The alley was narrower than Cain remembered. Light fractured between two half-burnt neon signs, their buzz faint behind the silence. The walls had been scrubbed, repainted, scrubbed again. But the air remembered. He could smell it in the mix of scorched rubber and synthetic resin—a trace only blood and fire could leave.
He stepped over a drain he recognized.
That was where the second round had hit. That corner there, where the heat flash melted the first coat of his last burner jacket. That wall—he'd leaned on it for half a breath too long before dropping.
Cain stood in the middle of the alley and didn't move. The System didn't say anything. He wasn't here for memory. He was here for confirmation. Footsteps echoed behind him.
Not rushed, Intentional.
Cain slipped into the gap between two dumpsters. Low shadows wrapped around him. He waited, one knee on a crate, heartbeat buried.
A man entered the alley, mid-thirties, short coat with civilian posture, but the way he scanned the corners wasn't casual. He knelt beside the drain. Pulled something from his pocket—a flat device with a thin lens.
Scanned.
Cain watched as the man paused, adjusted the lens, then aimed it beneath the grate. The device blinked green. He didn't look surprised. Just took a picture. Then he moved to the wall—that wall—and did it again.
Cain stepped out.
The man turned. Froze.
Cain said nothing. The man raised his hands halfway. "Not here to steal."
"You're not from around here."
"Freelance." The man shifted weight. "Got paid to verify."
"By who?"
"Didn't give a name. Just a code string and some drop instructions."
Cain stepped closer. The man didn't run.
"I'm just a data runner. I don't even know what I'm scanning. Said to check heat residue patterns. Look for leftover pulse."
Cain reached for the scanner. The man hesitated, then handed it over.
Cain turned it over. Clean build. Modified port. Registered to a generic burner ID—no name. But the software inside had a partial network ID. The same formatting used in the Mire archive.
Cain pocketed it.
"You seen anyone else with one of these?"
"No. Just got the job this week."
Cain let him go with no threat and trail. The man walked off fast, and didn't look back.
Cain stood in the alley again.
Alone.
Then the System pulsed.
[System Update: Tier-E Confirmed – Countdown Extended +18:00]
A quiet extension.
No fanfare. Just time. Enough. Cain exhaled slowly. Whatever that job was—it counted.
But this scanner said more than just pulse traces. It said someone else was following a path. One that started here. With him. With this death.
He left the alley without looking back. Took a side tunnel under the old monorail line, cut across a drainage corridor, and climbed into a dead Guttercrew relay hatch three levels underground. Dark. Cold. Quiet.
He sat and turned the scanner on. The map blinked open with four locations on it.
One was the alley.
One was Eli's old cache site.
One Cain didn't recognize.
And the last—
He froze.
It was a location he remembered. One tied to a name he'd erased personally. The kill had been sanctioned. The cleanup was clean. The burner self-wiped.
So why was it back on this map?
Cain zoomed in. A symbol flickered in the data overlay—burned into a relay node near the site. A spiral over a broken circle. He'd seen it once. On the shell of a burner that was supposed to disintegrate. The same job where he ranked back in.
Cain moved before doubt could catch up. He dropped through a cracked panel behind the relay hatch and followed the drainage slope two sectors east, past a series of scorched loading docks that hadn't been used in years. The coordinates from the scanner weren't on any crew route. This was fringe space—pre-cut from maps, post-blackout. The kind of place you didn't stumble into. You were led here.
He passed under an old freight lift, then crouched near a rusted ladder bolted into reinforced wall plating. A marker was scratched just above the base: that same spiral over a broken circle.
Cain didn't hesitate.
He climbed.
At the top, he kicked in the seal and entered a black-out corridor — lightless, full of dust and peeling thermal tape. The air was dry. Bone dry. This wasn't a place that forgot people. It was a place built to erase them.
The tunnel narrowed. Ended in a reinforced bulkhead split into thirds.
Cain checked for trip wires.
None.
He pressed the center panel.
It opened with a hiss.
Inside was a vault chamber—half collapsed. No lights, no sensors. Just an old, locked dead-drop cache bolted into the wall. Scratched into its shell: another spiral.
He crouched to check the edges.
No alarms. No tamper seals.
He cracked it.
Inside: a burner. But not just any burner. Slim, matte black, military shell. Red stripe across the edge. Same build as the one from his first reentry kill. The one that should've disintegrated with the contract complete.
Cain turned it over, It was still functional, still charged. He pressed the side panel. The screen blinked once.
A list opened, target logs it was five of them.
Four names struck familiar chords — all sanctioned kills.
But the fifth—
The fifth name wasn't someone Cain had touched.
It was a Tier-A handler named Vohrn Kes.
Still active. Still protected.
Still alive.
Yet his name was at the bottom of a burner that should no longer exist.
Cain's jaw locked.
The burner didn't end the list with "Complete." It ended with: "Queued."
He'd never seen that flag before.
And this burner—this job—wasn't addressed to anyone. No rank, no crew. Just a neutral status: "Awaiting confirmation."
[System Passive – No Sync Registered]
The System ignored it. That was what made Cain more tense.
This wasn't official. This wasn't part of the ladder, this was something else.
Cain checked the inner casing. Beneath the battery, he found a secondary data wafer. Embedded. Hardened. It held only a single locked file.
Location flag: Northwest Ashvale – Ghost Zone – Sublevel K13.
That wasn't just off-grid. That was where city memory went to die. Cain pocketed the burner. Turned toward the exit. Behind him, a faint scratch of movement echoed through the corridor.
He didn't breathe.
He waited then heard another sound. Like a boot sliding over dust. Not many people knew how to follow him. Whoever was here now didn't want to be seen.
Cain stood still.
Then moved fast. Back through the panel, down the ladder, across the drainage path. But as he emerged into the open utility stretch—
He saw it.
Another spiral.
This one fresh.
Scratched into the wall with something sharp