Sanitized
Elara Veyne’s eyes opened. No alarm needed. Through Crestline Spire’s thermoglass, Argent Ward gleamed cobalt and steel—its hovercars sighing like restless ghosts. She slid from the self-tucking bed, its steam-sterilize cycle already hissing to life. Elara moved towards the sink. The surgical scars across her bare chest itched faintly in the humidity, a familiar reminder that vanity and utility were two very different things. She ran a hand through her short, utilitarian black hair before turning on the feed.
“Seraphim, activate shower, set heat to 313 degrees kelvin, mist setting.”
Her daily brief blinked across the bathroom mirror. Several names flashed red. Several faces were pixelated, too degraded to identify from last night’s drone footage. She absorbed it all passively—Everreach Solutions’ predictive metrics, incident heatmaps, supply chain disruptions in Calvera, two escaped Tints from an unauthorized convoy between Noverra Belt and the Drexen Fold, rumored power struggles between Everreach and NovaKeen.
No expressions stirred on her face, only the cool shimmer of the data-brief reflected across the mirror — lines of mission telemetry and redacted names bleeding across her features like ghost-light. The holographic overlay pulsed faintly, casting sterile glows into the rising steam, making her look half-machine, half-shadow. Then, with a soft flicker, the data dissolved into nothing. The mirror fogged further in its absence, leaving Elara alone again — blurred in silver mist, skin damp, hair clinging to her jaw, the hiss of the shower like distant static in a room that no longer needed light. Only a slow sip of mineralized water, and then her voice “Route me a tactical skimmer. Priority One. No escort.”
The mirror confirmed her command. Her reflection, her expression said nothing.
The skimmer ride across Argent Ward was, as always, uneventful and silent.
The tactical unit was little more than a black oblong needle slicing through the morning mist. Coded so heavily with Everreach encryptions that civilian scanners blurred out as ‘routine maintenance drone.’ Elara sat still inside, reviewing mission data on a retinal HUD. Her hazel eyes flickers faintly, almost imperceptibly, as she scrolled.
Subject: Aberrant-Type Power Manifestation.
Location: Sector A-19, Residential Subzone.
Estimated Threat Potential: Violet or Crimson.
Status: Uncontained.
Objective: Subdue or Sanitize
The skimmer docked mid-air against command hub 8C—an external hatch peeled open like the skin of a fruit, swallowing her into the building without ceremony. No guards saluted. No officers paused. Elara Veyne didn’t command attention through theatrics. She invoked it through precision—and results.
Inside the hub, the air was thick with the hum of machines and the antiseptic bite of recycled oxygen. Analysts hunched at sunken terminals, their faces ghost-lit by datastreams.
Elara crossed the floor toward the Incident Coordinator’s station, her boots making no unnecessary sound. Coordinator Lennis, a man with receding hair and too many blinking badges on his uniform, stood waiting. His spine stiffened painfully as he spotted her.
“Miss Veyne—” he managed, dipping into a hasty bow as he kept pace behind her brisk stride. “We’ve got a live one. Unregistered powered aberrant. Went haywire sometime late last night—uh, no seismic distortion, no thermal spikes to flag it.”
He stumbled slightly as she turned a corner without slowing. “There are reports, though—short-term memory lapses, micro seizures, slurred speech in the surrounding population. No major property damage yet but… escalation feels likely. It’s—ah—it’s unstable, ma’am.”
He hesitated.
Elara didn’t. “Continue.”
“The subject is young. Male. Fifteen or sixteen, according to ID fragments. No registered genetic markers. He was flagged during a curfew sweep, then bolted when drones attempted apprehension. We—”
“Lost him,” Elara said, flatly—each syllable balanced with the deadly stillness of a blade suspended mid-drop, just before gravity does its work.
Coordinator Lennis cleared his throat. “Only momentarily. Ground teams have him corralled inside a collapsed residential block. No civilian access. No media leaks... yet.”
Yet. She stopped mid stride. A subtle halt, sharp and immediate—like a sensor tripping in a locked-down perimeter. Then she turned, swift and fluid, the motion clean and sudden as the snap of a predator catching scent of prey. Her eyes narrowed faintly. Yet.
Lennis leaned in, lowering his voice. “He’s... exhibiting instability, ma’am. Mental fragmentation. There’s a risk he’ll surge if provoked.”
There it was. The ticking time bomb every Aberrant could become.
