The signal led him deeper into the alley. Cain passed the busted wall of a tenement complex and slipped through a side alley washed in sewer mist. The burner phone in his coat buzzed again, low and insistent.
[Tracking Ping: Active]
The screen showed a pulsing red dot half a block ahead, shifting. Roach was moving fast, zigzagging across ruined rooftops and alleys like someone trained to vanish but Cain wasn't chasing him with GPS.
He read broken fence wire and saw a blood smear on a dumpster lid and shifted brick under an open window. He followed like a ghost.
The buildings got quieter the deeper he went he noticed that there were no lights, no dogs barking and no crew tags. This wasn't turf, this was a graveyard zone.
He climbed a drainage pipe and entered a third-floor window. The room beyond was rotted drywall and mold. He noticed there was a sleeping bag lying on the floor empty.
Cain stepped past it, checked the hallway. He saw a half opened door, He pushed it open. The man slumped in the chair wasn't Roach.
This one was on black jacket tactical boots with his neck broken, bullet in the face. Cain checked the body, it was still warm. Blood pooled across the tiles.
Roach was burning his trail.
Cain just stood still for three long seconds.
Who sent me?
He asked himself, hadn't thought of it but now. A freelance job, no binder, no face. Just a target name. And now Roach was cleaning up like someone covering a leak.
Then it dawned on him this wasn't just a hit. It was a rope and Cain had just grabbed the wrong end. He tried to move down the hall, down the fire stairs. Every floor creaked wrong, every shadow shifted like it remembered violence.
Cain froze when he got to the second floor. Someone was breathing hard beyond the cracked door. He stepped in fast. He saw a boy, maybe seventeen with his hood pulled low. Blood was leaking from his side. He was not one of the warehouse shooters, just a runner.
Cain grabbed the front of his shirt. "Where's Roach?"
The kid coughed, eyes glazed. "Up... top... steelworks."
Cain leaned closer. "Why?"
"Test," the kid rasped. "Ranked. Upper hands."
His eyes rolled and his head tilted. Breath stopped.
Cain stood for a second.
Steelworks.
He slid the burner back into his coat and started moving.
[System Alert: Beacon Still Moving – 422 Meters North-East]
Cain's legs burned with every stride, but his rhythm didn't break.
He didn't know who Roach was meeting but if the word ranked was involved he wasn't walking into a reunion.
The steelworks rose like a rusted carcass at the edge of Ashvale's skyline twisted girders, buckled smokestacks, windows blacked out with soot. Cain reached the outer wall and ducked into a shattered panel between two crushed storage tanks.
[Ping: 71m — Static Drift Detected]
He shut the burner and moved by memory.
Inside, the air reeked of old oil and scorched carbon. The factory floor had massive catwalks overhead, vats on either side, and hanging chains that rattled faintly from the wind slipping through the cracks.
Voices echoed faintly.
Cain crouched behind a cooling unit and peered through the slats. Roach stood near a furnace pit, talking to two figures. One wore a hooded coat, the other a sleek mask with slotted eyes. No crew markings, no names. Just posture controlled, calm, superior.
Cain couldn't hear much. Just enough.
"...Data's clean. Untraceable."
Roach offered a small black drive. The masked one didn't move.
The second man extended a hand with long fingers, metal bracers glinting with weld sparks. As he took the drive, the steel beneath him flexed, rippling upward before hissing flat again.
Not tech, Power. Cain's spine tensed. He checked the exits no guards, no drones. No one expected a tail.
Good.
He took out the throwing knife tucked behind his boot. Two steps to the left, ten forward. Roach turned his head.
Cain moved.
He came down from the side scaffold like a shadow. No noise, no breath.
He didn't aim for a kill. He hit the wrist. The man dropped the drive with a bark of pain. Cain caught it mid-air. Rolled hard behind a pressure vat. Shots rang out old pistols, not suppressed. Meant to intimidate.
Cain was already moving.
Footsteps chased. Metal boots on steel.
A chain swung over his head. He ducked, slid across the ashslick floor, and kicked open a side panel leading to the vents.
He didn't look back and didn't need to. He knew Roach saw him.
[System Ping: Drive Acquired – Signal Redirected]
Cain crawled through the tight shaft, turned hard left, and dropped through a back exit hatch onto a maintenance walkway above the street. He landed hard, rolled once and came up fast.
The System flared in his skull.
[Sync Level: 12%]
[New Trait Detected: Kinetic Reinforcement – Stage I]
Cain flexed his hand. His bones felt... lighter. Stronger. Then the burner buzzed. Once.
He checked the screen.
[TRACK COMPROMISED – ECHO DETECTED]
[You are now being followed]
Cain stared at the screen, then he looked at the city ahead.
"So it starts."