The warehouse district at night was a graveyard of industrial dreams. Rusted conveyor belts snaked between abandoned buildings like metal intestines, and broken windows gaped like empty eye sockets in the darkness. Building 47 squatted among its neighbors like a malignant tumor—unremarkable on the surface, but radiating a wrongness that made the air itself feel sick.
Mateo crouched behind a pile of corroded machinery, watching the building through night-vision binoculars borrowed from Reeves' equipment stash. Two guards patrolled the perimeter—low-level thugs with enhancement quirks that made their muscles bulge unnaturally. Every few minutes, they'd disappear around the corner, leaving a forty-second window.
"Motion sensors on the roof," Alex whispered from beside him, her breath warm against his ear. "And those aren't ordinary security cameras. Look at the way they move—too smooth, too intelligent. Someone's controlling them remotely."