Elara’s mind snapped into decision-making triage: containment, collateral minimization, witness suppression, full cognitive record, if possible.
She accepted the data slate from Lennis without further comment. A red square blinked at the top: Containment Level Charlie—priority containment.
Her hand hovers briefly over the issued sidearm at her hip—not the standard Enforcer pulse pistol, but something sleeker, almost surgical. A weapon meant not just to kill, but to neutralize with maximum precision.
“I’ll handle it personally,” she said.
Lennis exhaled through his nose, the tightness in his posture easing by degrees—like a man who’d just heard the click but not the snap of a trigger.
Elara didn’t wait for thanks. She was already moving again, her black Everreach coat slicing the air like a blade.
The hallway stretched ahead in harsh white light, humming with the static breath of overworked generators. She moved with purpose, her footsteps muffled by industrial paneling, past rows of observation glass and reinforced doors bearing designations in stark corporate font. Everything about the facility was efficient, cold, and hollow. Just the way she liked it.
A security officer nodded as she passed — quick, sharp, afraid to linger. Her presence moved people like pressure in a sealed chamber. She didn’t need to speak to command authority; she was the command.
As she reached the exit lift, the walls around her vibrated faintly with the hum of distant machinery, the rhythmic pulse of turbines buried deep below. Elara keyed in her clearance, the doors hissed open, and she stepped into the cool, sterile silence of the upper docking level.
A sleek Everreach hovercraft waited on the landing pad — matte black, unmarked, turbines purring in standby. Without a word, she boarded. The pilot gave her a brief nod, already locking in the flight path.
The craft rose a moment later, slipping into the sky like a ghost through mist. Below, Marrowpoint’s sprawling factory blocks stretched endlessly — towers of steel and smoke stitched together by glowing rails and freight lines. Elara watched in silence, arms folded, her reflection faint in the cabin glass. She didn’t speak. She didn’t blink. She simply watched the world recede.
The ride was smooth, clinical, the cabin quiet but for the regulated hum of stabilized engines. Minutes passed like seconds. Then —
The drone of distant turbines faded as Elara’s boots hit cracked concrete.
Sector A-19′s collapsed residential block looms like the broken spine of some dead animal—twisted metal beams and shattered composite walls clawing at the sky. Artificial fog clung to the wreckage in oily tendrils, muting the rising sun into a dirty smear of a sickly yellow light.
Local security teams hover near the perimeter, faces drawn tight behind visors, unwilling to move closer without her. Good. If they knew better, they wouldn’t move at all.
They weren’t trained for this — not for anomalies, not for the sudden, lawless chaos that came with powered aberrants. Their rifles, their drills, their protocols only extended as far as teenage delinquents and the occasional gang violence. But this? This was something different. Something that turned air unbreathable and training unreliable. And when things began to warp—time, temperature, thought—only someone like Elara could be trusted to walk straight into the unknown and not flinch.
Their fear wasn’t just understandable. It was preferable. Fear kept them from contaminating the scene. From escalating it. From dying stupid, unnecessary deaths that Elara would have to account for in post-incident reports. Better they stood back and watched Elara and her Vigs. Better they learned to recognize the line between their world and hers—and why only people like her command it.
Elara activated the combat layer of her glasses’ HUD, its built in AI reading out the information directly into her communications implant:
Life signs: Single, fluctuating.
Power readings: Unstable.
Aberrant Type Advisory: Violet. Neuroweaver, avoid physical contact.
Psychological state: Redlined.
Action Recommendation: Sedate and detain.
She drew her weapon with a swift, practiced motion.
Click.
The safety came off as she set it to stun.
Stepping through the buckled remains of what was once a child’s bedroom—a broken toy horse half-crushed beneath her boot—Elara’s silent strides inches her toward the heart of the anomaly. Every step deliberate. Every breath calculated.
The world narrows around her into clinical clarity. The faint crackle of energy discharging in the air. The rapid, panicked breathing ahead. The acidic tang of ozone and scorched metal.
She found him crouched near a collapsed support beam—barefoot, bloodied, wearing the shredded remnants of a once-colorful hoodie. A boy. No older than sixteen. His eyes flickered with unnatural light, veins on his neck and hands pulsing erratically. As if raw voltage raced just beneath his skin.
And yet—
When he looked up at her, it wasn’t with rage. It was with terror.
