JAKARI POV

Jayla didn’t raise her voice.

That was how I knew it mattered.

“Jakari,” she said. “Move. Now.”

I was already stepping back from the ledge, knees bent, weight shifting. The city stretched below me—Little Rock still alive, still ignorant. Traffic lights changed. People crossed streets. No one looked up.

“What did you see?” I asked.

A half-second pause.

“She looked directly at the drone,” Jayla said. “Straight into it. And she smiled.”

That was enough.

I broke into a sprint.

No hesitation. No questions. I vaulted the gap between buildings and hit the next rooftop hard, boots skidding as I cut toward the edge facing the agency. The building sat clean and confident across the street—glass, steel, angles too sharp to feel human.

“She’s moving,” Jayla added. “Leaving her office. Security posture is changing.”

I didn’t slow.

I jumped.

Four stories down, forward momentum carrying me through the air as the first alarms began to die—not scream, but shut off, like someone had pulled the city’s plug. I hit the window shoulder-first and crashed through into darkness and flying glass.

I rolled, came up on one knee, rifle already raised.

The building hadn’t locked yet.

I moved before it could decide to.

Hallway. Left turn. Stairwell access—open. I cut through it, boots slamming concrete as I descended two floors at a time, skipping steps, letting gravity do the work. The air shifted—pressure changing, systems waking up.

Metal doors started coming down above me.

Too late.

I burst out onto the main floor as the front entrance began sealing. Guards shouted. Someone reached for a radio. I raised my rifle and dropped two of them in controlled bursts, suppressor coughing softly in the suddenly enclosed space.

The doors slammed shut behind me with a final hydraulic thud.

The agency went dark.

Emergency power kicked in seconds later.

Red lights.

Low. Pulsing.

The kind meant for containment.

I turned slowly, scanning.

“Jayla,” I said. “I’m inside.”

No answer.

I tried again.

Nothing.

Comms were dead.

I was alone.

I tightened my grip on the rifle and stepped deeper into the building, moving with the kind of patience that came from knowing something intelligent was hunting me back.

She’d let me in.

And that meant whatever waited inside was intentional.

The red lights didn’t flicker.

They breathed.

Low emergency strobes pulsed through the hallway, stretching shadows until they no longer obeyed the walls that cast them. Every surface felt muted, padded—sound swallowed before it could echo. Whoever designed this place understood violence. Understood containment.

I moved anyway.

Slow. Measured. Rifle tucked in, muzzle tracking corners before my body followed. My boots barely touched the floor. The building smelled sterile, but underneath it—ozone, oil, faint metal. Power rerouted. Systems awake.

Footsteps.

Not rushed. Not panicked.

Professional.

I slid into an alcove just as three guards passed the intersection ahead of me.

Full armor. Matte-black plating from collarbone to shin. Enclosed helmets with narrow visors. No exposed skin. No chatter. They moved in a tight wedge, rifles angled outward.

Bullets wouldn’t do much.

So I didn’t use them.

I waited until the last one passed, then stepped out and closed the distance in three silent strides. My left arm hooked the rear guard’s rifle down while my right drove the muzzle of my suppressed handgun into the seam beneath his helmet.

One shot.

The sound was swallowed by his body as he collapsed.

The other two reacted instantly—clean pivots, rifles snapping up—but I was already moving. I slammed into the nearer guard, shoulder into chest plate, driving him backward into the wall hard enough to crack tile. Before he could recover, I grabbed his helmet and twisted.

The armor held.

His neck didn’t.

The last guard fired. The rounds punched sparks off the wall inches from my head. I closed the gap through the fire, took the hits on my plates, and drove a knee into his abdomen. The armor dispersed the force—but not enough.

He staggered.

I grabbed his rifle, wrenched it sideways, and brought my elbow down into the top of his helmet. Once. Twice.

The third strike caved it inward.

He dropped.

I didn’t pause to admire the work.

More boots. More weight. Heavier.

I moved.

The elevator bank was ahead—six doors, all sealed except one, cycling open and closed like it couldn’t decide whether to exist. I slid behind a support pillar as another squad came into view—four this time.

They stopped.

One of them looked directly at the pillar.

I knew that pause.

“Clear it,” someone said through a helmet filter.

I threw a flash—not for them, but for the cameras. The light washed the corridor blind for half a second. That was all I needed.

I sprinted, jumped, and grabbed the lip of the elevator as its doors slid open. I pulled myself up and rolled onto the roof as gunfire tore into the space where I’d been.

The doors slammed shut beneath me.

The elevator dropped.

Fast.

I flattened myself against the roof, fingers digging into seams, boots braced as the car descended. The cables hummed. The shaft sang with tension.

The elevator stopped.

I felt the weight shift as guards entered below me—confused, checking the empty car.

“Clear,” one said.

I smiled.

I kicked.

My boots dented the ceiling inward. Before they could react, I dropped through the opening, landing between them. I didn’t draw a weapon. Didn’t need to.

