Chapter 42 – Side Quest
Luke stood at the bus stop five minutes after the figure vanished, staring at wet concrete where slush should have held at least one clear heel mark.
Snowmelt had pooled in the cracks. A torn transit schedule flapped against cloudy plastic.
A cigarette butt smouldered in the gutter, still warm, but there was no trail.
Nothing human.
Petra’s voice moved through his mind, low and precise.
“Residual suppression weave. The same class as the warehouse assassins. Better tailoring than the alley attacker, you mentioned before”
Luke crouched and touched two fingers to the ground.
The concrete felt ordinary. Cold. Damp.
No blood. No trace.
He straightened and scanned the street again.
Families carrying groceries.
A delivery rider is cursing at his frozen bike lock. A dog shaking sleet from its ears near a lamppost. Normal city rhythm, indifferent to predators.
He reached for his phone and typed one message to Nadia.
Need eyes. Quiet. Not through official channels.
Then another to Felix.
Pull cams around Block 14. Last 20 mins. Masked posture target, bus shelter opposite 6B.
He paused.
Added one more line.
Do NOT tag central intel.
He sent both, slipped the phone into his coat, and started walking toward the nearest main road to catch a corporate ride back.
Halfway to the intersection, his phone buzzed again.
Emily sent an image of the girls with a message.
Girls are still arguing about city zoning.
He looked at the message for a long moment before replying.
Good. Means they're okay.
No extra words. He locked the screen and kept moving.
By the time Luke reached Silver Moon’s operations level, the winter sun had sunk into a pale iron haze over the city.
The briefing room lights were too bright.
Felix was already there, three holographic panes spinning over his tablet, dark circles under his eyes carved deeper than the day before.
Nadia stood near the wall, jacket half-zipped, hair still damp from melted snow, a suppressed sidearm stripped open on the table in front of her.
Marcus leaned by the door with folded arms. Rowan sat with his bandaged forearm propped on the table, looking like he wanted someone to give him a reason to hit something.
Luke shut the door.
“We have a tail problem,” he said.
Rowan’s head lifted immediately. “Good.”
“Not good,” Nadia said flatly. “Depends on whether this is a tail or a lure.”
Felix flicked two fingers, and one holo-pane expanded, showing static-heavy footage of the street outside Emily’s building.
“I scraped municipal feeds, traffic cams, two private storefront cameras, and one doorbell unit from across the block. Same timestamp window. Here’s the thing.” He zoomed frame by frame. “At 12:43:11, you’re visible leaving the building. According to your report, there should be a figure at the bus shelter at 12:43:16. But on every feed? Nothing. Pixel noise, mild light warp, and one weird refraction artefact at shoulder height.”
He highlighted a bent line in empty air.
“It’s like the camera tried to render a person and gave up.”
Nadia slid the cleaned pistol back together with a metallic click.
“Suppression weave, then.”
Luke nodded once.
“Likely.”
Marcus spoke, voice low and gravelly. “They're watching you or the family?”
Luke didn’t answer immediately.
That was the right question.
He looked at the table, then at each of them in turn.
“Both are unacceptable.”
Rowan leaned forward. “So we hunt.”
Luke’s gaze shifted to his bandaged arm.
“We track first.”
Rowan’s jaw tightened. “We tracked last time, too.”
“No,” Luke said. “Last time we reacted. Tonight we track.”
The room held that for a beat.
Then Nadia asked, “Scope?”
“Local. No central reporting. No Silas. No boardroom memo.”
Felix gave a sideways glance. “If they’re shadowing a corporate field lead in a residential block, and we hide that from command, we’re one unlucky timestamp away from a career-ending lecture.”
Luke met his eyes.
“If this is what we think it is, the command already has ten blind spots and three agendas. I need a signal before politics.”
Felix held the stare, then sighed.
“Fine. Illegal side quest. I knew today felt too clean.”
Nadia holstered her pistol.
“I’ll take point on street-level contact patterns. Felix runs a digital dragnet. Marcus handles transport and fallback points.”
Rowan stood halfway from his chair. “And me?”
Luke looked at him.
“You stay available. Visible. Loud. If this goes bad, I need a hammer on call, not in the first room.”