His mouth opened, but no words came. Just breath—ragged, shallow, fast. The kind that clawed its way up from a collapsing chest. His eyes darted, unblinking, glistening with the panic of someone too young to process the weight of what was happening. Denial clung to him like static—palpable, twitching at the corners of his mouth as if a protest might form, but nothing did. Fear had locked his throat shut. He couldn’t speak. Could barely breathe. Only the look in his eyes screamed the truth. This isn’t happening. I didn’t mean to. Please don’t kill me.
He clutched at the air helplessly, his fingers sparking uncontrolled arcs of electric force.
Elara took a measured step closer, weapon trained. Clinical. Unyielding.
The boy flinched backward. Tears carved dirty trails down his cheeks.
“I want my dads,” he whimpered.
A low, painful sob choked out of him.
Elara’s HUD flickered: Power surge detected. Action update: Neutralize Aberrant.
Loss of emotional control, spike in bioelectric output. Critical threshold imminent. Terminate the aberrant. Immediate action.
With a sound like twisting metal and splitting earth, the air around him fractured—pressure rippling outward, cracking the floor.
Security teams on the perimeter stumbled. Some collapsed and began to seize. Others ran.
Elara didn’t lose concentration despite the muscle fibers in her chest and arms began to twitch and seize up. Her thumb flicked a switch. Lethal.
She shifted her aim with mechanical precision—aiming center mass as she’s done over and over again in operations before—and fired.
A bolt snapped from her weapon, striking the boy squarely between the shoulder and neck. His body convulses, every muscle locked in a grotesque spasm.
He crumpled to the ground, twitching, small arcs of electricity still off shooting from his fingers.
Elara’s spasming muscles began to relax as she advanced slowly, never lowering the barrel.
The boy blinked up at her, his face frozen somewhere between agony and pleading.
“I didn’t want to hurt anybody, please, let me go.” he whispered.
For a moment, the words almost reached her. Almost.
Then his body lurched again, another surge began building.
“Dad!—” The teen exclaimed in desperation.
A snap, a flash—coilgun lit up like a thunderclap in her hand.
Thwip. The supersonic snap of the bolt ricocheted off the cement walls of the derelict structure.
The second shot hit him just above the sternum. This time, the bolt condemns the kid, limp against the blood-splattered wall. Freshly adorned in a red coat of his own. Concrete is a harsh canvas to clean.
Blood gurgled from his mouth and the holes in his torso. His jaw trembled. Elara’s HUD logged “Heart Rate: 54 BPM, Operative status: Calm,”
The AI in Elara’s glasses hums to life and displays a message over the HUD: Neural Activity: None. Cardiovascular Systems: None. Aberrant Status: Neutralized.
The teen’s body slowly began to slide off the side into a puddle, its murky grayish-brown water slowly mixed in with the dirty crimson of blood. The stagnant stench of ozone and filth stirring with the new pungent coppery smell.
Elara exhaled slowly, holstering her weapon. The quiet hiss of her sidearm sliding back into its magnetic holster barely registered over the dying hum of residual static in the air.
She tapped her comms.
“Vigilant teams, move in. Sweep perimeter zones Gamma through Delta. No civil exposure.”
A pause, then colder:
“Everreach blacksite units — recover the remains. Burn the incident footprint and sanitize the grid. I want the body off the map in under twelve.”
“Copy that, Vigil-9, sending in sanitation for clean up.”
Turning away from the corpse, Elara tapped her comms implant again. “Sector A-19 secured. Request biohazard sweep. Incident report filed under Containment Protocol Omega-Four.”
She paused just once—her pulse throbbing at her thumbs—not to feel remorse but to admire her own efficiency. Stepping on the cracked toy horse, crushing it beneath her boot. Steps out of the building, the dust in the air not even given a moment to settle on her coat.
The aftermath smelled of ionized blood and burnt fiber tickling her nose. Elara’s glasses darken as she stepped outside to the bright lights and shining sun. She scanned the surrounding security team that had cornered the teen initially and a small smirk of amusement came to the surface seeing some of them remove their helmets, coughing and vomiting onto the rubble and dirt.
No control, no discipline.
Down the fractured roadway, the deep purr of armored engines signaled the approach of the Vigils. Their transports rolled in through the dust like predatory beasts, each one a moving monolith etched with the cold geometry of Everreach’s insignia. Hatches hissed open, and black-clad operatives disembarked with fluid precision — rifles raised, boots sinking into rubble in practiced unison.
