The rain had stopped hours ago, but the streets of Veyrun still glistened under the pale light of the moon. The air carried the metallic tang of the city's vast machinery—ventilation towers sighing into the night, the distant hum of maglev lines, and the occasional echo of boots striking wet pavement.
Darrel moved silently along the alleyways, his coat drawn close against the cold. His mind was still replaying the message he'd intercepted hours before.
"The Neural Gate will open at 0300 hours. Extraction required. No witnesses."
The Neural Gate. A name whispered in the shadows, the kind of phrase that only existed in black-budget projects and classified archives. Darrel had read about it once—an experimental portal connecting not physical spaces, but consciousnesses. Whoever controlled it could slip into another person's mind, walk through their memories, and—if they were skilled enough—alter them.
And now, apparently, someone was going to use it tonight.
---
He reached the meeting point—a derelict warehouse whose steel walls were covered in layers of rust and graffiti. One of the windows on the second floor flickered faintly, a signal he recognized.
Inside, Cassian was waiting. The tall, broad-shouldered man leaned against a crate, arms crossed, his expression carved from stone. Beside him, a smaller figure—Aera—was dismantling a compact drone with precise, almost surgical movements.
"You're late," Cassian said without looking up.
"I had to make sure I wasn't followed," Darrel replied, stepping into the light. "What's the situation?"
Aera didn't look up from her work. "The Gate's being activated in an old government facility just outside the city perimeter. If our intel is right, they're targeting someone high value. We don't know who."
Cassian finally met Darrel's gaze. "We go in, stop the transfer, secure the subject. And if necessary… destroy the Gate."
Darrel frowned. "You're aware destroying it could cause a neural backlash, right? Anyone connected when it collapses could have their mind burned out completely."
"That's why you're here," Cassian said. "To make sure that doesn't happen."
---
They departed minutes later in a black, unmarked transport, the vehicle gliding through the industrial sprawl until the city lights faded behind them. The facility rose out of the darkness like a jagged scar—tall, skeletal towers surrounding a central dome that pulsed faintly with bluish light.
Security drones hovered in synchronized patterns, their red optics sweeping the perimeter. The hum of the place was unnatural, almost like the entire building was breathing.
Aera tapped into the drone network, her fingers dancing across her wrist console. "I can give us a ninety-second blind spot in the patrol pattern. After that, we're on our own."
Darrel adjusted the strap on his rifle, though the weapon felt almost useless against something like the Gate. His real weapon tonight was knowledge—years of studying neural systems, of understanding how the mind could be fractured or remade.
"On my mark," Aera whispered. "Three… two… one."
They moved.
---
The interior smelled of ozone and antiseptic, the corridors lit by thin strips of white light embedded in the floor. The deeper they went, the louder the low-frequency hum became, resonating in Darrel's bones.
Then they reached the Gate chamber.
It was larger than he'd imagined—a vast, circular room with a machine that looked like a ring forged from shards of glass and metal, suspended in the air by invisible forces. Within the ring shimmered a liquid surface, like a mirror disturbed by unseen currents.
Two technicians worked frantically at consoles along the walls. Between them stood a tall figure in a black coat—face obscured by a featureless mask.
Darrel's eyes narrowed. The masked figure held a data spike in one hand, its tip glowing faintly. And strapped to the chair in front of the Gate was… a boy. No older than fifteen.