Ethan's eyes snapped open. He sat up, the dim, amber light of evening bleeding through the small high-security window of his residential quarters. He checked his tactical watch—it was nearly 6:00 PM.
I slept right through the afternoon, Ethan thought, his muscles tight as he slid out of bed.
After stepping into the washroom to splash freezing water onto his face, he walked back out just as his encrypted smartphone vibrated violently against the desk. It was a brief, localized text from Liam.
Liam: Ethan. Get down to the subterranean holding blocks immediately.
Ethan's eyes narrowed as he quickly tapped back a thumbs-up emoji. The interrogation must be over, he thought, pacing rapidly down the concrete corridors. Let's see what those assets finally leaked.
When the heavy, reinforced steel blast doors of the cell block hissed open, Ethan stepped inside—only to freeze. Noah's massive frame and the insurgent pilot were both splayed motionless across the concrete floor, their heads twisted at unnatural, lifeless angles.
"Are they out cold?" Ethan asked, his voice dropping.
Liam was sitting on the edge of a steel cot nearby, his face drawn, dark, and visibly tense. He looked up at Ethan, his jaw clenched tightly. "Worse."
"What happened?"
Liam gave a slow, bitter shake of his head. "They both committed suicide by violently severing their own tongues and choking on the blood. They chose death over giving up their operational secrets."
A heavy, suffocating silence filled the room.
A total dead end... Ethan thought, a wave of dark frustration washing over him. We missed our window. Now we have to start from scratch.
"I thought for sure we'd pull the exact structural layout of the Third Branch from them," Ethan muttered.
"We didn't get anything," Liam said, his eyes flashing with a sudden, sharp focus. "But before Number 9 completely choked out, he bled a singular, highly specific location."
Ethan stepped closer. "What did he say?"
"He dropped a localized cover name near The Museum of Nature," Liam revealed.
Ethan's brow furrowed. "What?"
"It's a massive national architectural landmark located in Ottawa." Liam explained, pulling up a digital map overlay on his tablet. "If their operational pattern holds true, the facility is functioning as the public-facing facade for the Loop's Third Branch."
"Then we map out a deployment route and check it out ourselves," Ethan said decisively.
Liam gave a curt nod of agreement. "What's the status on Allen?"
"What about me?" a sharp, familiar voice called out from the dark threshold of the cell door.
Ethan whirled around. Allen was standing there, leaning lightly against the metal frame, his plastered leg braced but his posture perfectly upright.
"You shouldn't be putting weight on that leg yet, Allen," Liam warned, his eyes tracking the field splint.
"Don't sweat it. It's just a small fracture," Allen countered with a cocky, dismissive smile, rolling his shoulders. "Even if my footwork is slowed down, my upper-body combinations works perfectly fine."
Liam let out a slow, exhausted sigh, glancing sideways at Ethan.
"Allen, look at me," Ethan said, his tone firm but deeply respectful. "You need to stay back and let your body heal. We can handle the reconnaissance from here. You've already done more than your share by defeating Noah."
"I'm a striker," Allen insisted, his gaze hardening into steel. "One compromised leg doesn't remove me from the board. I'm coming with you."
The two operators stared at him, for a long, quiet moment before both letting out a defeated chuckle.
"You really are a stubborn piece of work, kid," Liam said, stepping forward.
Allen blinked, caught off guard by the sudden shift in tone. "What?"
"You dismantled Number 9 of the Loop in a sub-zero environment," Liam said, his voice dropping into a rare tone of absolute respect. "That is an astonishing feat. From our intelligence arrays, every single executive inside the Loop's Top 10 possesses a combat threshold far superior to Nemesis—the one I couldn't even defeat without support."
Ethan stepped up, giving Allen a solid, appreciative pat on the shoulder.
"You've more than earned your spot on this team," Liam added, turning on his heel as he headed toward the armory doors. "Prepare your loadout."
"We'll tell you when we'd leave" Ethan said, flashing a thumbs-up before following Liam into the corridor.
Allen stood alone in the cell block for a moment, a wave of pride washing over him before he turned to hobble back to his quarters to collect his gear.
Sitting on the edge of his bunk, Allen carefully pulled a tactical compression sleeve over his injured leg, his mind drifting back to the fragmented words Noah had spat during their brutal duel in the snow.
What exactly was that psychopath implying? Allen thought, his eyes narrowing in deep contemplation. He said the man who raised me had another disciple... a superior. But Murphy took me in off the streets when I was barely old enough to remember my own name. Was Noah actually referring to Mr. Murphy? Does Murphy have a secret history I know nothing about?
He leaned his head back against the cold wall, his eyelids growing heavy under the lingering effects of the battle fatigue. As his eyes closed, his subconscious slipped into a vivid, fractured memory from his childhood.
In his dream, the air was thick with the copper stench of fresh blood. A silhouette of an older teenager stood before him in a dimly lit, ruined alleyway. The surrounding ground was littered with the unconscious, broken bodies.
The teenager turned slightly, his face obscured by the shadows as his cold voice echoed through the memory: "...I'm bringing him in."
RING!