I took the first one by the throat and slammed him into the wall hard enough to crater the paneling. The second tried to swing a baton—heavy, electrified. I caught it, twisted, and drove it straight into his visor. The electricity arced through his helmet. He convulsed and fell.

The third went for his sidearm.

I took his wrist, snapped it backward, and used his own momentum to throw him headfirst into the elevator door. The fourth rushed me.

Big mistake.

I stepped inside his guard and drove my forehead into his helmet. Once. Then again. The visor cracked on the second hit. I finished it with a short hook to the jaw, felt the resistance give, then let him drop.

The elevator was quiet again.

I dragged the bodies into the corners, wiped my hands on my pants, and climbed back up through the ceiling as the car resumed its descent.

Basement levels.

B2.

That was where she’d go.

I rode the elevator from above, hanging from a cable now, muscles burning as the car slowed. When it stopped, I pulled myself up, wedged my boots against the shaft wall, and forced the doors open just enough to slip through.

The basement was different.

No windows. No polish. Concrete, steel, reinforced doors. The kind of place meant to survive sieges.

She was ready.

I slipped into a maintenance closet as voices approached, breathing steady despite the ache spreading through my shoulders. They passed. I counted their steps. Waited for the echo to die.

Then I moved again.

She wasn’t running.

She was leading.

And that meant I was exactly where she wanted me.

Good.

I’d spent my whole life walking into traps.

I adjusted my grip on the rifle and headed deeper into the abyss.

The hallway narrowed as I moved deeper.

No windows. No signage. Just concrete, steel, and red emergency lights bleeding across the floor like a warning that came too late.

The air changed first.

Cooler. Drier. Conditioned. That meant servers. Data. Power.

“Jayla,” I whispered. “I’m near the core.”

Static answered me.

Then—barely—

“I hear you,” her voice cut through. Distorted, thin. “Signal’s fragmented. You’re in the blind zone.”

Figures.

I adjusted my grip on the rifle and advanced.

The door at the end of the corridor wasn’t subtle. Reinforced steel. Biometric scanner. Dual-keypad. No handle.

A vault pretending to be a room.

I crouched beside it, pulled a fiber probe from my kit, slid it into the seam.

Dark inside.

Then—

Movement.

Rows upon rows of server towers stretched into the distance, blinking softly. Blue lights. Green. White. A digital heartbeat.

And guards.

Four of them, spaced evenly, armored head to toe. Not patrolling. Standing still.

Watching nothing.

Waiting.

“They’re guarding something,” Jayla said in my ear, sharper now. “Not the data. The access.”

“Meaning?” I asked.

“Meaning once you’re in, she knows.”

I exhaled slowly.

“She already does.”

I pulled the EMP puck from my vest, thumbed it active, and slid it under the door.

Three.

Two.

One.

The lights died.

Not all at once—no. They stuttered. Servers screaming silently as backup systems kicked in. Emergency power surged, bathing the room in a deep, pulsing red.

Alarms started to rise—

—and then cut out.

I breached.

The first guard turned too late. I closed the distance before his rifle came up, slammed my shoulder into his chest plate, drove him into a rack hard enough to rattle the towers. His helmet cracked against metal. He went down twitching.

The second lunged.

I caught his arm and punched his elbow with an uppercut, felt something snap, and used his own momentum to slam his head into the floor. Once. Twice. Still.

The third fired.

Rounds sparked off the doorframe behind me. I rolled, came up low, and put two armor-piercing shots into his knee. The joint failed. He screamed.

I ended it.

The fourth ran.

Not away—from me.

Toward the core terminal.

I shot the console instead.

Sparks erupted. He skidded to a stop, frozen, realizing too late he’d made the wrong choice.

I didn’t rush him.

I walked.

Slow.

He dropped his weapon and raised his hands.

“Please—”

I broke his nose with the butt of my rifle and put him down.

Silence returned, broken only by the hum of machines trying desperately to stay alive.

I turned to the center of the room.

The core.

A circular console embedded in the floor, cables snaking out like veins. Holographic interfaces hovered above it, scrolling encryption, financial streams, shipment logs.

Mara’s mind.

I knelt and plugged in Jayla’s drive.

“Talk to me,” I said.

“I’m here,” she answered instantly. Too fast. Like she’d been waiting. “Uploading breach protocol. You’ve got maybe six minutes before she reroutes power and seals the floor.”

“Plenty.”

Data flooded my HUD.

Accounts. Shell companies. Shipping routes. Names I recognized—and some I didn’t want to.

Assassination contracts.

Dates.

Targets.

I clenched my jaw.

“She’s funding private kill teams,” Jayla said quietly. “Domestic. International. Some of these are… bad, Jakari.”

“Save it all,” I said. “Every byte.”

A pause.

Then, softer: “You’re bleeding.”

