Chapter 4 : Patience
The loading dock smelled like rust and fish guts.
I crouched behind a stack of wooden pallets, binoculars pressed to my eyes, watching Tank shake down the owner of Pacific Freight. The conversation was too far away to hear, but the body language told the story. Tank loomed. The owner wilted. An envelope changed hands.
Day four of surveillance. Same pattern as yesterday.
[TUTORIAL QUEST: FIRST EXTRACTION] [TIME REMAINING: 3 DAYS, 6 HOURS, 14 MINUTES]
Tank moved through the warehouse district like he owned it. And in a way, he did. Three businesses paid him every day, regular as clockwork. The money went into his jacket pocket without counting. He trusted the fear to make sure the amounts were right.
Arrogance. The kind that got people killed.
Or in his case, something worse.
I shifted position, feeling the burn in my thighs from holding the crouch too long. Harrison Griffin's body was recovering from the coma faster than expected—military conditioning, probably—but I wasn't at full strength yet. The physical therapy exercises helped. The hours of walking the warehouse district helped more.
Tank finished his collection and moved to the next location. I checked my watch. 6:47 PM. He'd arrived at 6:03, same as yesterday. Same as the day before. His schedule was predictable down to the quarter hour.
That predictability was going to kill him.
Not literally. I wasn't planning murder. Just... theft. Of his abilities. Of his power. Of everything that made him dangerous.
The distinction mattered to me. Whether it would matter to Tank was another question.
I followed at a distance, keeping buildings between us, using the lengthening shadows for cover. Tank walked with the swagger of someone who'd never been challenged. His crew—two ordinary humans who handled the actual intimidation—trailed behind him like pilot fish following a shark.
At 7:15, they reached the third collection point. A small shipping company that handled regional deliveries. The owner, a woman in her fifties with tired eyes, handed over her envelope without making Tank ask. She'd learned.
My phone buzzed. A text from Marcus Webb: Any updates on the situation?
I typed back: Still assessing. Will have more soon.
Soon. Three days, technically. After that, Tank wouldn't be anyone's problem anymore.
The collection route ended at 8:30. Tank's crew split off—heading to a bar on the corner, probably spending their cut of the protection money. Tank continued alone, taking his usual shortcut through the alleys.
I knew that route now. Every turn. Every shadow. Every potential witness.
Tomorrow, I'd know even more.
Day five brought revelation.
I'd positioned myself on a fire escape overlooking the loading dock at Pacific Freight, the first stop on Tank's collection route. Close enough to observe details. Far enough to avoid detection.
At 6:08 PM, a dock worker made a mistake.
He was young—early twenties, new to the job based on how the veterans avoided him. When Tank approached the dock, the kid didn't clear out fast enough. Words were exchanged. The kid said something that made Tank's face darken.
What happened next changed my entire approach.
Tank grabbed a shipping crate—the kind that took forklifts to move—and lifted it one-handed. The wood creaked under his grip. His arm didn't shake. He held five hundred pounds like it was nothing.
Then he threw it.
The crate sailed fifteen feet and exploded against the dock wall, showering the kid with splinters and packing material. The message was clear. The kid ran.
But I'd seen something else.
When Tank set his feet for the throw, the uneven concrete shifted under him. His boot slipped on a piece of broken pallet. He caught himself on a support beam, palm scraping against the metal.
When he pulled his hand away, it was bleeding.
Enhanced strength. Normal durability.
The distinction mattered. A lot.
[TARGET ANALYSIS COMPLETE] [CLASSIFICATION: STRENGTH ENHANCEMENT — ESTIMATED C-TIER] [VULNERABILITY CONFIRMED: STANDARD HUMAN DURABILITY]
I smiled behind my binoculars. Tank could lift cars and throw shipping crates. But a taser would still drop him. A knife would still cut him. Pain would still hurt him.
He was strong. He wasn't invincible.
That changed everything.
The alley behind the old cannery was perfect.
