It was past midnight when Shadow's team rolled quietly into a suburban outskirts of Warsaw. The target: General Drago Malenkov, a notorious arms dealer rumored to be stockpiling the serum operatives for sale. A satellite photo pinned him inside a safehouse. Tonight, Shadow would tail an ally to Malenkov's op.
"Coordinates locked," Jovan murmured from the co-driver seat of the aging SUV. Across the dashboard, holographic maps overlaid route plans. Shadow scanned the paper-thin screen. The target had a bodyguard detail and some civilian cover.
Suddenly, the screen flickered, red alert. Something anomalous. "What?" Liu squinted. The data streamed corrupted. "Hacking attempt, multiple sources."
"Ghost routing," Shadow muttered. Malenkov had tech-savvy men or bigger guns. They'd have to manually proceed without comms.
"It's now or never," Yara said sharply. The plan had been to camp until dawn. The target left for a meeting, and she planned to tail him into the safehouse for evidence. "He's on the move. We follow."
The team piled out. Shadow adjusted his pistol, tightening the grip. It was a quiet Polish suburb: neat houses, parked cars glinting under streetlights. An autumn wind chilled the trees.
"Hiding in plain sight," he thought.
A black sedan pulled out ahead. Three men inside — the deal made long-distance. Shadow held back, doubt flitting. Something felt off. The sedan's exhaust came too loud, the driver too stiff.
"Stop," Jovan whispered, but Shadow made no move.
The sedan rounded a bend. Shadow's gut twisted. The cars after them didn't exist in their assignment. The sedan stopped outside a nondescript garage. Its tailgate popped, revealing crates rather than weapons. Something obviously heavy.
"Where's Malenkov?" Shadow asked quietly.
Yara's eyes were on the street. "I see movement on foot. Someone walking east, towards the park."
Shadow's heart sank. It wasn't Malenkov leaving, but a courier. Or perhaps a trap.
He motioned for Yara and Liu to flank the approaching man. Shadow circled left, patrolling in shadow by parked trucks.
The young man carrying a battered suitcase strutted alone. A pair of figures slipped from the garage — not normal guards, but two men with a strange gait, as if they moved in two textures at once. They had the look of enhanced operatives. One's eyes glowed faintly green; the other's boots made no sound at all.
"Stalker and Whisper," Yara identified in a huddle. "Stalker – optical camouflage, can vanish; Whisper – sound nullifier, silent approach."
The man glanced around anxiously. "Please, let me pass," he muttered to Yara and Liu as they moved to intercept. "I'm just heading home."
Without a clear line, Shadow realized he had no intel either.
"Cipher operations," Yara added. "This wasn't in the dossier."
Shadow tightened his grip on the rifle. Something was severely wrong. The man tried to walk past. Yara nodded, allowing him through.
No sooner had he passed than Whisper slipped out of the shadows. He raised a collapsible baton, aimed to strike the courier.
"STOP!" Shadow roared, stepping into the street. Whisper pivoted, revealing a slight grin. He whipped the baton down, but Shadow teleported the swing into thin air with a split-second portal glance, bullettrain slow.
Stalker shimmered into view behind Shadow, a trick of optics. Shadow felt the air distort as Stalker threw a punch.
Shadow spun, one hand anchoring a portal on the pavement. Punch connected with portal rim, redirecting Stalker's fist back at him. The enhanced operative staggered.
"It's a trap," Shadow yelled, dodging a kick from Whisper whose boots hit nothing. Whisper vanished again, reappearing further down the street behind Yara.
Yara dropped, sliding under a car. Liu hurriedly put Yara's backpack on to block Whisper's strike from behind. Dragan broke cover, half-covered by Shadow's position, and opened fire with a suppressed assault rifle. Whisper dissolved into a spray of rain — it was shadowy cloak, not flesh — when bullets hit nothing.
Shadow sprinted toward the courier. The suitcase in the man's hand clanked. "What do you know?" Shadow demanded, pushing the teenager against the wall.
The boy's eyes were wide with fear. "I—had to…" he stammered. "They said if I didn't deliver it, they'd kill my sister. I didn't know—"
Whisper reappeared by Liu, closing fast. Liu's comms jammed again.
"Intel!" Shadow cursed, pressing side against the wall as Whisper glided right by.
Something behind Shadow lit up. Stalker shot from open port—no, not Shadow. A rifle sniper behind that shutter.
