Talon headquarters did not greet Dagger with applause or ceremony. It never would.
He returned silent, blood dried in the grooves of his gloves, smoke still clinging faintly to his coat from the collapse of the Arc Spire. He walked through the underground corridors like a ghost, bypassing the debriefing chambers entirely.
He had a different errand. And it had to be done before Cain summoned him.
Sub-Lab 3 was empty when he entered. The lab lights recognized him with a low hum.
WELCOME, DIRECTOR WEISS.
Dagger's stolen access. He moved to the primary workstation, home of Meret's base formula. Rows of nanite interaction sequences and spinal bonding protocols floated across the screen like a digital river. He didn't delete the formula.
He simply damaged it, the way a micro-fracture could doom a skyscraper.
A decimal shift in the protein hook. A silent recursive loop introduced into the metabolic ramp.
Such things that wouldn't be detected in a single scan. You would have to be looking for it to know something was wrong. An elegant sabotage.
The serum would now bind successfully… until it reached the spinal node. Then it would fail catastrophically. Every time. Randomly enough to appear natural.
Meret was now dead. And nobody would ever know why.
He wiped the terminal, dissolved the drive, and slipped out of the lab minutes before the night shift arrived.
By morning, the panic had begun:
"Sir, the new trials failed."
"Subject after subject, rejection."
"The formula appears intact, no corruption."
"We don't understand what changed."
Dagger listened from the hall as Talon scientists tore their hair out. He walked away before any could question him to help fix it.
Cain called him in that evening. The councilman stood with his hands clasped behind his back, jaw reflecting the overhead lights, eyes narrowed in a calm that always felt like a warning.
"Meret collapsed," Cain said without preamble.
"Figures, there were too many variables to consider. It was a miracle we got ten in the first place." Dagger replied.
Cain studied him. "But the project was a success, nevertheless."
Dagger did not blink.
"Yes," Cain continued, "because it did what we needed it to do. It produced soldiers. It produced data. It provided insight into bioadaptive warfare. Whether the serum fails now… irrelevant."
He stepped forward.
"You completed the Weiss operation. You survived the lockdown grid. You neutralized your squad without allowing a single unit to be captured or used by outside forces."
The metal jaw shifted in what might have been a smirk.
"That level of pragmatism is valuable."
"Thank you," Dagger said.
"You're being reassigned," Cain finished. "To someone who values such traits."
She waited in the deep archive chamber, dim lights, air cold enough to sting.
A woman in a fitted black suit and an onyx-colored half mask stood with her back to him. The mask reflected nothing; it swallowed light instead. When she spoke, her voice was velvet laced with razors.
"You're late."
"I wasn't summoned," Dagger replied.
She turned.
Her alias, Nyx. Her presence was dangerous in a way entirely unrelated to combat.
Her mask framed dark eyes that didn't blink enough. Her lips curved lightly when she assessed someone, like a person judging whether a diamond was real or imitation. And her posture was that of someone who had never been surprised in years.
Cain gestured between them.
"Nyx handles Talon's misinformation architecture. She builds narratives. Destroys truths. Or corrects them." His gaze flicked to Dagger. "She will lead. You will support."
Nyx stepped closer, studying him like a puzzle.
"I read your field reports," she said. "Very clean. Almost too clean."
"Make it sound like a problem."
Her gaze was subtle and sharp. "It's a resource." She folded her hands behind her back.
"There is an artifact," she began, "one spoken of only in rumors. Called the Echo Obelisk."
Dagger blinked once. He knew what, rather who, Echo was but she wouldn't be around for years. This was new to him. "What does it do?"
"No one knows," Nyx answered. "Only that it manipulates memory. And that alone makes it priceless."
Her eyes sharpened. "We have a lead. A site in America. You will infiltrate it alone, since you're so good."
Dagger nodded once. "Understood."
Rain hammered the streets when Dagger reached the underground facility.
The entrance was concealed beneath a condemned shipping warehouse near the East River docks. But the air vents betrayed the lie, which was warm, humming with old power systems.
Dagger slipped inside with surgical silence. The lab was abandoned but intact.
Dust on instruments. Notes pinned to walls. Old power boxes humming weakly.
And three terrified scientists huddled in a corner. They screamed when he stepped out of the shadows. They stopped when they realized he wasn't police.
He was something worse. Dagger grabbed the oldest scientist by the collar and slammed him into the rusted terminal.
"Where is the artifact?"
"The... the Obelisk? We… we don't have it anymore," the man stammered.
"Where is it?" Dagger repeated, voice calm as a scalpel.
"It was moved," another scientist blurted out. "At the start of the Omnic Crisis. A government order. Emergency relocation."
"To where?"
"We don't know," the first said quickly. "Only one person ever had clearance to handle relocation. Only one ever saw the full documentation."
"Name?"
"We don't know his real one," the scientist whispered. "But people called him The Curator."
Dagger let go. The man collapsed in fear, scurrying back to huddle with the other scientists. He ignored them, turning around to leave.
The Curator. He'd gotten a lead. Mission complete.
Nyx listened without interruption as Dagger reported. When he finished, she exhaled slowly.
"One man," she murmured. "One man with the location of the artifact. One man who walked through the Omnic Crisis still holding that knowledge."
She straightened.
"And he is here."
"In America?" Dagger asked.
"In New York City," she confirmed. "At an event. A gathering of donors, industrialists, underground collectors, and off-the-books traders."
"A dinner party."
Nyx smiled behind her mask.
"Yes. And you're coming as my bodyguard."
The car rolled to a stop in front of a towering marble estate lit in gold. Music drifted from inside with violins, laughter, clinking glasses.
Nyx stepped out first.
Her black gown was sleeveless and sharp, hugging her form like poured ink. It slit high up one leg, revealing enough to draw eyes and control them. The back dipped low, exposing the line of her spine. Her mask was smaller now, elegant obsidian lace. Her hair curled over one shoulder in a deliberately disarming cascade.
She was not subtle, but surgical. She would attract the right attention. Dagger stepped out after her. He would protect her from the wrong attention.
A black tailored suit. Mask still on. A silent, dangerous silhouette. The shift in atmosphere was immediate.
Guests glanced their way. Whispered. Careful not to stare too long, as they knew some knew their origins while those that didn't knew not to question it.
Nyx did not look at him, but her voice lowered enough for only him to hear.
"Tonight," she murmured, "we find the Curator."
Her hand brushed his arm, a signal as much as a touch. "Stay close, Dagger."
They stepped through the doors together. And the hunt for the Echo Obelisk truly began.