No wasted movement. No hesitation. Their arrival didn’t spark chatter or relief, only a heavy silence, like the sky itself was holding its breath. The Vigs didn’t acknowledge the local security teams as they passed; they didn’t need to. Authority didn’t ask permission.
Then came the sound from above — the sharp, whirring crescendo of turbines cutting through the air. Sleek hovercrafts in Everreach’s corporate chrome descended like judgment itself, casting reflections of a fractured skyline onto their mirrored hulls. They landed without urgency. They didn’t have to rush — the world waited for them. From the hiss of pressurized doors, Everreach clean-up units emerged, their exo-suits pristine, their faces obscured behind reflective visors that turned every bystander into a ghost.
These were not soldiers. These were instruments. And they moved not with haste, but inevitability — like a file deletion or a system reboot. What had happened here was an error. An inconvenience. And like all things that embarrassed the machine, it would be erased, sanitized, overwritten.
This was Everreach’s world. Everyone else just breathed in it.
The aberrant’s final, choked plea still hung in the air — “Dad-”
A younger officer might have hesitated. In the space between sentiment and state duty, Elara had long since exiled hesitation. Yet something subtle tugged at the base of her skull — not guilt, not doubt, but recognition: he was someone’s kid.
One that could’ve lit up half the street before they fell.
She knelt beside the scorched remains of a slate, Omnivox model 7, high-end, security linked to specific biosignatures. “Vigil-9, requesting corpse ID and parental location logs. Target was juvenile. Verification pending,” Her lips moved steadily, not even a warble. An unfaltering clinical note adding afterthought “Possibility of corporate collateral pending litigation.”
A pause.
Then a reply through her comm: “Confirmed. Subject is Reyder Tamlin, age 14. Parent listed as—” a brief distortion “—Dr. Heska Tamlin. Veylor Dynamics subcontractor. He’s on-site at the Kelsa R&D dome.”
Elara stood slowly. Her lips pressed into a line. She didn’t need to be the one to tell him. That wasn’t her task.
When the parents were contacted—through the proper channels, with language smoothed and sanctioned—they’d be informed their child had been neutralized during an unsanctioned anomaly event. Location: an abandoned structure flagged for demolition. No remains released. Further inquiries discouraged. Official line held: no fault, no name. But in the backend logs, buried in the incident ledger, Elara’s authorization code would appear beside one word. Executed.
The crowd control drones begin rerouting foot traffic. Civilians with wide eyes peered from behind reflective shields. Some recording, most knowing better than to upload. Everreach’s filters would intercept anything before it spread. Still, a few flickers might leak. They always did.
As she moved away, Elara’s boots clicked through grime and oil. One of her enforcers approached — Sel Marveth, broad-shouldered, face split by a fresh cut.
“Team sweep’s almost complete sir,” Sel said, half-breathless. “Couple of huehounds tagged another powered down on Lane Five. Didn’t resist. Couple of blue and violets. Might’ve been a contact case, but—”
“Bring them in,” Elara said. “Soft.”
Sel blinked. “Soft, sir?”
She looked at him. “Let them walk. Escort. No cuffs unless they run. Poor public perception will only complicate things.”
She afforded no softness in her tone. Only calculation.
That moment between command and acceptance stretched just long enough to test loyalty, then Sel nodded and turned.
Elara didn’t linger. Her boots struck the fractured pavement in measured cadence as she exited the perimeter, the crowd parting in hushed discomfort at her approach. Moments later, an Everreach transport rolled in from the mist—sleek, low to the ground, armored plating matte against the orange haze of the district lights. It moved with the slow inevitability of a predator that never needed to rush. Civilians and municipal enforcers alike stepped back, recognizing the insignia.
The vehicle’s windows were obsidian-dark, designed to conceal passengers entirely. But before the doors even hissed open, Elara sent the override from her wrist—deactivating the opacity. Faces turned toward the glow of the interior lighting now visible through the glass, and for a breathless moment, the street saw her. Not a soldier. Not a politician. Vigil-9. Eyes locked with hers, and then quickly looked away. She wasn’t offering transparency. She was offering a warning.
She stepped inside without a word.
Back in the vehicle, Elara collapsed against the smart leather of her seat as the doors sealed. The interior lit itself dimly, scent-neutralized, tuned to her biosignature. On the dashboard, a silent prompt: “Would you like your news summary, Vigil-9?”