Rowan sat back down hard, displeased but silent.
Luke tapped the table once.
“We move in twenty.”
Three districts away, Emily sent twins to her parents' house, then sat under white medical lighting while a Bureau legal liaison read from a thin tablet in a voice trained to remove all heat from words.
“Agent Emily, this is a preliminary internal review regarding operational conduct during the Warehouse 42 incident, specifically your disclosure obligations under conflict-of-interest protocol.”
Her arm was still in a sling. The pain sat under her shoulder like a nail that shifted whenever she breathed wrong.
Across the table sat Team Leader Arlen, expression neutral, hands clasped. To her right, Arthur Pendelton stood instead of sitting, as if chairs were for people with less pedigree.
The legal liaison continued.
“Your prior marital connection to a primary opposing combatant was not declared in the mission briefing.”
Arthur laughed once, soft and joyless.
“Primary opposing combatant,” he repeated. “Interesting phrase for someone’s ex-husband.”
Arlen’s eyes moved to him.
“Arthur.”
Arthur lifted one hand in mock surrender and kept his mouth closed.
Emily held her own tone level.
“My prior marriage is in personnel records. Not concealed. Not recent intelligence.”
The liaison nodded.
“Noted. However, active relevance—”
“Active relevance is determined before deployment,” Emily cut in. “I had no prior notice that Luke would be on-site. If we’re retroactively classifying every historical relationship as mission-critical, we can assign half the city to desk duty.”
Arthur’s smile sharpened.
“You had enough notice to look surprised when you saw him.”
Emily turned to him.
“You had enough notice to fire a full-volley Phoenix release inside a mixed-faction enclosed structure.”
Arlen exhaled slowly.
“Both of you.”
Silence dropped.
The liaison scrolled.
“Separate concern. During phase three of engagement, one hostile lost footing at close range immediately before your defensive kill-shot. Do you have any comment on the anomaly?”
Emily’s pulse gave a single hard beat.
That moment.
The stumble.
The impossible opening.
She kept her face still.
“Steam, blood, broken flooring, poor visibility,” she said. “Combat accidents happen.”
Arthur folded his arms.
“He moved like a trained cult knife. Then he falls on flat concrete? Convenient.”
Arlen finally spoke, calm but firm.
“Convenient or not, Agent Emily protected Jack under direct lethal pressure and neutralised a hostile at point-blank range while injured. That is not under dispute.”
He looked to the liaison.
“Put this in the record: operational readiness issue was incomplete hostile detection due to suppression-class gear. Not interpersonal compromise.”
The liaison nodded again, typing.
Then Emily heard it.
A soft mechanical chime no one else could hear.
Blue text flickered at the edge of her sight, faint and private.
[Hidden Thread Detected.]
[Probability Interference Cluster: Eastern Residential Sector.]
[Marker: False Shadow.]
[Recommendation: Observe without escalation.]
Emily’s breath caught for less than a second.
Arthur was still talking.
“Observe without escalation,” she thought bitterly. “You say that like people don’t bleed while observing.”
The System window faded.
The liaison closed his tablet.
“Preliminary session concluded. Follow-up review in forty-eight hours.”
Arlen stood.
Arthur didn’t move until Emily did, then fell into step beside her as they exited into the corridor.
He kept his voice low.
“If he appears on my battlefield again, I won’t ask questions.”
Emily didn’t look at him.
“If you fire another indiscriminate burst with teammates in your cone, you won’t need to ask. Arlen will remove you himself.”
Arthur smiled without warmth.
“We’ll see.”
He turned down the opposite hall.
Arlen waited until he was out of earshot.
“You all right?”
Emily adjusted the sling.
“I’ve been worse.”
He studied her for a moment.
“You’re holding something.”
“Everyone is.”
Arlen gave her that half-disappointed, half-approving look he used when he knew he wouldn’t get the full answer.
“Take the rest of the evening.”
“I have reports.”
“They’ll survive.”
He started to leave, then paused.
“Emily.”
She looked up.
“If you see anything off-grid tied to the warehouse, bring it to me before it reaches Vale.”
A beat.
“That’s not an order,” he added. “That’s me trying to keep this team alive.”
Emily nodded once.
“Understood.”
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