angles.
All of a sudden, they heard a woman scream.
The guards froze for half a second, heads snapping toward the sound.
"Don't listen to it." one muttered. "Just check carefully."
They didn't flinch at the concept of ghosts. Fear wasn't what lived here.
The two advancing guards moved slower now, sweeping lights across the fallen cookware. "If anyone's here," one called out, voice rough but controlled, "come out now. Last warning."
Blyke exhaled. He stepped out of the shadows behind one of the covering guard. A single motion was enough. His hand snapped forward.
The broken shard of a glass jar flashed once, thin and precise. It slid across exposed throat with surgical intent. Just a soft, wet gasp that never finished forming.
Before the body could fall, Blyke caught it.
He pulled the guard backward into the darkness, one arm locking the corpse upright, the other steadying the head so it wouldn't knock against the wall.
Blood stayed where it was supposed to inside the shadow.
The second covering guard didn't notice it being a bit further than the other one. His attention was fixed forward, gun trained on the rack.
The two near the noise edged closer, tension rising. Behind them, in the dark, Blyke lowered the body inch by inch until it rested silently against the wall.
Humans don't just react to danger. They count it subconsciously. Henry knew that.
The crash of the rack had already been paid for. It was obviously loud. The guards' brains had filed it away as the anomaly. One noise. One explanation. The pattern was closed.
Then Henry nudged a single fallen pot with the edge of his boot. Soft and almost apologetic.
One guard registered it without realizing he had. His mind labeled it instantly; after-noise. A residual movement. Cause was already explained.
His shoulders loosened a fraction.
He turned his head barely. Just that unconscious glance people give when they expect to see nothing.
That was the gap. Arcee was already moving. She didn't rush. No flourish. She slid into his blind-side like she had always been there.
One hand snapped up under the jaw, the other braced the skull. A sharp twist, followed by a compact blunt strike at the base of the neck.
The sound was dull and final.
She caught him before gravity could argue.
The body folded quietly into her arms, then down.
The other two guards didn't react.
Their attention stayed forward, rifles trained where danger was supposed to be. In their minds, the sequence had resolved cleanly; noise > check > nothing.
No new threat had been introduced. Behind them, their covering's were already gone.
Henry didn't look impressed. He rarely did. But his eyes flicked once toward Arcee, a silent acknowledgment of timing well spent.
Blyke shifted, ready for the next beat.
Cagaro stood stunned realizing something terrifyingly simple;
The deadliest moments weren't loud.
They were the ones your brain decided didn't matter.
Blyke's eyes scanned the corridor, calculating distance and human psychology faster than anyone else could follow.
He picked up the dead guard's radio.
Nothing flashy. Just a small, battered box with a single transmit button. One smooth toss sent it sliding along the corridor floor. It hit the wall softly, clattering just enough to be noticed.
Blyke pressed the button once. The burst of sound that meant communication. The effect was immediate.
One guard slightly more confident than the others hesitated, brain subconsciously filling in the gap. Someone is calling us.
Without thinking, he stepped half a pace forward. Just enough to expose himself.
Blyke didn't move fast.
A combo—fist, elbow, knee, shoulder, all blended into a single motion. Brutal, surgical, noiseless. The guard folded before his mind could even register what happened.
The second guard's eyes widened. He froze. Microseconds stretched like hours. 0.3 seconds but that was all it took.
The remaining one guard's confidence evaporated in that sliver of hesitation.
His bodies betrayed them. He collapsed in succession, silent and precise, each taken down before the room's soundscape could reset.
Blyke stood in the center silently.
Henry observed from the shadows, arms crossed. "You are applying pressure, nice trickery." he murmured.
Cagaro's jaw slackened. His mind raced, trying to parse what just happened.
Arcee leaned against the wall, smirking. "That is… terrifyingly clean."
Blyke didn't respond. He just checked the corridor, eyes scanning, hands ready.
In that moment, the lesson was clear; in uncertain situations, groups wait. They wait for authority. They wait for cues. And one precise action could bend all hesitation into death.
Cagaro felt a chill run down his spine, understanding, perhaps for the first time, how psychology could be weaponized.