The city of Elridge never slept, but tonight, it didn't breathe either.
A blanket of tension gripped the skyline—cops on edge, ganglines shifting, and somewhere in the middle of it all stood Ethan Ward, watching from the top deck of the Harborbridge Terminal. His breath ghosted in the cold air, the orange glow of sodium streetlamps casting elongated shadows beneath him. Below, semi-trucks rumbled across the bridge, ferrying goods, some legal, most not. And one of them carried a shipment that would change everything.
He adjusted the grip on his pistol. A silencer was screwed onto the barrel, and his coat flared behind him in the wind, flapping like a war banner. It was quiet here, eerily so. The city was holding its breath, and he was the flame threatening to ignite it.
Ethan knelt behind the rusted guardrail and pulled out a compact surveillance monitor wired to the small drone buzzing overhead. On-screen, a black semi with "HAVEN INDUSTRIAL" printed on the side crept through the lanes.
That was the one.
"Come on," Ethan whispered to himself, feeling the weight of the moment settle into his bones. "Just one more move…"
He remembered what Devon had told him just before he died—about the shipment, the device embedded within, the hidden data core buried in the metal like a ghost inside a tomb. It was worth millions, but it wasn't the money Ethan was after.
It was leverage.
Leverage he could use to finally force the hands behind everything—the fake raids, the disappearances, the pills flooding the streets like a poison meant to rot the poor.
As the truck rolled past lane six, Ethan stood and dropped from the top platform, his boots slamming hard onto the metal catwalk below. His coat billowed as he landed, and he ducked beneath the shadow of an access scaffold. Below him, the truck continued its slow, determined journey, heading toward the checkpoint manned by corrupt guards. Once it passed that, it'd be gone for good.
Ethan moved like a whisper of smoke, slipping between girders, descending ladders, until his boots touched the bridge's maintenance lane beside the truck's path. He waited. Watched. Counted.
Thirty seconds. He had thirty seconds.
He darted forward, his fingers snapping the magnetic latch onto the truck's side. With a grunt, he climbed, flipped over the top of the trailer, and crouched down, heart pounding. Beneath him, the city roared like a sleeping beast, unaware that the spark of revolution sat perched above it.
He reached into his bag, drew out a small hacking device, and began carving through the seal of the rooftop hatch.
Click. Whir. Hiss.
The lock gave way.
Ethan opened the hatch just enough to slip in.
What he saw made his blood chill.
Inside the trailer was a steel vault—the kind used for military transport. Embedded into its surface were biometric sensors, cooling systems, and black cables feeding into a strange, organic-looking core pulsing with light. This wasn't just tech. It was something alive. A prototype?
"Jesus…" Ethan muttered. "What are you hiding?"
He moved closer, reaching for the device in his bag that would decrypt the core's contents. But as he leaned forward, a sharp beep sounded.
Motion sensor.
He had seconds.
Ethan dove behind a crate as the vault powered up and hissed, steam venting out like a breath from a dragon's mouth. The trailer jerked. A panel on the side folded inward.
Then it spoke.
"Unauthorized access detected. Executing lockdown protocol."
No.
Before he could move, metal bars dropped from the ceiling, slamming into the floor with a loud clang. The hatch above him locked shut.
He was trapped.
Outside, the driver had heard nothing. The truck rolled on, smooth and unaware. Inside, Ethan scrambled to his feet, kicking at the bars, trying to find a way out. But the walls were solid steel.
Panic clawed at the edge of his mind. He forced it down.
"Think. Think."
Then his eyes landed on the cables. The ones connected to the core.
He had one last option.
Ethan pulled out a signal spike from his coat—a short-range device meant to disrupt closed-loop circuits. He slammed it into the side of the vault, and instantly the lights flickered. Sparks erupted. A warning alarm blared. The core hissed, then coughed… and shut down.
The steel bars began to retract.
He was free.
Ethan climbed back to the top hatch, pried it open with a grunt, and launched himself back onto the bridge.
As he hit the pavement, the truck swerved wildly. The driver must've seen him.
"Tough luck, asshole," Ethan muttered and bolted into the shadows.
Behind him, tires screeched. A car peeled out from under the underpass, headlights blinding.
He was being followed.
They knew.
Adrenaline surged. Ethan sprinted across the walkway, bullets pinging off the railings beside him. He dove behind a concrete pillar just as the car's engine roared closer.
Two men stepped out, dressed in black tactical gear—ex-military by the look of them. Their eyes were cold. One of them raised a rifle.
But before he could fire, a gunshot rang out—from the far end of the bridge.
Pop.
One guard dropped. Then the other.
Ethan turned.
Standing in the mist, clad in a gray trench coat and holding a sniper rifle, was Mara.
"What the hell took you so long?" Ethan shouted as she approached.
"Traffic," she said with a smirk. "You get what you needed?"
He nodded, breathing hard. "Yeah. And a whole lot more."
Together, they slipped into the night, leaving the wreckage behind.
Later That Night – Safehouse
The rain came harder now, drumming on the roof of their hideout like a war march. Ethan sat shirtless on a stool, blood trailing from a fresh graze on his side. Mara crouched in front of him, applying antiseptic with rough but steady hands.
"You're lucky I was nearby," she muttered.
"I don't believe in luck," Ethan replied.
"Then believe in me."
He looked at her, really looked. There was a hardness in her—like steel bent but unbroken. But beneath it, the faintest flicker of something warmer. Familiar.
"I do," he said quietly.
They locked eyes. A beat passed between them—silent but charged.
Then she pulled away, professional once more.
"I'll analyze the data. See what was inside that core."
Ethan nodded, but his mind was already moving ahead.
Whatever Haven was transporting... it wasn't just tech.
It was a weapon.
And he had just declared war.
Across the City – Unknown Location
A man in a suit stood before a massive digital wall displaying surveillance feeds. The bridge. The truck. The explosion. The firefight.
He watched it all in silence.
"Ward's becoming a problem," a voice said behind him.
The suited man didn't turn. "He's becoming the solution."
"To what?"
The man finally turned.
His face was scarred, clean-shaven, and eerily calm. His name was Marcus Vale—the puppetmaster, the strategist behind Haven Industries.
"To break the system," he replied. "Before we rebuild it."