Wren's Yamaha coasted to a stop, engine cut, fifty metres off the main track.
The forest was damp, heavy with the smell of moss and wet leaves, swallowing most sound.
He dismounted without a word, wheeling the bike into a gap between two thick pines and covering it with a camo tarp from the pannier.
No lights. No metal glint. Invisible unless you walked into it.
The SUV's engine rumble was faint but growing.
Through the trees, the glow of its night-vision headlights swept in slow arcs across the undergrowth.
Wren crouched low and pulled open the slim pouch on his thigh rig. Inside were three tools: a length of high tensile cord, a palm-sized EMP puck, and a karambit knife with a dull, dark blade.
He worked fast, silent.
The cord came first - looped between two trees over the track at shin height, taut enough to whip a vehicle's suspension if hit at speed.
Fifty centimetres ahead of that, he buried the EMP puck in a mound of leaves, setting the trigger to proximity.
The SUV's front sensors wouldn't pick it up until it was too late.
Wren slipped back into the trees and waited.
The forest seemed to hold its breath with him.
When the SUV appeared, it was crawling forward, tyres sucking at the mud.
The driver leaned forward in concentration. The tracker was scanning the undergrowth with her AR lens, lips moving as she relayed directions into her mic.
Five metres from the puck.
Three.
WHUMP.
The puck went off—no fire, no bang, just a deep, swallowing thud.
The SUV's lights died instantly. Engine coughed, then went dead. The comms went silent in the tracker's earpiece.
The driver swore and reached for the door handle—
Wren was already there.
He yanked the door open and slammed the driver's head into the frame with a single, sharp movement. Out cold.
The tracker spun, going for her sidearm. Wren caught her wrist before she could clear the holster, twisting hard until the ligaments popped. She bit back a cry, tried to drive a knee into his ribs but was hindered by the seats.
He stepped inside the arc of her kick, swept her legs, dragged her out and took them both to the ground.
She rolled, quick, trying to use her AR rig to scan for backup—
Wren tore it from her face and crushed it in one hand.
She froze, staring up at him.
The burn scars half-hidden by his hair, the cold precision in his eyes.
"Who the hell are you?" she hissed.
Wren didn't answer. Couldn't.
But he let her see the karambit in his hand—close enough that she understood the choice she had.
Her gaze flicked to the trees, calculating escape.
Wren shook his head slowly. Pointed to her radio.
She swallowed and tossed it toward him.
A faint crunch of tyres on dirt reached them—another vehicle, still distant. Reinforcements.
Wren bound her wrists with nylon cord, gagged her with her own scarf, and dragged her into the undergrowth. He left her there, hidden, before vanishing in the opposite direction.
By the time the second team arrived, the SUV was dead, the driver unconscious, and the tracker gone from sight.
Only the wind through the pines remained.
The Dead Estate
The forest thinned without warning, spitting Cara out onto a long, overgrown lane.
Her bike hummed under her as she coasted forward, weeds brushing her boots, the smell of salt stronger now.
A black iron gate loomed ahead—rusted through, hanging crooked from one hinge. Beyond it lay a wide gravel drive, choked with moss and grass, leading to the skeletal remains of Langcroft Estate.
The place felt wrong. Not haunted exactly, but emptied. The air was still in that way that suggested nothing living wanted to linger here.
She killed the engine and let the silence settle.
Even the system's faint glow felt muted in this place.
[System Notice: Entered Restricted Zone – Langcroft Archive Perimeter]
Risk Level: Tier 2 (Environmental) / Tier 4 (Hostile Unknown)
"Hostile unknown," she muttered, kicking the stand down. "Yeah, that's reassuring."
The manor itself was a ruin—stone walls blackened by fire, the roof caved in long ago. Ivy had claimed half the façade, creeping over shattered windows and into the upper floors like green veins.
But what caught her eye was the ground.
Not the front entrance… but the faint outline of something beneath the weeds to the right—a sunken shape, rectangular, too deliberate to be natural.
