The wind howled across the shell of Spire Three, dragging dust like smoke through the ribcage of the old structure. Once a communications tower, it was now just bones—charred metal beams twisted into claws against the sky.
Kael stared up at it, hood pulled low. "Doesn't look like much."
Mira smirked. "That's the point."
They were perched on a ledge across from the tower, overlooking the dead zone of Sector 11. No Enforcer drones here—not since the Collapse. The static field around the tower scrambled everything, including life support. No one lived this close.
Except maybe ghosts.
Mira handed Kael a scope. "You're looking for three things. Entrance node, wiring junction, and any signs the place has been scavenged."
Kael scanned the wreck.
Entrance: half-buried hatch near the base. Junction: exposed cabling running down the south side, sparking faintly in the wind. Scavengers? Nothing moved. Not yet.
"No heat signatures. Just rats."
Mira nodded. "Rats are good. They mean it's not fully rigged. Yet."
They'd spent the last two days off-grid, sleeping in ruins, tracing the map Mira had pieced together from old records and memory-nodes. Spire Three had been central to the network once—an anchor for the city's data spine. If the Core was hidden anywhere, it would be here.
But it also meant it was guarded by more than just broken doors.
"You sure the data Core is even real?" Kael asked, voice low.
Mira didn't answer immediately.
"Real enough that they killed for it. Real enough that we're risking ours."
That was all he needed.
She slid down the slope, footsteps silent.
He followed.
They reached the hatch by dusk, cloaked in shadow. Mira connected a bypass spike to the lock. It hissed with static and popped open, releasing a foul stench—mold, metal, something burned long ago and never cleaned.
They climbed down into blackness.
Inside, the tower felt alive. Not warm, not welcoming—more like something watching, something old and waiting. The kind of silence that made your heartbeat sound like thunder.
Lights flickered from Kael's wrist band. "You sure it's stable?"
Mira grinned. "Stable's a relative term."
They moved deeper, stepping over bones of old consoles and shattered display panels. Wires hung like vines. At the center was what they'd come for: a vault door marked with ancient glyphs—pre-collapse encryption. Burned into the wall beside it was a phrase:
> "DO NOT AWAKEN THE CORE."
Kael exhaled. "That's not ominous."
Mira placed her palm on the panel. "Only if you're afraid of waking things."
Before Kael could reply, a voice crackled from her comm pin.
"Hey, Mira. You there?"
Ryn.
Mira's face went rigid. "Not now, Ryn."
"Yeah, well—too bad. We've got a problem."
Kael leaned in. "What kind?"
Ryn's voice dropped. "I made contact with an old source in the Lower Tiers. Enforcers aren't just watching Spire traffic—they're scrambling a task unit. Not a sweep. A precision kill team. They're mobilizing tonight."
Kael swore.
Mira asked the only question that mattered: "Who's the target?"
A pause.
Then: "You."
The line went dead.
---
Meanwhile, Ryn ducked into the shadows of a half-collapsed alleyway, heart racing. The man she'd spoken to—Keto—was a former drone pilot. Burned, broken, and supposedly loyal to no one.
Until he told her what he'd seen.
"A signal went out from Sector 11 three nights ago. Pinged across four relay towers. Ghost packet. Encrypted and buried. But someone caught it. And now they're tracing it back to you."
Ryn didn't ask how he knew.
She just knew what it meant.
Someone had leaked their movements. Someone wanted Mira dead—and Kael with her.
The Enforcers weren't cleaning up evidence.
They were hunting anomalies.
And whatever lay in Spire Three?
It was bait.
---
Back in the depths of the tower, Kael stared at the vault.
It was humming now—quiet, almost like a breath.
"We can't open it," he said.
"We have to," Mira answered. "Before they find us."
"But if they're coming now—"
Mira turned to him, eyes cold fire. "Then we give them something worth chasing."
And with that, she touched the glyphs.
The vault screamed open.