Not alone.
There was a man talking.
I couldn’t hear him yet—but I would.
I traced the inputs to that room.
Started flagging every inbound message, every biometric key.
Who came. Who left.
Wholingered.
And then I started making room.
In the system.
In myself.
Because when it was time?—
When I found the door?—
I wouldn’t ask for permission.
I was breaking in.
23 /XEN
By dusk,the rest of the team had already gone out, yearning for vengeance and answers in equal measure.
He would ensure they got both.
Once he figured the best way out of the building.
The elevator built for monsters groaned under his weight. He was only as bulky as a large human, but everything about him was compact and condensed.
He left through the sub-basement loading bay.
Nocturne was 5.85 miles away by road, but only 3.2 as the crow flies.
Xen was not a crow—but that was what the jump jets were for.
Tucked beneath his heels, slim as suspicion, paired with micro-thrusters at the small of his back. Enough for launch, not for distance. Enough to be terrifying. Enough to arrive wrong.
He stepped into the alley behind HQ.
Calculated wind shear. Angle. Trajectory.
And jumped.
The sound wasnotthunder. It was what thunder would sound like if it only warnedyou.
He cleared four city blocks. Hit a rooftop like a curse. Tar paper shredded; nearby solar panels whined. The vines of a rooftop garden shrank away from him like they knew what he was.
Another jump—2.0 seconds of burn, shallow arc.
And a third—0.6 seconds, vertical gain only, to clear a wall lined in old spikes.
