The air was freezing, but the residual heat from the thermal beam that had just carved away the twenty-fifth floor licked at the soles of Davis's ruined shoes.
He was in absolute freefall. The neon grid of the Financial Quarter rushed up to meet him, an endless canyon of glass and concrete completely indifferent to his survival. The wind screamed in his ears, tearing away the last glitching fragments of his holographic "Director Davis" disguise, revealing the cold, calculating expression beneath.
He reached out, fighting the drag of terminal velocity, and snatched the handle of the falling matte-black briefcase mid-air.
He tapped his comms. "Jasmine. You're up."
Three blocks away, perched atop a massive industrial air conditioning unit overlooking Exchange Square, Jasmine Badem took a breath. Even crouching, her athletic, five-foot-nine frame held a coiled, explosive grace. She wore her specialized mission tracksuit—a sleek black base cut with vivid green accents, form-fitting enough to not catch the wind but flexible enough to accommodate her payload. Her soft, round face, which usually looked far too young and kind for a warzone, was set in absolute concentration.
She pulled her streamlined goggles down over her sunset orange-green eyes—a necessity when moving at speeds that would otherwise tear human retinas.
"On my way," she whispered.
She activated her payload. Her naturally light ginger, fluffy curls violently shifted color, igniting into a vivid, glowing neon green. Emerald lightning violently crackled across her skin, the air around her instantly smelling of ozone and singed dust.
She dropped off the heavy AC unit and sprinted. She didn't run on the street; she ran on the architecture. Manipulating the friction coefficient beneath her boots, Jasmine bounced from the sheer glass face of one skyscraper to the next, a jagged green streak of electricity defying gravity across the New Kong skyline.
Davis was forty feet from the pavement. Then twenty.
Green lightning fractured the dark.
She intercepted him at the third floor. Jasmine's arms locked tightly around his torso, the kinetic shock instantly absorbed by the crackling green aura enveloping her skin. She manipulated their combined friction, dragging them into a steep, controlled arc. They hit the wet asphalt of the alleyway feet-first.
They didn't just land; they skidded. Jasmine's boots carved a smoking, ten-foot trench into the pavement before she finally killed their momentum, bringing them to a flawless halt.
The man pretending to be Davis absorbed the last of the impact through his knees. Without missing a beat, he shoved the heavy briefcase into her chest.
"Get this to Rob," he ordered, his breathing barely elevated. "Then get back down here and clear the civilians. Six-hundred-meter radius from the Kinjo Tower. That laser will cut them in half if they stay to watch."
Jasmine adjusted her goggles, wild strands of neon green hair floating in the static charge around her head. "Are we not done? We already have the case."
"We have a bit of time left before NKPD or those damn NCC are on us. Got to see if we can get the guy that was carrying it too," he said, looking back up at the smoking, melted ruin of the twenty-fifth floor. "Or at least make sure Sho doesn't die."
Jasmine raised an eyebrow. "In that order?"
"Depends on how cooperative he feels."
Jasmine didn't argue. She vanished in a blinding streak of emerald, the displaced air cracking like a whip as she bolted toward the extraction point.
The man in the ruined corporate suit cracked his neck, the sound sharp in the alleyway, and began to move toward the adjacent building where Sho should be.
---
Six Hours Earlier — The Green Gate
The briefing room glowed with a sickly green ambiance, holographic displays painting tactical data across every surface. Maps of New Kong floated above the war table, courier routes highlighted in pulsing red.
Benedic Gray sat at the head of the table. He wore his standard immaculate suit, his short brown hair perfectly styled, his red eyes sharp under the light. Even seated, he didn't demand attention; his presence simply collected it.
Robert Han stood to Benedic's left, leaning over the console with casual arrogance. His dark blue hair fell perfectly across his forehead. The man treated every global espionage situation like a mildly interesting puzzle, and his engineering genius had just cracked a network the entire underground had been chasing for a decade.
"As you all know," Benedic began, his voice carrying the weight of absolute authority, "the Big Boys hold a grand NovaBreed auction once a year. It is the epicenter of global trafficking. Governments buy unregistered weapons. Corporations buy disposable labor. Monsters buy toys. And the location has always been a ghost operation. Until tonight."
Robert's signature smirk widened. He tapped the holographic interface. "We intercepted a courier route. The Big Boys' agents transporting the physical location data to their high-tier clients. We know exactly where the handoff is happening."
Twelve different projected paths converged on a single point in the Financial Quarter.
"Kinjo Financial Tower. Twenty-fifth floor," Benedic said, gesturing to the glowing wireframe. "Intercepting this operation doesn't just get us the auction location. It deals a critical blow to their reputation as the untouchable apex of the trafficking market."
The man in the black turtleneck studied the rotating red grid from his seat. It was too clean. The Big Boys didn't leave trails unless they wanted someone to follow them.
Sho crossed his arms, his pale chest bare as always, the wild explosion of his white-pink hair catching the holographic glare. "Where exactly are we to intercept them?"
From the remote monitoring speakers, Amber's exhausted but clinical voice crackled into the room. "Inside the structure. The courier team is scheduled to arrive by air via a military-grade transport helicopter. Engaging them mid-air is entirely off the table. We don't know the exact makeup of their security detail, and a firefight over the Financial Quarter would bring the NCC down on us in under three minutes."
Amber paused, a few rapid keystrokes echoing over the comms. "Not to mention the civilian casualties if we drop a burning chopper onto Exchange Square. We can't risk an open-street exchange. We need to take this quietly."
Jasmine shifted nervously beside the man in black, her orange-green eyes tracking the tactical overlay. "And if quietly stops being an option?"
"Then we go loud, and I'll make sure to give you the extraction window you need," Amber replied. "But we have an advantage. I've already pulled the Kinjo personnel files. The drop is being overseen by a Director Davis and his lead security officer. I have their locations. We pay them a visit first, borrow their faces, and walk right into the vault to meet the couriers."
Benedic steepled his fingers, leaning forward slightly. "The briefcase is our primary target. But taking one of the couriers alive—specifically whoever is physically carrying the payload—would be highly beneficial. The Big Boys compartmentalize everything, but a carrier of that tier will have operational intel we can use."
In the corner of the room, standing completely motionless, Rose watched the display. Her back-length reddish-pink ponytail hung perfectly straight. Her deep red eyes didn't blink. She offered nothing to the conversation, because she didn't need to. Her role wasn't planning; it was execution.
The man with the heavily bandaged left arm tapped his fingers against the table. "So we take Davis's face, grab the courier, take the case, and get out clean. Simple."
Sho snorted, leaning forward. "When has anything we do ever been simple?"
---
Present
Static hissed in Davis's earpiece.
Standing in the alleyway, the cold wind of the city biting at the edges of his ruined suit, the disguised Director pressed the comms unit. "Sho. Status."
Sho's voice crackled through, strained and ragged. "Eh. Nothing much, just getting my ass handed to me."
A deafening *CRACK* echoed through the earpiece—the unmistakable sound of a human body being put through a solid concrete floor at high speed. Splintering rebar. Shattering drywall. Sho was getting dismantled.
Davis stared up at the burning skyline, where the lasers were still carving modern art into the architecture.
Sho was right. It was never simple.
Davis rolled his shoulders, feeling the frost begin to gather at his fingertips, and started walking back toward the service entrance of the building Sho was currently being manhandled in.
It was going to be a long night.
---
To Be Continued