The coppery tang of Benny's blood clung to Ethan's knuckles like cheap cologne. He scrubbed his hand against the wet brick of another alley wall, the friction scraping skin raw but failing to erase the stain entirely, nor the memory of Benny's choked screams and the sickening thock of the bottle meeting bone. McNamara's parting words echoed in the hollow spaces the Stardust core hadn't filled: "Phantoms... Blood washes off. What Tsang thinks you took... that kinda ghost sticks to the bones."
The phantom package. Tsang's obsession. The key to this cesspool.
But retribution couldn't wait for ghosts. Bo Chen's blood demanded an immediate reckoning. Benny had named two: Mikey 'Hacksaw' Malone and Lazy Larry Higgins. Malone first. Bayard Street. Over the butcher shop.
Navigating the warren of backstreets felt instinctual now, his movements guided by a predatory efficiency fueled by the cold pulse within his chest. His Stardust core thrummed faintly, sustaining him, pushing back the fatigue that threatened to overwhelm his battered form. The faint hum, however, couldn't silence the sharp protest from his ribs every time he drew a deep breath – a stark reminder of his physical vulnerability, and his core's current limitations. Stability: Compromised.
His senses, slightly heightened by focused intent, were attuned to potential ambush. He smelled wet garbage, diesel fumes, and a new, pervasive metallic tang – blood and sawdust. He'd reached the right place.
The butcher shop occupied the ground floor of a dingy brick building. Shuttered now for the night, its rolled-down metal security door bore the faded, peeling image of a grinning pig. Beside it, recessed deep in shadow, was a side entrance – a heavy, scarred wooden door. Benny had said 'second floor back.' Ethan scanned the narrow gaps between buildings. A rusting metal fire escape zig-zagged up the side wall, its lower platform accessible from a stinking dumpster.
He moved like liquid shadow. The dumpster lid lifted and lowered with barely a sound under his careful hands. A short jump, a wince as he landed and ribs screamed, then he was on the fire escape. It groaned softly under his weight. He froze, listening. Only the muffled thump of bass from a neighboring apartment and the distant wail of a siren. He climbed swiftly, silently, each step cautious. Reaching the second-floor landing, he pressed himself against the grimy bricks beside the window leading into the rear apartment. Peering through a grime-smudged gap in the drawn shade, he saw movement.
A single bulb lit a squalid room. Empty beer cans littered the floor. On a stained mattress lay Mikey 'Hacksaw' Malone. Bulkier than Benny, muscles softened by cheap beer. A faded Yankees cap askew on his head. He was idly cleaning his fingernails with a flick knife, humming tunelessly, oblivious. No signs of alarm, no indication he expected company. Benny hadn't gotten a warning off. Good.
The window was old, warped wood. Ethan tested it silently. Locked? Perhaps. But flimsy. He concentrated. **> Apply Stardust Vector: Short Burst Kinetic Force. Target: Window Latch Assembly.** He directed a micro-pulse of cold energy from his core down his arm, focusing it into a pinpoint strike against the interior latch mechanism.
CRACK.
The sound inside the room was sharp, distinct – a small internal fracture. Malone jerked upright, knife dropping. "The hell?" He lumbered towards the window, grabbing a baseball bat leaning against the wall. "Benny? That you, ya idiot? Doorbell broke again?"
As Malone reached the window, squinting into the grime, Ethan struck. Not through the lock this time. With his uninjured side angled, he drove his shoulder forward, channeling every ounce of his frame's weight and the core-amplified force he could muster.
WHAM!
The rotten wood around the latch splintered outward. The window flew inward with a shriek of protesting metal. Malone stumbled back, eyes wide with shock.
Ethan flowed through the jagged opening like smoke, landing in a low crouch amid shards of glass and wood.
"Chen?! But Johnny said..." Malone stammered, disbelief warring with burgeoning terror. He raised the bat. "You're supposed to be dead!"
"I got better," Ethan stated flatly. Pain flared sharply across his ribs from the impact, a fresh bloom of agony. Stability: Warning. The Stardust flared, feeding micro-currents into his legs, steadying him. He didn't flinch.
Malone roared, swinging the bat in a heavy, predictable arc. Ethan moved. The core-enhanced focus didn't grant speed, but sharpened timing. He stepped inside the swing, close enough to smell the stale beer on Malone's breath. His left hand shot up, grabbing Malone's bat-wielding wrist before momentum peaked. Simultaneously, his right fist, knuckles freshly bruised and bloody from Benny, drove upward like a piston into Malone's thick chin.
