The air in the ventilation shaft was stale, carrying the metallic tang of recycled oxygen and the faint, underlying scent of bleach from the interrogation wing.
Ruben crawled first, his elbows scraping against the galvanized steel. His body felt heavy, drained by the days of confinement and the lingering phantom sensation of the suppression seal. He paused at a junction, closing his eyes and inhaling deeply through his nose. He focused, filtering out the rust and dust, searching for the scent of detergent, sweat, or cheap coffee that would indicate a guard.
"Clear," Ruben whispered, his voice echoing tinny and hollow in the tight space. "Keep moving."
Behind him, Corbin grunted, dragging his larger frame through the narrow conduit. "I hate small spaces," he muttered, the sound vibrating through the metal floor. "If I have to fight someone in here, I'm going to lose my mind."
"Almost there," Ruben promised.
He saw a grate ahead, striped with the gray, diffused light of the Brumália morning. Ruben reached out, his fingers finding the latch. It hadn't been welded shut, a rare oversight in a facility designed for containment, or perhaps another silent gift from Bruno. He pushed. The grate swung outward with a rusty screech that set their teeth on edge.
Ruben tumbled out first, landing in a crouch on wet gravel. Corbin followed, rolling onto his back and gasping at the sudden influx of cold, damp air.
They were on a maintenance roof, high above the street level but dwarfed by the looming spires of the city center. The fog was thick here, a suffocating blanket that hid the ground below.
"We're out," Corbin breathed, sitting up and cracking his neck. "I honestly didn't think we'd see the sky again."
"Don't get comfortable," Ruben said, standing up and brushing the vent dust from his knees. He closed his eyes again, but this time he wasn't smelling the air. He was reaching out with his mind, feeling for the pulse of his Ego he had left behind.
It was faint, like a heartbeat buried under snow, but it was there.
"He's near the center," Ruben said, his eyes snapping open. He pointed toward the silhouette of a massive, gothic structure rising out of the mist like a jagged tooth. "The Clock Tower district. High up."
"How do you know?" Corbin asked, shaking out his arms to get the blood flowing.
"The dragon I gave him," Ruben explained. "It's a beacon. I can feel exactly where it is relative to me. Paul hasn't found it yet."
"Cool," Corbin nodded. "Let's move."
Ruben extended his hand. The air shimmered, and a dragon materialized, a sleek, serpentine construct of amber light, humming with a low vibration. They climbed onto its back, the scales warm against their damp clothes. With a thought, Ruben commanded it to rise, and they shot up into the fog, banking hard toward the city center.
The wind whipped at their faces, biting and cold.
"So what's the play?" Corbin shouted over the rush of air. "Do we just grab the kid? or do we try to put Paul down for good?"
Ruben looked ahead, his brow furrowed. "I don't really know, Corbin. We tried the capture method before, and we ended up in chains. Paul is... slippery. And dangerous."
"We failed because we tried to be clever," Corbin argued. "We should just take Oscar and get him out. But the kid is a ticking time bomb. If we grab him and he has an episode mid-air... we drop."
"Maybe we try to capture Paul first," Ruben mused. "Force him to tell us what drug he's using. Or find the stash on him."
"And then what?" Corbin countered. "We aren't scientists. We don't know the dosage. We don't know the chemistry. If we mess it up, we could kill the kid just as easily as the gas would kill us and the people waking up."
Ruben fell silent, the weight of the impossible situation pressing down on him. "I wonder what happens by the end of this all," he murmured. "Even if we save him... where does he go? Who takes care of him?"
"We're getting closer," Corbin warned, interrupting the spiral. He pointed down. "Are we atop a building?"
Ruben looked. Through a break in the fog, he saw the flat, slate expanse of the Clock Tower's maintenance platform. "Yeah. I think we are."
Corbin snapped his fingers, a sharp sound that cut through the wind. "Something bad is about to happen."
"What?"
"Think about it," Corbin said, his voice tightening. "Why is Paul taking the kid to the highest point in the city center? He's not sightseeing. If Oscar is a biological weapon, Paul needs a dispersal point. He's going to launch a big attack. He wants the gas to drift down into the streets."
Ruben felt a chill that had nothing to do with the altitude. "If he triggers it while we're there... we'd be hit by it. We don't know anything about Runes or wards to avoid the effects. We'd turn on each other in seconds."
