Byron leaned against the ferrocrete wall of the Vex Mercantile Holdings warehouse, arms crossed over his chest, staring out at the industrial sprawl of Avalon’s lower trade district. The air smelled of damp asphalt, burnt circuitry, and the lingering ozone sting of spent aetheric batteries.

  Skyrail lines crisscrossed overhead, buzzing with magnetic hums as they ferried goods and people from one side of the city to the other. It was past sundown, and the artificial glow of streetlamps smeared gold across the pavement, slick from an evening shower.

  The others were close by, waiting for their next move.

  Clare sat on an old cargo crate, rifle case across her lap, her silver hair catching the flickering neon from a nearby holoboard advertising Premium Dimensional Insurance! Buy Now, Stay Safe Beyond Reality!

  She was quiet, half-listening, half-dozing, as if resting would somehow make up for what she was about to lose in the next twelve hours.

  Warren was reading, or pretending to, eyes flicking through his holopad. He’d set the display to its lowest setting, but the pale blue light still ghosted across his face, outlining the fake glasses. Every so often, he’d turn to look at Geneve, only to look away just as quickly.

  Geneve leaned against a steel beam, flipping a knife in one hand with lazy precision, the way a cat twitches its tail before pouncing. She’d spin them, catch, spin, catch. He wasn’t sure if she was just keeping her hand in or trying to tease Warren, but either way, it worked. Her casual boredom was its own kind of challenge, daring any moment of peace to disturb it.

  Lyssa was perched on a lower stack of crates, watching the foot traffic with wide, thoughtful eyes, a wistful half-smile on her lips. Every now and then, she’d tap her fingers on her medkit, a nervous tic that she didn’t seem to notice herself.

  She didn't talk much, even around the group. Sometimes he forgot she was there until he turned to see her watching, always watching, taking it all in like the world was about to disappear.

  Byron exhaled through his nose, watching a lev-skater weave between slow-moving cargo drones. A few blocks away, the hollow sound of a horn announced the arrival of another SkyRail, sending the echoes bouncing off the towering arcologies that rose from the cityscape like so many glass-and-steel giants.

  This wasn’t the Tower. There were no clear-cut goals, no defined objectives, no rewards for "clearing." It was just a warehouse, a contract, and them. For Byron, there was a strange comfort in being outside the Tower. There were no sudden twists or turns, no pitfalls, no lurking monstrosities that would spawn at the drop of a hat and try to eat him alive. It was... more predictable.

  Predictability was comforting. Predictability meant Geneve would be bored, Warren would be reading, Clare would be tired, and Lyssa would be... well, there wasn't a nice word for it, but at least she'd be happy doing it.

  "What do you think we’ll end up doing?" Geneve asked, flipping her knife again.

  "Probably some kind of scouting," Warren replied without looking up from his pad.

  "Hm, probably."

  "And fighting."

  "That too."

  Warren glanced at her. "You sound eager."

  Geneve shrugged, twirling the knife around her fingers. "I mean, it’s a nice change from running around the same floors, right?"

  "We still do that," Byron pointed out.

  "True," Geneve conceded. "But this is new. Different."

  "Better or worse?" Lyssa chimed in, tilting her head.

  "It's... something," Geneve settled on.

  "Isn't it, though?" Clare agreed.

  Warren tapped his pad to change the page. "The scenery is nicer."

  The discussion petered out, the hum of the city filling the silence. A group of dockworkers ambled by, laughing at some inside joke, their voices fading into the distance.

  A door hissed open. The woman who stepped through didn’t waste time with greetings.

  Ayla Thorne, Vex Mercantile’s head of security. She looked like she’d been built in a lab to fit the part—broad-shouldered, cropped black hair, a coat lined with reinforced plating. The kind of woman who’d seen enough bad days to know there were always worse ones coming.

  She scanned them with the careful eye of a professional sizing up new hires. Byron wasn't sure if she approved or not, but she wasn't turning them away either. In the end, that's what mattered.