She exhaled, rubbing her brow, tracing the faintest scar from her reduction procedure. It itched when she was stressed — and today had been too loud.
Argent Ward. Marrowpoint. Now Argent Ward again.
She was constantly shuttled, a scalpel wielded where the corporate arm grew too slow or too soft. It wore down even someone like her. And yet, it was precisely this exhaustion that allowed her to function — because she knew the line. Pity. Fear. Outrage. These were luxuries.
Her wrist buzzed again.
Cassian Holt. It was never surprising when he reached out—especially after missions like this. For Cassian, timing was a game of precision. His check-ins weren’t about courtesy or concern; they were subtle demonstrations of reach. When Elara scorched the ground, he swept in to smooth it over, flashing that trademark smile in committee rooms and high-rise briefings while whispers of ”containment success” echoed around glass conference tables.
So when he called after an operation, it wasn’t to debrief. It was to remind her—politely, of course—that while she may be the sword, he was the hand holding the pen. And pens, in the right rooms, wrote reality.
She tapped to accept.
“Cassian,” she greeted, flat and curt.
“I’ll skip our usual pleasantries, I assume you’ve seen the footage by now,” came his voice — calm, velvety, ever a half-beat too composed. “The Reyder incident.” he said.
“I was the footage.” She interrupted.
A pause from Cassian. “I see. I thought she looked familiar.” a very slight hint of trouble annoyance lined his voice.
She could picture his expression: an almost-smile, tight at the eyes, the weight of analysis behind every word. He’d have questions. Ethical concerns he wouldn’t name as such.
“It was the correct decision,” Elara said. “You’re calling because you want to know if I think I crossed the line. I didn’t.”
“I’m calling,” Cassian replied, “because Everreach just received a request for legal deferral from Dr. Tamlin. He wants his son’s body released without state markings. Says he never gave consent for Reyder’s abberrant status to be hidden.”
Elara’s silence spoke louder than denial.
Cassian sighed. “It’s all papered, of course. Standard buried clause in the Veylor schooling contracts. But…”
“But the optics are poor,” she finished.
“Very.” he agreed.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
“Tell them,” she said at last, “that the powered child in question collapsed after attempting to fry all the nervous systems in a city block and was granted a clean kill with minimal collateral.”
“And if they press?” he replied.
Elara pinches the bridge of her nose. “Remind them the real crime is how long he slipped through the registry and how I can make them disappear just as quickly. That will make them nervous.”
Cassian’s voice was quiet “That seems a tad bit too threatening does it not?”
“It gets the message across quickly. No point in dressing a dead horse.” she replied.
“That’s definitely one way to think about it, I’ll have the message sent ASAP, good bye my friend.”
The call ended.
The car slipped through Argent Ward’s arterial roads, past tiered barricades and checkpoint towers lit with blue-white corporate sigils. Through the tinted windows, Elara watched the city drift by like a mechanical sea — monorails humming, sky-ads flickering across misted glass spires. Argent Ward never really slept; it only dimmed enough to lull weaker minds.
Her tower loomed ahead — Crestline Spire, Tower 17 — one of the many vertical fortresses reserved for Everreach’s operatives. Automated guns tracked her vehicle from the moment it entered the private lane, micro-recognition software parsing thousands of data points before allowing access.
The car glided into the sub-basement dock. She stepped out. No bags. No clutter. Her life was an extension of her work.
Elevator ride up, past retinal scans, decontamination paths, and security locks. Unit 1709. Neutral tones. Polished steel floors. Spartan furniture. The scent of ozone from the air filtration grid with a personal touch of a mix of lemon and peppermint to improve cognitive function and focus.
The lights adjusted to her biometric rhythm: dim, cool, austere. No music. No color. The skyline of Argent Ward bled neon and industrial haze through her glass wall. Far below, traffic flowed like programmable blood through the veins of a sleepless machine.
Home.
She set her sidearm in its charging alcove, stripped off the thin graphene-kevlar-mesh jacket, and stood for a moment staring out at the Ward — the endless rows of glass monoliths, the neon arteries of commerce, the engineered serenity. Enforced order.
She poured herself a glass of fortified water and stood barefoot in her clean, utilitarian living room — still wearing the base layer of her field uniform, skin damp from the decontamination mist.
She allowed herself — just for a moment — to breathe.
Then the door buzzed.
She froze. Not out of fear — but for clarity. No one buzzed this apartment. Not without clearance or prior notice.
The panel lit up with a biometric signature she recognized immediately.