CRUNCH.
It wasn't the clean break of bone. It was the wet, sickening sound of teeth meeting under force. Malone's roar cut off into a gurgle, his head snapping back. He stumbled, eyes rolling back, but didn't drop. Tough bastard.
Malone spat blood and a tooth fragment, rage overriding pain. He bull-rushed, trying to use his weight. Ethan ducked the clumsy tackle, letting Malone crash into the wall beside the broken window. Before the bigger man could recover, Ethan pivoted and slammed a driving side-kick into the back of Malone's knee. Bone popped audibly.
Malone screamed, collapsing onto the shards of glass scattered on the floor. "ARGH! MY LEG! YOU BASTARD!" He writhed, clutching his ruined knee, blood already soaking his jeans.
Ethan stood over him, breathing hard, ignoring the grinding protest in his own side. His gaze was arctic. "You kicked my uncle," he stated, his voice devoid of inflection. He moved with deliberate slowness, stooping to pick up Malone's fallen flick knife, discarded when the bat dropped. The blade clicked open.
Malone saw death coming. The fury dissolved into sheer, piss-stinking terror. "No! NO! Wait! Tsang! Johnny made us! It was just a job! Please!"
"You called him 'dead weight,'" Ethan continued, his mind replaying Benny's words. He knelt beside the writhing thug. "You were supposed to 'make an example.'" His gaze flicked to Malone's uninjured leg. His free hand, still stiff and aching from shattered glass, clamped onto Malone's kicking ankle with brutal strength.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" Malone shrieked, trying to scramble away on shards of glass, his ruined knee an agonizing anchor.
Ethan didn't answer. He placed the blade precisely against the thick tendon behind Malone's other ankle. His movements were clinical. Cold. Guided by an icy fury amplified by the Stardust core's intensity. He leaned his weight into the knife and sawed.
Malone's scream reached a pitch that scraped against the windows. It echoed briefly in the squalid room before choking into sobs. His heel cord, severed, curled away like a thick worm. The foot flopped uselessly. Malone convulsed, then went still, shuddering in silent agony, consciousness barely clinging on. Blood pooled around him, mixing with glass and broken dreams of Yankee glory.
Ethan stood, leaving the knife embedded in the mess. He looked around the room. Trash. No clues here. Just a broken tool, twice ruined. The immediate debt was paid in blood and rendered feet. But the cold fury didn't subside; it refocused.
Higgins. The fish market bridge. And then the phantom package.
He exited the way he came, avoiding the interior hallway. Lowering himself silently from the fire escape, he melted back into the shadowed streets. The fish market stench grew stronger as he moved towards the waterfront, a tangible miasma of decayed seafood, salt brine, and diesel fumes. Even his filtered senses recoiled slightly.
The designated bridge wasn't grand architecture; it was a low, grimy concrete structure where an old service road passed over a fetid slip used by small fishing boats. The undersides of bridges, Ethan knew from his own recent experience, were perfect for the desperate and unseen.
He moved beneath its dark arch, senses straining. He smelled stale urine, rotting wood, and the pervasive fish stink. Heard the frantic rustling of rats and roaches. Saw a bundle of filthy blankets wedged into a corner, near the dripping waterline. Target: Larry Higgins.
Ethan approached cautiously. There was no movement from the blankets. No snores. The Stardust core pulsed a warning **> Life Signs: Negligible.** He drew closer, kicking the edge of the blanket pile aside with his boot.
Larry Higgins stared back at him, wide-eyed and sightless. A dark stain, thick and black in the dimness, spread across his chest. Someone had gotten to him first. Probably someone who didn't want him talking. The cut was precise, professional. Not the work of street-level scum like Benny or Malone. The phantom package attracted cleaner predators.
Ethan knelt, ignoring the rats skittering away. He swiftly searched the cold, stiff corpse. Empty pockets. Nothing. Tsang's loose ends were being neatly tied. A chill deeper than the river's cold crawled up Ethan's spine. McNamara hadn't just appeared after Benny; he'd pointed Ethan here. To a dead end. Literally. "Only ghosts chase 'em. Or make 'em."
The old bartender was playing a deeper game. Higgins' corpse was a message – and a signpost. Time to see what ghosts haunted the docks locker.