I walked it three times before sunset, memorizing every detail. Narrow—barely wide enough for two people to pass. Poor lighting from a single flickering streetlamp at the north end. No security cameras within two blocks. Minimal foot traffic after the warehouses closed at 10 PM.
A loading dock on the east side provided concealment. A dumpster on the west created a natural chokepoint. The cannery itself had been abandoned for years—no workers, no witnesses, no interruptions.
Tank walked through this alley every night between 10:30 and 11:00. The shortcut shaved five minutes off his route home. He never deviated.
I stood in the spot where I'd wait for him. The shadows here were deep enough to hide in, close enough to the path that I could strike before he registered the threat.
Sixty seconds. The system said extraction required sixty seconds of sustained physical contact. I'd need to immobilize Tank, maintain contact, and complete the process before he could break free.
With his strength, that meant total incapacitation. The taser would buy me seconds. Zip ties on his wrists would limit his leverage. But if he got his hands on me before the extraction finished...
My body moved without conscious thought.
One moment I was standing in the alley, planning. The next, I was flowing through a combat stance—weight shifting, hands rising to guard position, feet finding optimal balance. The movement felt natural. Instinctive.
Harrison Griffin's muscle memory.
The original owner of this body had been Army. Eight years of service. Combat deployments. Whatever training he'd received, it was still encoded in the neurons, waiting to be accessed.
I practiced the stance again. Deliberately this time. The motion was smoother than anything I'd ever done in my old life. Faster. More efficient.
I spent an hour in that alley, teaching my mind what my body already knew. Strikes and blocks. Footwork and positioning. The basics of hand-to-hand combat that Harry Morgan had never learned but Harrison Griffin had drilled until they became reflex.
By the time full darkness fell, I could access the training consistently. Not perfectly—my conscious mind kept trying to interfere—but well enough. I could throw a punch. Execute a takedown. Control a resisting opponent for sixty seconds.
Maybe.
Tomorrow night would be the test.
My apartment looked like a serial killer's preparation room.
Taser on the kitchen counter—fully charged, fresh cartridge. I'd acquired it from a contact in the Glades who didn't ask questions and only accepted cash. Industrial strength zip ties beside it, the kind rated for five hundred pounds of force. A black ski mask to prevent identification.
I laid everything out in order. Checked each item twice. Ran through the sequence in my mind.
10:30 PM: Position in the alley behind the cannery. 10:34 PM: Tank enters the alley on his usual route. 10:34:15 PM: Taser strike from concealment. Two seconds to close distance. 10:34:20 PM: Physical takedown. Secure wrists with zip ties. 10:34:30 PM: Initiate extraction. Maintain contact for sixty seconds. 10:35:30 PM: Extraction complete. Withdraw. 10:36 PM: Tank wakes up alone, weaker, confused. Alive.
The system pulsed at the edge of my vision.
[PREPARATION ASSESSMENT: ADEQUATE] [EXTRACTION SUCCESS PROBABILITY: 34%]
Thirty-four percent. One in three chance of success.
Those odds should have scared me. In my old life, I wouldn't have bet a dollar on thirty-four percent. But this wasn't my old life. This was survival. The tutorial quest had a deadline, and failure meant death.
I'd take thirty-four percent over zero.
My stomach growled. I hadn't eaten since the protein bar I'd choked down at noon, too focused on surveillance to think about food. The refrigerator held leftover Chinese from two nights ago—orange chicken that had gone rubbery, fried rice that tasted like cardboard.
I heated it up and ate it anyway. Every bite.
Tomorrow might be my last day. Or it might be the first day of something extraordinary. Either way, I needed fuel.
The system displayed the tutorial timer one more time.
[TIME REMAINING: 2 DAYS, 1 HOUR, 47 MINUTES]
Tomorrow night. Everything changed tomorrow night.
I set my alarm for 6 AM and closed my eyes.
Sleep came eventually.
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