"We'll have to brave through it," Corbin said grimly, his knuckles white as he gripped the dragon's scales. "Long enough to get Oscar out of Paul's reach. We focus on the grab. You do it. You can fly. I'll hold the line."
Ruben didn't respond immediately. He was staring at the back of his own hand, thinking.
Corbin tapped his shoulder hard. "Hey. Ruben. You with me?"
Ruben looked up, his amber eyes clearing. "I was thinking about what Bruno said. In the interrogation room."
"About his glory days?"
"No," Ruben said. "About Egos. He said an Ego is shaped by how the user views the world. Oscar has only known cages, pain, and fear. His world is hostile, so his power is hostile. It forces rage onto everyone else because that's all he knows."
Ruben looked at the looming platform ahead.
"They're right below us," Corbin said, leaning over the side. "You ready?"
Ruben took a deep breath. "Let's get it done."
"Dive!"
The dragon folded its wings and tipped forward, entering a terrifying, vertical stoop. The wind roared in their ears, blurring their vision. They plummeted through the fog layer like a missile, the gray mist parting to reveal the wet slate of the roof rushing up to meet them.
"NOW!" Ruben shouted.
He dismissed the dragon instantly. The construct dissolved into particles of light, leaving them in freefall for the last twenty feet.
They dropped into a crouch, hitting the wet roof with a heavy, wet slap.
The scene before them was frozen for a microsecond. Paul Strahm was crouching over Oscar, hovering like a mother cat protecting a kitten. He was focused entirely on the sobbing boy huddled against the chimney.
Paul's head snapped up at the sound of their impact.
He turned, his eyes widening in shock. He saw Corbin Monet clearly, a massive, bruised figure rising from the crouch, eyes burning with vengeance.
But Paul's periphery was blurry. He sensed movement, a blur of gray and brown, darting to his left.
Ruben didn't fight. He ran. He moved with the desperate speed of a boy who had learned to outrun consequence. He slid on his knees, scooping Oscar up in one fluid motion before Paul could even fully rotate his body.
"No!" Paul screamed, reaching out with a mimed lasso.
But he was grabbing at smoke.
Ruben was already gone. He kicked off the chimney stack, vaulting into the open air.
"Hang on, kid!" Ruben yelled.
Forge.
A fresh dragon materialized beneath them mid-jump, catching them in its claws and banking hard, carrying Ruben and the terrified boy away from the roof and into the safety of the clouds.
Paul snarled, his face twisting into a mask of pure hate. He spun around, raising his hands to mime a rifle, aiming at the retreating dragon.
THWACK.
Paul's leg was yanked out from under him. He hit the slate hard, his concentration breaking, the invisible rifle dissolving.
He looked down.
A hand, large, scarred, and trembling with adrenaline, was clamped around his ankle.
Corbin Monet lay on the ground, holding on tight. He looked up at the Mime, blood dripping from his nose, a wild, dangerous grin splitting his face.
"No need to look at him," Corbin growled, his grip tightening until Paul's bone creaked. "Your fight is with me."
The heavy double doors of the briefing room swung open with enough force to crack the plaster behind them.
Lance Onida stepped through, bringing a gust of cold hallway air with him. He wasn't in his usual pristine suit, instead, he wore a fitted black bomber jacket over a charcoal t-shirt and dark, selvedge denim jeans. He looked like a model who had just walked off a runway, but the scowl on his face was anything but performative.
"This had better be good," Lance snapped, stalking to the head of the table where the others were gathered. "I was halfway through a very expensive espresso when the red line rang. What is it now? Did you get anything out of the gutter rats?"
The room was tense. Elise Vogel stood by the window, her arms crossed so tightly her leather gloves creaked. Rosette St. Jon sat at the table, spinning a dagger on the mahogany surface. Lea and Kade stood near the back, looking tired and anxious.
Bruno Fernando stood at the head of the table. He looked heavier than usual, the weight of the morning pressing down on his broad shoulders. He didn't look up as Lance entered.
"They are gone," Bruno rumbled, his voice filling the room like distant thunder.
Lance paused, his hand halfway to pulling out a chair. "Gone? Who is gone?"
"Rayo and Monet," Bruno said, lifting his gaze to meet Lance's silver eyes. "I let them escape."
The silence that followed was absolute. It was the kind of silence that precedes a structural collapse.