I glanced down. Blood seeped from the shoulder wound, warm, steady.

“I’m fine.”

“You always say that.”

“I always am.”

Another pause.

Not static this time.

Emotion.

“You don’t have to keep proving it,” she said.

I almost looked away from the screen.

Almost.

Instead, I said, “Focus.”

“I am,” she replied. “On you.”

The download hit eighty percent.

That’s when the room shifted.

The hum deepened. The floor vibrated.

“She’s diverting power,” Jayla snapped. “Jakari—she’s locking the core. You need to move.”

I yanked the drive free and stood.

“Got what we came for?”

“Yes,” she said. Then, after a breath, “And more than she meant to give.”

The lights flickered again—then steadied.

Footsteps echoed beyond the door.

A lot of them.

“Go,” Jayla said. No hesitation. No fear. Just trust.

I turned toward the exit, rifle up, heart steady.

As I moved, her voice followed me—low, certain.

“I’ve got you,” she said again. “No matter what.”

And for the first time since I stepped into the Abyss—

I believed it.

The server room hummed behind me, still alive with energy despite my interference. I stepped over the last guard, letting the weight of the drive in my vest remind me of what I had just taken. Every step outside the core felt heavier—concrete corridors now lit only by pulsing red emergency lights, the hum of dying systems echoing through the floor.

“Jayla,” I whispered into my earpiece.

“I’m here,” her voice came, tighter now. “You’ve got three minutes before she reroutes the floor. Move.”

I nodded. Not that she could see me. Not that I had the time to think about nodding.

Ahead, the hallway narrowed. Guards were converging from multiple directions, moving like machines, armored head to toe, rifles tight against their chests. I could hear their boots against the metal grates. Their coordination told me one thing: Mara had expected this. She had planned every second.

No hesitation.

I dropped low behind cover, keeping the M4 raised. Bullets clanged against reinforced plates. Two guards rushed forward. I sidestepped, closed the distance, grabbed the first by the neckplate, drove him into the steel wall. A snap—his spine meeting unyielding metal—and he crumpled. The second swung with a baton. I caught it mid-strike, twisted, and his own momentum sent him sprawling into the elevator shaft. The shaft shuddered beneath him.

The elevator doors slid open across the hall. More guards. Heavily armored, their eyes behind visors reflecting only red light.

I didn’t pause.

Vaulting over railings, sliding across floors slick with emergency coolant, I kept the drive close to my chest. Every breath measured. Every heartbeat timed. Bullets ricocheted off walls, sparks flying like fireflies in hell.

I found the stairwell. Doors slammed behind me, alarms piercing the air. I descended, skipping steps, landing hard on the basement floor. Two more guards met me. I let the first swing high—ducked, grabbed, elbowed. The second tried a flank; I rotated, slammed him into a wall. Efficient. Brutal. Silent.

“Got what we came for?” Jayla’s voice cut through.

“Yes,” I whispered back. “And she didn’t know it until too late.”

I made my way to the service corridor leading outside. The drive glowed faintly under my vest. I could feel its weight: the data I had pulled from Mara’s core would shift the game entirely. Shipping routes. Shell corporations. Kill teams with government contracts. Every byte screaming Star’s fingerprint.

That’s when I saw it: one folder, buried under layers of encrypted files, labeled simply “Azrathion”.

I froze.

Jayla’s voice came steady, clipped. “You found it?”

I exhaled. Slowly. Yes. But the implications twisted in my gut. Azrathion wasn’t just Star’s weapon anymore. He was the tip of something bigger, something the camp had only whispered about in nightmares.

The red lights flickered again. Sirens muted but alarms still thrumming in the distance. I pressed a hand against the wall, feeling the concrete vibrate under the building’s systems. Somewhere above, Mara’s men were regrouping, moving like predators sniffing a wounded prey.

“Jakari,” Jayla said. Her tone softened. “You’re… alive. You’re getting out.”

I moved. Smooth. Calculated. Each step measured. Every shadow my ally. I kept the drive secure, bullets whizzing past in the distance, unaware I was already several steps ahead.

Outside, the city stretched beneath me. North Little Rock. Streets normal. Unknowing. But the data I carried would wake a storm in its veins.

I paused, letting the night air fill my lungs. Pain seared from the shoulder wound. My back ached. But I was alive. And I had what mattered.

Jayla’s voice came again, quieter this time. Almost intimate. Almost… personal.

“I’ve got you, Jakari. No matter what.”

I pressed my hand to the drive, feeling the weight of every life it contained, every secret it held.

“Copy that,” I said softly.

And then, almost imperceptibly, I smiled.

But behind me, in the shadows of the warehouse, Asia’s eyes watched me. Narrowed. Studying. Waiting. And somewhere in her gaze, I could feel the first crack forming. The triangle tightening. The storm building.

Jayla’s voice whispered through the comms one last time:

“Welcome back, Jakari. Let’s see how far we can take this.”