The system pulsed: Potential Access Point – 86% Match to Archive Substructure.
She moved toward it, boots whispering over the grass.
A small flight of stone steps led down to a heavy steel hatch, the kind used in military bunkers. The rust was minimal—someone had been maintaining this, even after the estate's supposed "demolition."
Cara crouched, brushing away debris. The locking mechanism was intact, combination-coded.
[Optional Task: Breach Access Point without triggering security]
Reward: +1 System Skill Unlock Token
Her fingers hovered over the dial.
She'd done locks in the army, but this wasn't just about skill. Whoever had kept this place sealed knew what they were protecting.
She closed her eyes, letting the faint overlay from the system sharpen—lines, numbers, tension points lighting in subtle gold.
The dial clicked. Once. Twice. Again.
The lock disengaged with a muted clunk.
The hatch opened on silent hinges, a breath of cool, dry air escaping from below.
A staircase vanished into darkness.
[Caution: Archive entrance integrity compromised. Possible presence detected.]
She glanced over her shoulder at the empty drive. No Wren yet. No tail.
"Alright," she whispered to herself, sliding the sword's tattoo into activation. The blade slid from her forearm like liquid steel, humming faintly in the gloom.
Then she stepped down into Langcroft.
The Silent Question
The tracker woke to the smell of damp earth and the faint creak of trees swaying overhead.
Her hands were still bound, her ankles lashed together, a strip of duct tape across her mouth. She lay on her side against the trunk of a massive oak, half-hidden beneath a camo tarp.
Wren crouched a few feet away, lit by the dim glow of a rugged tablet. His face was shadowed, hair falling over the burn scars that marked one side.
He wasn't looking at her. He was reading her comms log.
The moment her eyes locked on him, he closed the tablet, stood, and walked over.
No words. Just the cold, assessing gaze of someone deciding how much you're worth alive.
He knelt and tore the tape from her mouth in one sharp motion.
She hissed at the sting, then spat: "You're dead, whoever you are. You hear me? The Dominion doesn't just—"
He raised a hand—flat, steady, palm out. A silent stop.
From a side pouch, he pulled a small field notepad and a pen, scribbling two words in block capitals:
WHO SENT YOU?
She smirked despite herself. "Like I'd tell a mute freak."
The pen hovered over the page. His eyes didn't change, but his other hand pulled the karambit free, the curve of its blade catching what little moonlight bled through the canopy.
He wrote again.
YOU HAVE 60 SECONDS.
Her smirk faltered. "Even if I did tell you, you wouldn't make it out alive. They've got—"
He didn't blink.
"—fine. Fine. The Auditor. Canary Wharf node. Level B4."
She shifted uncomfortably under his stare. "I was told to track you and the girl. Capture alive if possible. Kill if not."
Wren wrote: WHY THE GIRL?
The tracker shook her head. "Don't know the details. Just that she's not who she thinks she is. And that your name's been on a Dominion kill list for years."
Her eyes narrowed. "Funny thing is, you disappeared. Everyone thought you were dead. But someone in Command said if you were still breathing, you'd find her. Looks like they were right."
He studied her for a long moment, then pocketed the notepad.
She tensed. "What now? You gonna—"
The knife flashed once—not at her throat, but at the cord around her ankles.
He hauled her to her feet, shoved her toward the wrecked SUV still half-visible through the trees.
She stumbled, turning back with confusion.
"You're letting me go?"
Wren didn't answer.
He just pointed—first at her, then at the forest, then made a slicing motion across his throat.
The message was clear: Next time, no mercy.
By the time she limped back to her team's vehicle, he was gone.
No footprints. No sound. No trace he'd ever been there.
Except for the tablet, now empty of all her comms data.
Below the Ashes
The cold from the open hatch was seeping into her bones.
Cara stood at the top of the steps, every instinct telling her to hold position until Wren showed up.