Elise Vogel was the first to break it. Her jaw dropped, and she stepped forward, her green eyes wide with disbelief. "You... you let them? What are you saying, Sir? Someone of your rank... a Gold Paladin... simply lost two prisoners in a secure holding cell?"
Rosette stopped spinning her dagger. She didn't speak immediately. She turned her head slowly, her crimson eyes fixing on Bruno. The look wasn't just shock, it was a profound, curdling disappointment. It was the look of a devotee watching their idol stumble. She had respected his strength, his brutality. To hear he had been outsmarted, or worse, soft, was a crack in her world.
"How?" Rosette whispered, the word sharp as a cut glass.
"I made a choice," Bruno said, his voice steady, refusing to buckle under their scrutiny. "During the interrogation, it became clear to me that they were not working with Paul Strahm. Their confusion was genuine. Their anger was real."
"So you just opened the door?" Elise shrieked, her composure shattering. "They are fugitives! They are connected to the Gresham Incident!"
"They knew where Oscar Lorian was," Bruno shouted over her, slamming his fist onto the table. The wood groaned. "And they were not going to tell us. Not under torture. Not under threat of death. They are stubborn, and they are loyal to that boy."
Bruno lowered his voice, leaning over the map spread out on the table. "We did not have the time to wait them out. Every second we wasted in that cell was a second Strahm used to prepare his weapon. So, I let the leash go."
"You gambled the safety of the city on a hunch," Lance said, his voice dangerously low.
"I gambled on their desperation," Bruno corrected. "I tagged them. My ink is on them. I have been tracking their movement since they left through the vents."
He pointed a thick finger at the center of the map.
"They are heading here. The Clock Tower. The City Center."
Kade Varro stepped forward, looking at the map. He rubbed his unshaven chin, his face pale. "The Clock Tower... that's the highest point in the district. It overlooks the central ventilation exchange for the subway and the pedestrian plaza."
"If Strahm releases the gas from that altitude," Kade muttered, "gravity does the rest. It blankets the entire downtown grid."
"It's Wednesday," Lea added, her voice trembling slightly as she checked her watch. "It's mid-morning. The plaza is full. People are heading to work, the markets are opening... there must be thousands of people in that blast zone."
Bruno nodded grimly. "Exactly. That is why the boys went there. They are trying to intercept."
Lance leaned back, crossing his arms over his chest. He didn't look convinced. "Is it even smart if we go? Think about it. We've seen the reports. The kid, Oscar, his Ego isn't stable. Every time it triggers, the radius gets wider and the violence gets more concentrated. If we go in there with a full strike team, we might just be the match that lights the powder keg."
"We have no choice," Bruno stated. "We cannot leave a biological weapon in the hands of a terrorist who believes he is fighting a holy war."
Bruno reached into a metal case on the table and tossed a series of heavy, metallic masks onto the wood. They were sleek, faceless plates etched with faintly glowing runes.
"We wear these," Bruno ordered. "Rune-sealed filtration masks. They will dampen the psychic effect of the gas. We go in, and we retrieve the boy."
He looked at each of them in turn, his gaze hardening into the Warlord-trained killer they knew him to be.
"As for Paul Strahm... he is too risky to capture. He has compromised the city. If you have a shot, you take it. Kill on sight."
"And the rats?" Elise asked, her voice venomous. "What about Rayo and Monet? Do we give them a medal for leading us there?"
Bruno shook his head. "They are still fugitives. But they are not the priority. Based on the reports from Rosette and Lance, they were handled easily enough. If they get in the way, put them down. If they survive, we lock them up again. But do not let them distract you from the target."
Lance cracked his neck, the sound loud in the quiet room. "What about backup? If this goes sideways, five of us might not be enough to contain a city-wide riot."
"The second team is inbound," Bruno said, checking the time. "I have directed their flight path to the Clock Tower. They will advance as soon as they breach the city limits. Elijah Neri and his unit will flank from the east."
Lance nodded, a flicker of anticipation in his silver eyes. "Alright. Let's finish this."
Bruno straightened up, buttoning his heavy coat.
"Listen to me," he said, his voice grave. "We are going in hot. There is no time to set up a perimeter. There is no time to evacuate the civilians. We are going to have to work without safeguards."
He looked at Lea, then at Rosette.
"We need precision. We need speed. All effort goes into retrieving Oscar Lorian before he detonates. If that boy goes off... Brumália falls."
"Move out."