The address Benny had muttered – Dockside Storage, Locker #7 – was in a grim stretch of waterfront warehouse territory under the shadow of the Manhattan Bridge, abandoned by legitimate business years ago. Graffiti scarred rusting corrugated metal walls. Broken bottles and windblown trash crunched under Ethan's boots as he approached. Chain-link fences sagged and gaped.
Storage Unit #7 wasn't even a proper unit; it was an old, battered shipping container, half-sunk into the cracked concrete apron near the waterline, its padlock hanging rusted and unsecured on the latch. Its door stood slightly ajar.
Crouching low beside the container's corrugated flank, Ethan scanned the derelict landscape. Silent. Ominously still. Only the slap of dirty water against the piers and the distant groan of the bridge overhead. McNamara's card felt heavy in his pocket. Dusty Star. A name that resonated too deeply. He reached inward again.
**> Apply Stardust Vector: Sensory Enhancement.
Scope: Broad Spectrum Scan (Sight/Sound/Olfaction/Energy Residue). Radius: 10 Meters. Focus: Residual Hostile Signatures.**
The core responded sluggishly, veins straining. Data fragmented.
Scanning...
Results:
· Sight: Visible decay/stagnation. Container door compromised.
· Sound: Water, wind, bridge tremors. No immediate threats detected.
· Olfaction: Heavy rust, stagnant water, fuel, human decay/death (Higgins faintly?), ozone? (Transient/low fidelity trace).
· Energy Residue: Minor spatial distortion detected near container entrance. Source unknown. Temporal marker: Recent (within 24-48 hrs). Signature: Non-hostile? Inconclusive.
Ozone? Distortion? McNamara's trail led here… but something else had been here first. Something that left an unusual mark on the fabric of the mundane.
Steeling himself, driven by cold fury and deepening cosmic unease, Ethan pushed the heavy container door open wider. It shrieked on corroded hinges. Dim interior. He stepped inside.
The smell hit him first: stale air, rust, damp metal… and a powerful undercurrent of dust. Not ordinary dust. An old dust, thick and strangely charged, like the air inside a tomb or ancient archives long sealed away. Moonlight filtered through cracks in the container's roof, illuminating swirling motes dancing in the beams. Ambient Stardust Density: Significant. Source: Container Contents.
He scanned the space. The container was surprisingly large. Crates, most water-damaged and moldering, lay stacked haphazardly. But his attention was drawn instantly to the object dominating the center of the space:
An oblong container the size of a small coffin, crafted from a smooth, matte-black material Ethan didn't immediately recognize – obsidian infused with… something else? A low thrumming vibration emanated from it, faint but perceptible to his newly awakened senses, setting his Stardust core resonating in a way that felt both alien and strangely… familiar. Arcane symbols, shimmering with barely perceptible inner light, were etched into its surface – symbols that tugged at the fractured memories of One-Earth Chen. Seals? They looked strained, flickering intermittently. The air around the box shimmered like heat haze.
This was no ordinary contraband. Benny, Tsang, Malone, Higgins – their brutality stemmed from ignorance. They fought over this. An artifact radiating a low-level, strange Stardust energy signature McNamara had somehow tracked. Something locked away by symbols a Star Peak Pavilion disciple might once have understood.
Ethan approached the black box slowly, his injuries momentarily forgotten. He reached out a hand towards its smooth, unnervingly cool surface. As his fingers neared, the dim lighting caused by the flickering seal suddenly coalesced, etching words onto the container lid that hadn't been visible before:
S U B S P A C E R E L I C - O R I G I N U N K N O W N
Then, the symbols flared brightly once, like dying stars, and went dark. The humming ceased abruptly. The box sat inert. Had his presence activated it? Or discharged its final dregs?
Subspace Relic. The words vibrated in his soul. Something far beyond the comprehension of thugs like Tsang. Something dangerously alluring. And McNamara… the "Dusty Star"… he hadn't just pointed Ethan towards a phantom package. He'd guided him towards something infinitely more perilous.
As Ethan stood amidst the swirling dust motes, gazing at the silent black artifact, McNamara's rasp cut through the silence from the container doorway, making Ethan whirl around:
"Seems lighting lanterns attracts more than just rats, Chen." The bartender leaned against the rusted frame, smoke curling from his cigarette, his sharp eyes fixed on the strange box. "Now, you care to tell me exactly what kind of storm you're really dragging into my harbor?"