Fyr laughs once, humorless. “Try to stop me.”
The channel cuts.
We approach the transit choke—an elevated artery where three streets funnel into one under a skeletal bridge of rustedmetal and old advertisements. It’s the kind of place you avoid at night unless you want an ambush.
And I want one thing more than I want safety right now.
I want the Nine’s loyalists to show their teeth.
They don’t disappoint.
The first barricade appears like it rises out of the road itself—burned-out cargo haulers shoved sideways, stacked scrap plates bolted into a jagged wall. Lights flicker behind it, red and angry. Silhouettes move.
Renn swears. “Contact.”
Then the automated fire kicks in.
Turrets—hidden in the bridge supports—snap to life with a mechanical whine and open up in disciplined bursts. Not wild. Not panicked. Controlled. The kind of fire that tries to force you into a kill lane like you’re cattle.
Our lead bike explodes into sparks, rider tumbling into the street.
“DOWN!” someone screams over comms.
The transport shudders as rounds chew into armor. The sound is a deep, ugly hammering that vibrates up through my bones.
“Reverse!” Renn barks.
“Can’t!” the driver yells. “Rear’s blocked!”
Of course it is. The Nine don’t trap you with one wall. They trap you with a cage.
I look at the forward cam and see movement—loyalists in Kaijen suits, wearing our colors like a insult. Their weapons flash in the dark. Behind them, I catch the faint shape of a rival crew—Sable Knives—watching like vultures waiting to feed.
Heat surges through my chest.
“Alright,” I murmur. “You want cattle. You get wolves.”
I slam my palm on the internal map console. “Maintenance tunnel access—right side. Ten meters.”
Renn’s eyes widen. “Boss, that tunnel’s?—”
“A sewer with a ceiling,” I finish. “Yeah. That’s why they won’t cover it.”
Renn snaps his comm open. “All units—pivot right. On my mark. Smoke, then push.”
My driver grunts. “You sure?”
I lean forward, voice low. “Do it.”
Renn counts. “Three… two… one—MARK!”
Smoke canisters launch from our side ports, bursting into thick gray clouds that flood the kill lane. The turret fire stutters as sensors lose clean line-of-sight. Our transport lurches hard right, tires screaming, suspension groaning as we mount the curb and slam through a maintenance gate that wasn’t designed for vehicles this size.
Metal shrieks. Sparks spray. The world tilts.
Then we drop into the tunnel.
The sound changes instantly—gunfire muffled, echoing, replaced by the wet, hollow roar of tires on grated concrete. The air is damp, smelling of mold and coolant runoff, and the ceiling is low enough that my shoulders feel too big.