But the longer she waited, the louder another thought got in her head: This place isn't going to stay empty forever.
Her eyes flicked back to the tree line beyond the ruined manor. Still no movement. No sound but the faint hiss of the sea somewhere beyond the cliffs.
"Fine," she muttered, tightening her hoodie around her and adjusting the strap on the small pack slung over her shoulder. "Your loss, Wren."
The steps were worn stone, slick with condensation. Her boots scuffed against them, every sound amplified in the confined space. The air smelled faintly metallic, like old machinery and dust.
Halfway down, the system whispered into her vision:
[Archive Perimeter Breach – Security Status Unknown]
Environmental Hazard Probability: 43%
The stairs ended at a steel blast door—ajar, one hinge warped. Beyond it stretched a corridor lined with bare pipes and faded hazard stencilling in military block script.
The floor was dry. No footprints.
She moved slowly, sword sliding into her palm from the tattoo without sound. The familiar hum of its energy edge steadied her heartbeat.
The corridor opened into a chamber that didn't match the ruin above.
This was intact—walls of reinforced concrete, ceiling strip-lights flickering dimly from an emergency power feed. Rows of metal shelves lined the space, holding crates stamped with cryptic codes.
She set the sword against her shoulder and pried the lid off one. Inside—bundles of old paper files, each sealed in waxed envelopes.
Her eyes snagged on the printed text of one: SOLACE – PATERNAL LINE / CLASSIFIED
Her pulse spiked. She tore the seal, scanning the first page.
Names.
Dates.
Locations.
Her father's name.
And a photo—faded, but clearly him—standing beside a man she didn't recognise, both in military dress. The insignia wasn't British.
A low click echoed from somewhere deeper in the archive.
She froze.
The system's overlay flared:
[Warning: Unauthorised Access Detected – Hostile Presence: 1]
Footsteps, slow and deliberate, coming from the far passage.
Not Wren's tread. Too heavy. Too… measured.
She slipped behind one of the shelving rows, sword low, breath steadying.
If this was one of the "hostiles unknown" the system had warned about… she was about to find out what Langcroft was hiding.
The footsteps were closer now—boots on concrete, the sound echoing along the cold corridor like a countdown.
Cara tightened her grip on the sword, pressing her back against the metal shelving.
The system overlay still pulsed in the corner of her vision:
[Hostile Presence: 1 – Distance: 14m and closing]
She let her breath slow, muscles coiled, ready to move the instant she saw a silhouette.
The steps stopped.
The silence after was worse.
Something shifted to her left. The faintest brush of air—
A tap on her shoulder.
Cara spun with a snarl, blade flashing, only stopping when she realised who it was.
"Jesus—Wren!" she hissed, heart hammering. "Do you want me to put this through you?"
He only tilted his head, expression calm, one corner of his mouth almost curving like he found her panic amusing.
Her voice dropped to a whisper. "I thought you were the hostile the system warned about."
He glanced toward the corridor she'd been watching, then back to her, raising two fingers and pointing in that direction.
So… she wasn't imagining it.
They moved in sync now—Cara shifting left down a parallel aisle, Wren circling right, both keeping low and silent.
The sound came again: slow, dragging footsteps, with the faint metallic scrape of something heavy being carried.
Wren signalled: One target. Possible weapon.
Cara nodded, adjusting her stance. "You go high, I'll go low."
They edged toward the end of the shelving row, the passage beyond lit in intermittent flickers from a dying strip light.
A shadow appeared first—tall, broad-shouldered, moving with deliberate weight. Then the man himself stepped into view.
Combat boots. Black fatigues. A matte-black rifle slung casually over one shoulder. His head turned slightly, as if listening for something.
And on the left breast of his jacket, the faint silver crest of a Foundation sigil.
Wren caught Cara's eye, the look in his telling her everything:
This was no scavenger. This was Dominion-trained.
And from the way the man's head snapped toward their position, he knew he wasn't alone anymore.