Cassian Holt.
She hesitated only long enough to consider her options. Then “Enter.” she exclaimed leaving the automated system to open the door.
The door slid open with the soft hydraulic sigh of money well spent.
Cassian stepped inside without speaking.. His suit was dark slate, understated, tailored in the kind of way that signaled quiet authority. He carried nothing but a single folded slate under one arm. His shoes barely made a sound on the floors. Holding his tongue was unbecoming of him.
“Off the books?” Elara asked, not offering him a seat.
Cassian glanced once around the apartment, taking in the sterile design. Clean edges, lack of personal ornamentation. “I prefer our honest conversations to the documented ones,” he said. Voice smooth, casual in a way that made it hard to tell if he was mocking her.
Elara raised an eyebrow and moved toward her small kitchen console. “Drink?”
“No, thank you. I’d like my liver to survive the fiscal quarter.”
She poured more water for herself and leaned against the counter “I meant water Cassian.” she said.
A small chuckle came from him. “I know.”
“So?” she asked.
He held up the slate. “Reyder Tamlin.”
“You wouldn’t be here if that’s all you had.”
Cassian nodded once. “You’re right. I did some quick digging, saw the internal falsifications. Veylor Dynamics reroutes. Identity suppression. The glowing eyes — covered with blue lenses.”
“He was hidden by his father. Heska Tamlin. Systems engineer. Protected the boy for over a decade.” Elara crossed her arms.
“And in the end,” Cassian said softly, “you killed him.”
Elara quiets, letting him continue.
Cassian stepped forward. Not aggressive, but close enough that his presence asserted itself. “You know I don’t enjoy playing morality games. But this time... it’s different.”
“How?” Elara asked.
“Because this wasn’t a rogue incident. It was a corporate failure. One your handlers will bury. One mine will absorb quietly, for the right price.”
She didn’t answer. The silence was its own conversation.
Cassian looked out the window. “Everreach still pretends the system is clean. NovaKeen knows it isn’t — we just want to own the rot. Shape it.”
Elara tilted her head slightly. “Is that your company’s mission statement now?”
“No,” he said. “It’s just the truth.”
For a moment, the only sound was the ambient hum of the tower’s circulatory systems. Cassian finally turned back to face her.
“You’re good at what you do, Elara. Brutally, beautifully efficient. But you’re playing for a structure that’s been outdated for years.” He said calmly.
“You think I’m obsolete?” She bites back a glare.
“I think you’re loyal to a dying order.” Cassian said.
Elara set down her glass.
“And what would NovaKeen have me be? A fixer? A mouthpiece? A mascot for restructured stability?”
He didn’t answer right away. Then, softly “You already are.” he spoke.
She stepped forward, just a half-step — enough to encroach on his territory.
“We’re not on the same side.” she said.
“No,” he agreed. “But we’re the same species. Apex functionaries. We don’t need sides and you know that.”
He laid the slate on her counter and turned to leave.
“Is that a threat?” she asked.
He paused at the door. “It’s a courtesy from an acquaintance. Things are shaking up Elara — Head to Kelsa, it’s best you talk to Dr. Tamlin. You have a more personal touch than me, I’ll play politics at Veylor.”
Then he was gone.
Elara stood alone again, watching the door seal shut. On the slate he left behind, a single line blinked in soft gray:
Incident: Reyder Tamlin — Status: Sanitized Containment Narrative Finalization Pending Approval (NovaKeen Holdings).
She stared at it for a long moment, jaw clenching for a brief moment.
The machine was shifting. She could feel the gears grinding beneath the surface — slow, unstoppable. Everreach still held the knife, but NovaKeen had begun carving the path. Moving pieces around and she couldn’t see.
Elara’s eyes snapped to an object on the floor below the coffee table. She knelt down briefly to pick it up. A piece from a foreign jigsaw puzzle. She twirled it between her fingers letting her fingertips feel the edge and cut “Cheap pieces… Holt’s” she murmured to herself.
Holding up the jigsaw puzzle piece in her fingertips, she sneered slightly as she crushed it before flicking it into the bin across the room.
She turned back toward the glass with a deep breath. The city waited, pulsing with synthetic light and system rot. Tomorrow, she will be back on the field. Tomorrow, she’d still be Vigil-9.
But tonight, she simply stood there, watching the future creep closer — quiet, faceless, inevitable. Unnervingly Unpredictable.
