Location: Velmarch Heights — Underpass Industrial Zone — Night
The documents had been sitting in Elijah's pocket for days.
Crumpled. Folded. Stained with coffee and something that might have been Frederick Morrecca's last drop of dignity. He had pulled them from the safe in the old man's office, the one hidden behind the shelves, the one that had required a button under the desk and a prayer that no one would walk in while he was pretending to be Nico.
Contract payment, Elijah thought. To the Did and Itos. A pair of artificers—engineers who designed the formula for the Vein frames. The ones who built the seven rings that Lucian now wears.
Frederick acquired them from a place. A workshop. A foundry hidden beneath an overpass, strategically located between Velmarch Heights and Crestfall.
He stared at the map on his phone.
The overpass was a scar across the city—a concrete viaduct that carried traffic from the industrial zone to the residential districts. Beneath it, the light barely reached. Shadows pooled. The air smelled of exhaust and damp concrete.
It didn't take one plus one to figure out that this individual—this artificer—might be the forging framer I was looking for. But getting into that place was even more challenging than the Freakshow.
He remembered the operatives outside.
Dark suits. Earpieces. Postures that screamed former military. They stood at the entrance—a steel door set into the concrete foundation—their eyes scanning the darkness, their hands never straying far from their holsters.
The only solution, Elijah thought, was bursting through by force. Getting the chump and making him talk.
He looked up.
The armored truck was already moving.
---
The truck was not subtle.
Reinforced steel. Run-flat tires. A grill that could punch through a brick wall. It accelerated from the end of the block, engine roaring, headlights cutting through the darkness like twin blades.
The operatives saw it.
"What the—"
One of them reached for his earpiece. The other drew his pistol.
The truck didn't slow.
"Hey—HEY—"
Bullets struck the windshield—cracked it, spiderwebbed the glass, but didn't penetrate. The truck kept coming. The operatives dove aside—one left, one right—as the grill slammed into the steel door.
Metal screamed. Concrete crumbled. The door tore from its hinges and flew into the interior, scattering debris across a reception area that had been designed for quiet transactions, not for vehicular assault.
A receptionist—a woman in a tailored blazer, her hair immaculate, her eyes wide—screamed.
"What is—who—SECURITY!"
The truck stopped.
The engine died.
The doors opened.
---
Three figures stepped out.
They wore butterfly masks—not the kind that covered the whole face, but delicate things that rested over their eyes and the bridges of their noses. Silver filigree. Purple and blue enamel. The kind of masks that belonged at a masquerade ball, not a raid on a criminal workshop.
The first figure was a woman.
Her suit was not fabric—it was armor. Segmented plates that covered her arms, her shoulders, her chest. They hummed—a low, steady frequency that vibrated in the teeth. The plates detached as she walked, hovering beside her, trailing cords of pale blue energy.
Echo, Elijah thought. Tyla's aethernova suit. She's ready.
The second figure was a man.
He wore a bulletproof vest over a dark jacket, his arms bare, his hands wrapped in tactical gloves. A bow was slung across his back—not a compound bow, something older, something that looked like it had been carved from a single piece of dark wood. His mask was black, with silver veins.
Gerry, Elijah thought. The archer. He's been waiting for this.
The third figure stood in the center.
His arms were covered in rings—seven of them, dark metal, carved with symbols that seemed to absorb the light. They pulsed. They breathed. They hungered.
Lucian, Elijah thought. The Vein frame. The rings that feed on panic.
The operatives who had been outside scrambled to their feet.
"Screw this," one of them said.
He stared at his comrade. His face was pale. His eyes were wide.
"I'm not getting paid enough for this. If I were you, I'd start hauling tail out of here. It's not worth risking our lowly lives for some pervy docks who don't give a shit about us."
His comrade didn't argue.
They ran.
Their footsteps echoed off the concrete, faded into the darkness, and were gone.
---
The three figures walked through the wreckage.
Past the overturned reception desk. Past the shattered planter. Past the receptionist, who had stopped screaming and was now hiding under her chair, her hands over her head.
The elevator was at the end of the corridor.
Steel doors. A keypad. A card reader.
Tyla raised her hand.
One of her plates detached. It flew to the keypad—hovered for a moment—then slammed into it. Sparks erupted. The doors slid open.
"After you," Gerry said.
They stepped inside.
---
The elevator descended.
The lights flickered. The walls were bare metal, scarred by years of use. A speaker crackled—muzak, something from the 80s, tinny and distant.
The doors opened.
The corridor beyond was wide, industrial, lit by fluorescent strips that buzzed like dying insects. At the end, another set of doors—thicker, reinforced, with a biometric scanner.
And between them, eleven figures.
They stood in formation—three rows, four in the back, four in the middle, three in front. Their suits were black, tactical, with insignia that looked like circuit boards stitched into the shoulders. In their hands, batons—not wooden, metal. The tips glowed with a pale orange light, pulsing in rhythm with their heartbeats.
Vein frame security, Elijah thought. The same tech. But mass-produced. Cheaper. Less stable.
Their faces were hidden behind visors—mirrored, reflecting the corridor, the elevator, the three figures in butterfly masks.
Gerry stepped forward.
"Sweet," he said. "Some action."
He reached behind his back. His hand closed around the bow. He drew it—smooth, practiced, the motion of someone who had done this a thousand times.
The arrow was already nocked.
He pulled the string back to his cheek. His eye found the center figure in the front row. He released.
The arrow flew.
Straight. True. It struck the figure in the chest—right over the heart.
The arrow shattered.
Not the head—the shaft. The tip embedded itself in the fabric of the tactical suit, but the wood splintered, the fletching tore, and the arrow fell to the ground in pieces.
"What the—"
The security figure looked down at the broken arrow. Then up at Gerry.
His visor was still reflective. But behind it, something shifted. A smirk. A sneer. The expression of someone who had just realized that the intruders were not as dangerous as they had feared.
Gerry's hand tightened on his bow.
"What the hell," he said.
The eleven figures raised their batons.
The orange tips glowed brighter.
And the corridor became a kill box.
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