  "You’re the team Vex hired?" she said, a statement more than a question.

  "We are," Byron replied.

  "He didn't tell me much. Just that I was getting reinforcements," she said. "And from an outfit I've never heard of. That's worrying."

  "New blood," Byron said simply.

  Ayla grunted in response, still sizing them up. "So, what's the deal with you lot?"

  "We’re... versatile," Byron replied.

  Geneve snorted. "He means we're a mixed bag of everything."

  "An efficient mixed bag," Lyssa corrected.

  "Still a mixed bag," Geneve said.

  "Works for me," Ayla shrugged. "The more tools I have to work with, the better." She gestured them inside. "Come on. I’ll show you what you’re working with."

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  The warehouse was as cavernous as a tomb, high ceilings strung with dim overhead lights. Metal scaffolding lined the walls, stacked with crates bearing the Vex Mercantile Holdings insignia. Conveyor belts snaked through the building, segmented by security checkpoints manned by bored-looking guards.

  A few automated defense turrets loomed overhead, inactive for now.

  They moved past a small knot of guards, Ayla waving away their questioning looks. "Boss' orders. They're with us tonight."

  "Evening, boys," Geneve said, casually striding by.

  "Uh... hey," one of the guards replied, not even bothering to hide his appreciative glance.

  Clare rolled her eyes as she walked past. "Really?"

  "What? They're cute," Geneve shrugged, throwing a wink back at the guards. The one who'd spoken flushed, quickly turning away. The others chuckled, elbowing him.

  "Anyway," Ayla said, not entirely hiding her smirk, "the shipment's due at midnight. High-value stuff. Aetheric conduits, reznor, arcite—you name it."

  She led them past a bank of holoscreens. The feeds flickered with security footage—empty corridors, locked doors, a view of the docking bay. Everything looked quiet for now.

  "We’ve had five attacks in the past six weeks," Ayla continued. "First couple were small—crates missing, nothing major. Then it escalated. Last hit, we lost an entire shipment and three men."

  "Standard bandit operation?" Warren asked.

  "No." Ayla shook her head. "Bandits make mistakes. They get greedy, sloppy. These guys are clean. Too clean. No footage, no comm interference, no trace. The only reason we even knew they were here was because of the blood on the floor."

  Byron frowned. “Inside job?"

  "Doubt it, Ayla said. "We ran checks on everyone, locked down access. Only people who can get in here are mine or Vex’s."

  Clare, who had been quiet, spoke up. "You’re saying they walk through walls."

  Ayla’s mouth flattened. "I’m saying I don’t know how the hell they’re getting in."

  That was a problem. Squad 1 knew how to handle threats that came at them head-on. They weren't strangers to solving mysteries, but this job was promising to be more about the mystery than the fight. Not the mission Byron was used to.

  Lyssa popped her synth-mint out of her mouth and examined it like it held the answer. "Maybe they don’t come through walls. Maybe they don’t come in at all."

  Everyone turned to her.

  Geneve, cocking an eyebrow, asked, "You have an idea, Lys?"

  Lyssa looked around, synth-mint rolling between her fingers. "Maybe they’re already inside before the shipments get here. Like, I dunno, a teleportation thing? Magic? Maybe they shrink. And then grow when no one's looking."

  Clare shook her head. "Shrinking, really?"

  "I’m just brainstorming."

  "We still don't know how they're stealing the cargo," Byron said.

  Ayla grunted, eyes dark. "That's the kicker. The thefts only happen when the shipment is secure and guards are posted. My people are always on watch, but they either swear they don't see anything or get killed so they can't."

  Byron nodded. "Walk us through your standard procedure. Everything."

  She gestured at a holomap. "When a shipment arrives, it goes through the intake. After that, it's stored in the vault until distribution. Security checks every step."

  "So it happens after intake," Byron said. "Where are the guards stationed during that window?"

  "Throughout the warehouse, mostly concentrated around the vault," she said.

  Byron hummed, running his hand over his face, the scrape of his palm oddly comforting against his skin. "What are the points of access?"