"Crossfire!" staccato shots sprayed by.
"Get down!" Shadow shoved the boy into an open driveway.
Liu and Yara knelt behind a tank truck. Shadow saw the muzzle flashes glint on a high rooftop across the street — a true sniper, unsilenced.
"RIP, incoming!" Yara yelled. A round tore through the hood of the tank truck, showering sparks. Dragan returned fire, smashing the sniper's cover, but the shooter was prepared.
Tactical instinct overcame confusion. Shadow assessed: Whisper could cancel sound, Stalker vanish, sniper had mid-range deadly aim. If Whisper wore him down, sniper and Stalker would team-flank. He needed to break this cycle.
Yara rolled to her feet, firing bursts of auto. She nailed Whisper's thigh. The silent man hissed but made no sound. Enough to trip him.
Stalker bolted into a tree line at end of the road. Shadow dashed to intercept. The boy fled with the case, heading to the relative safety of onlookers. "Stop that kid!" Shadow snapped to Dragan.
But Whisper had cut off Yara's return. She vanished again, then reappeared at Liu's side, barreling into Liu with a silent lunge. Liu's exosuit took the hit and staggered but steady. Whisper's fist slammed, teeth-baring aggression, Yara was too far.
Shadow lunged at Whisper, but more fire shredded near-misses around him. Stalker circled, time bending in his optical field; he was broad leaps away one moment, inside Shadow's periphery the next.
At the brink of the drenching rain, Shadow realized these adversaries were precisely orchestrated: each covering an avenue of approach and distraction.
He had to act fast and decisively. He drew on every second: activated a portal trap. On the asphalt behind him he inscribed the outline of an abrupt step: a small portal. He sprinted through it, reappearing inside an alleyway behind the sniper's nest.
The shot from the sniper's rifle whizzed harmlessly overhead, unaware. Shadow dashed across the rooftop behind, saw the sharpshooter adjusting, turning.
Shadow came in from the right. He raised his suppressed pistol, aimed. Whisper, now free to join, turned his gaze from Yara's tussle with Liu to Shadow behind the sniper, muddy instinct failing in the face of precise resolve.
"Here," Shadow hissed to Yara, a shrill silent note — aside from gunfire — amid chaos.
From above, Dragan slammed the sniper with a cinderblock, sending him over edge.
At Shadow's pistol's whisper and disciplined shot, Whisper dropped. A heavy smothered thud.
Stalker, pinned down by Yara's furious heel kick, regained form. Shadow vaulting, mind sharpened. He shot the legs, one by one, through a portal behind. Stalker fell and crashed.
Three down; the sniper unconscious. Rain washed the boulevard clean of blood. Only Jovan stood, panting, a few blocks away hidden. The courier child dashed behind a police barricade, case intact.
Shadow approached him, crouched. "Kid, we need answers."
The boy shook, eyes flicking from Shadow to a chalking uniform. "It's just delivery — Vladislav's in the garage. Money exchange, arms."
Yara appeared, drenched, pistol lowered. "Got it." She snapped. "Serum in arms trade. Was it meant for this." She motioned at handcuffed Whisper.
Shadow observed the two captives — they were gnashing, glaring at him. The whole street underful of night-slick asphalt. Each captured foe's enhancements sealed in containment cuffs.
"It looks like Malenkov's safehouse was a decoy. The real ops happen here, mixing serum with arms. Your father can stay in the gutter," he said gently to the boy.
The police swarmed in, taking Whisper and Stalker to armored vehicles.
Shadow felt no triumph. He saw Yara's blood under fingernails, Liu's torn uniform, Jovan's weary eyes. They had survived, but the cost of discovery surged in adrenaline-laced victory.
"Intel says you were right." Yara said as Shadow cleaned his rifle on his coat. "This Vladislav… he's Malenkov's liaison. They're planning a sale soon."
Shadow didn't smile. A burning light in him lulled as the adrenalin faded. The Prometheus web just got thicker.
He stared at the rain. "We go after Vladislav next."
In the silence, Shadow's team felt the unease: how many such streets might hold this mixing of science with war? And how many times they'd walk them, chasing shadows in the rain?
Shadow pocketed a dark vial he retrieved off the Stalker — a piece of evidence: a drop of purple serum on a swab. Morality clung to his hands as he wiped it clean. "At least we got something."
They vanished in the night, blue lights flashing.