Kali had initially assumed it would take only a few days for the chaos of battle to fade, to dissolve into whispers and half-muttered theories, as it always did. But instead, everything had spiraled violently out of control. In the span of just seventy-two hours, the situation had escalated into something far more catastrophic. A string of coordinated terrorist attacks rocked the city, bombings at crowded public transit hubs, targeted kidnappings of influential city elites, and a growing tide of riots that seemed to ignite spontaneously in neighborhood after neighborhood. The twin cities weren't just unsettled, they were caught in a frenzy, a feverish storm of panic and outrage the likes of which hadn't been seen in generations.
Worse still, the media, driven by Darius and his backers, had latched onto a narrative with all the subtlety of a noose. Kali and Priene, were now plastered across every holoscreen and newsfeed as the supposed masterminds behind the carnage. The headlines screamed for blood. The authorities obliged. Now they were being hunted from all sides, the city's regular police, bounty hunters, even the black-armored agents of the AFD.
They'd gone to ground in the week since, hiding out in basements and abandoned complexes on the outskirts, moving only under cover of darkness. But Kali was growing restless, caged in by the weight of inaction and the mounting pressure of being framed for a war he hadn't started. He needed movement, needed purpose. So, as dusk swallowed the skyline in its ember glow, he made a decision.
Slipping into the outskirts of Medri, he found an unattended car parked beneath a dead streetlight. It took him less than a minute to override the security protocols. The engine growled to life beneath his hands, and he slid behind the wheel. Kali turned toward the residential district, his mind set on someone he needed to see.
The street he was after was called Polygonic Avenue, a clean, forgettable stretch of middle-class suburbia, flanked by narrow student apartments and prefab duplexes with peeling smart-glass windows. The kind of place people passed through on the way to somewhere more important. During his brief tenure as a senior inspector, Kali had made a habit of studying his subordinates. That was how he remembered that Liv Hammon lived here.
It didn't take long to locate her building, a squat, beige structure with a half-lit directory panel and a flickering hallway cam he disabled in passing. He skipped the lift and took the stairs two at a time, emerging on the third floor where the air was heavy with synth-curry and old carpet glue.
Apartment 125. He adjusted the plain nose mask he'd slipped on two blocks back, then grabbed a discarded package from beside the stairwell. The label was faded, but it would do. Holding it under one arm, he knocked twice, sharp, deliberate.
A pause. Then a muffled voice from inside. "Who's there?"
"Delivery for room one-twenty-five," he said, dropping his voice into a gruff, neutral register, just enough to sound official but forgettable.
There was the sound of movement inside. The click of a lock. The door creaked open an inch, then a little farther. Liv stood there in casual clothes, blinking at him in faint suspicion.
"I didn't order anything," she said, brow furrowing.
He dropped the box without a word. It hit the floor with a hollow thud and when she looked back up, he had a compact handgun leveled at her chest.
"I'll shoot before you can scream," he said, voice razor-sharp now, no pretense.
She froze, eyes wide. Fear and confusion.
"Back up," he added.
She stepped back slowly, her hands partially raised, not quite surrender, but not resistance either. With a slight nod, she let him in.
The apartment was modest and forgettable. Clean, but not curated. White walls, a synthetic rug, the lingering scent of packaged noodles. A single window let in the dim orange glow of streetlight, casting long shadows across the sparsely decorated living room.
He shut the door behind him and pulled off the nose mask. When she saw his face fully, recognition hit her like a slap. Her breath caught, sharp and involuntary.
"Sir…" she began, voice faltering. Then, after a pause, her tone changed, cooler, guarded. She didn't finish the sentence. "Please don't kill me."
"I won't and I'm not your boss anymore," he said, his voice flat. He gestured at the sofa. "Sit."
She hesitated, then lowered herself into the seat with deliberate calm. Kali could see the tension in her shoulders, the way her fingers lightly tapped against her thigh.
"Were you ever?" she asked after a beat, eyes narrowed. "They told us you were the Evangelist. Said you were a traitor."
"Not entirely untrue," he replied, moving past her toward the desk in the corner. "I was embedded as a double agent for Central. Monitoring potential threats, leaking just enough to keep the chain tight. But somewhere along the way, I found something I wasn't supposed to." He looked back at her, voice quieter now. "Now they want me dead. And they're pinning the whole mess on me."
"A good story," Liv said, folding her arms. "But I don't think you came all this way just to confess."
"I didn't," he confirmed, already scanning her cluttered desk setup. His eyes landed on the neural-link terminal, still humming in standby. "I need access to the CIB database. You still have clearance."
She didn't move. "If I help you, I become an accomplice."
"Tell them I threatened you, cause I will," he said.
She nodded, booted up the system and logged into the database. "What are we looking for?" she asked at last.
Kali took over the interface without a word, his fingers moving with a practiced efficiency. The neural system responded instantly, projecting file overlays in a dim glow across the desk surface. He began filtering through incident reports, detonation schematics, eyewitness accounts, forensic overlays, atmospheric disruptions. He wasn't just looking for details, he was hunting for patterns, signatures, names that shouldn't be there.
This wasn't just a frame job. Darius wasn't doing all this to bury him alone, there was a deeper calculus at play. Kali could feel it in the precision of the bombings, the timing of the riots, the targets chosen.
As he combed through classified files, some redacted, some hidden in mirrored caches, Liv hovered silently at his side. She hadn't moved since giving him access. She stood like someone waiting for a storm to pass or a verdict to fall.
Then he sensed a shift.
It wasn't a sound. It was the absence of one. The soft hum of street traffic outside, the buzz of scooters, the occasional distant chatter, had disappeared. The room had become unnaturally still, as though the entire world was holding its breath.
Kali turned slowly and walked to the window. The street below, once a river of motion, now lay abandoned. Cars idled unattended. Doors were shut. Lights flickered in a pattern too synchronized to be random.
It was too quiet.
He didn't turn around when he asked, "Who did you call?"
Liv stiffened behind him. "No one!" she cried, her voice brittle with fear. Her hands went up instinctively.
Kali turned, gun already raised. His face was cold. Measured. "I won't ask again."
She hesitated, just a heartbeat too long. Then, in a small, broken voice: "The interface... it logged your facial profile. I let it send a ping to Thomas when it recognized you."
"Why Thomas?" Kali asked, after all John should be her new superior.
"John's escorting the governor's daughter to Jacob's ladder," she answered immediately.
"Doesn't matter now."
He didn't hesitate. With a quick, brutal motion, he struck her across the head with the butt of his pistol. She dropped instantly, crumpling into the carpet like a puppet with its strings cut. He'd calibrated the blow, not enough to kill, just enough to concuss. Enough to show she'd been coerced, should anyone question her later.
"Sorry," he muttered. "You might need that story."
He moved fast now. No more time for regret. By the time he reached the stairwell, the air was already vibrating with the low, mechanical thrum of incoming armor. Heavy wheels rolled over pavement. A series of synchronized clanks echoed through the concrete, lockstep movements of mechanized troops, reinforced boots hitting the ground like war drums. AFD.
They were here.