  Ayla pointed at the map, tapping locations. "The main bay, the side entrances, and the vents. We have sensors, but they’re old tech."

  He stared at the map, the blue lines and blinking dots. A puzzle made of light and wire. Beside him, the others had gone quiet. They were used to reacting, not planning. Zark'thul planned for them most of the time.

  A sudden thought hit him and he turned to Warren who gave him a nod as he took out his communication device.

  "Sir. Sorry if I'm interrupting anything. Yes, about that. We'd like to request the use of your scrying eyes on the warehouse in order for us to be able to pinpoint potential blind spots." Warren shot Byron a thumbs-up. "You can? Thank you, sir."

  Clare, Geneve, and Lyssa exchanged glances, each with a slight smile.

  Ayla raised a brow. "Did you call for backup or something?"

  Byron turned to Ayla. "Let's just say our boss has a few more tricks up his sleeve."

  "If that means fewer deaths and more answers, I'm fine with it." She shifted her attention to the map, circling the loading dock with two fingers. "This is the choke point. If your boss can help us, it'll be here."

  Warren crossed his arms, leaning back against a railing. "Can we take a peek at your surveillance? Maybe we'll see something you missed."

  Ayla gestured towards a terminal. "Help yourself."

  They spent the next hour reviewing warehouse security logs—camera feeds, shipment manifests, patrol routes. By the end, they had a decent understanding of how Vex Mercantile Holdings operated. The system was good, but not great, like a security blanket that was more for comfort than protection. There were gaps, shadows, enough to suggest someone knew exactly where to step to avoid being seen.

  Geneve leaned back in her chair, flipping a dagger between her fingers. "I hate this kind of thing. Give me something to stab. This is just... annoying."

  Warren nudged her with his foot. "We're being paid to figure out a problem, Geneve."

  She made a face. "Yeah, but where's the fun in that?"

  "The fun is in not being dead," Byron pointed out. He studied the blueprints of the facility, looking for structural weaknesses. There were a couple—older sections, a disused fire escape, a section of roof that could be compromised with the right kind of explosives. Nothing seemed immediately applicable, though.

  But something about the loading dock timestamps bothered him.

  He tapped a crate entry log. "This shipment arrived at 23:45. But the inventory scan wasn't logged until 01:12."

  Ayla leaned over, frowning. "That's... odd."

  "That’s almost two hours unaccounted for," Byron said. "Where was it in the meantime?"

  "That doesn’t make sense. Shipments get scanned the moment they arrive."

  "Not this one," Warren said, pulling up log discrepancies. "Looks like the database flagged it as 'pending clearance' for an extended period. Someone overrode the automatic scan."

  "Anyone who could do that?" Byron asked.

  Ayla's voice was tight. "Just me and Vex."

  "I'll bet you're not the one responsible, huh?" Geneve quipped. "So you’re saying the cargo was sitting here, unregistered, while someone was... inside it?"

  "I'm guessing someone or something could have been smuggled in during the time it was 'pending clearance', which would explain how they get inside. What we need to find out is where it got flagged," Warren said, sifting through the database.

  "Or," Byron added, "someone in the supply chain tampered with the cargo before it even arrived."

  "That's a hell of a theory," Ayla said. "You’re saying we’ve got dirty hands at the shipping yards?"

  "Just covering our bases," Byron said, flipping through the logs. There were multiple entries that matched the pattern. "The shipment tonight, has its route been consistent with previous ones?"

  "No. It’s a new route, a new shipper. Vex pulled some strings to get this deal."

  "Then whoever's behind this, they either have foresight and an escape plan, or they're betting on the payday," Warren mused. "Otherwise, I'd say it's someone on the inside."

  "So what now?" Byron asked.

  Ayla stood, adjusting her coat. "You lot keep digging. I'll check in with my team."

  As she walked away, Byron turned back to the screen, the words and numbers blurring together. If he had to be honest, he'd rather have an enemy to stab than a mystery to solve.

  Then again, they might still get both tonight.