The cargo mag-tram rattled harshly along rusted rails, cutting through the forgotten outskirts like a shadowed predator stalking its prey. Gene kept her head low, pressed against a crate that smelled of old oil and burnt circuits.
The other passengers were vague shapes swallowed by thick coats and silence, each one a potential threat or witness she couldn't afford. The flickering overhead lights buzzed erratically, casting brief, fractured shadows that made her heart pound faster. Every click of the wheels sounded like footsteps closing in, every breath a countdown.
When the tram careened to a stop, Gene descended without a sound, the gravel crunching beneath her boots, noisy in the calm.
Nearby, a street vendor's stall flashed with harsh neon, an arsenal of cheap, high-tech face masks and holographic disguises meant for one purpose: to vanish. She pulled a handful of credits from her pocket, moving them across with a quick nod, eyes skipping to the dark alley behind her where sentry drones would never see her face. The vendor's eyes were intense but silent, and as Gene fitted the mask to her skin, the hard plastic molded seamlessly over her attributes, scrubbing her identity clean.
The reflection in a broken pane of mirror caught her off guard, and a stranger stared back.
The mask was perfect, but underneath it, Gene's pulse beat with doubt and dread. This was no longer a game of shadows. This was infiltration, a drop into a nest of vipers, where one wrong move meant capture, or worse.
The city's heartbeat thudded in her ears: faraway sirens, the murmur of electric patrols, the soft sizzle of drones scanning for abnormalities. She whispered to herself, sharp and quiet: "I don't know if I'm going home… or walking into a trap."
No room for second guesses now. She dissolved into the shaded grove beyond the tram line, each step crunching quietly on dead leaves and damaged branches. The deserted service roads extended like veins into the estate's heart, a labyrinth of rusted gates and shadowed watchtowers.
Above, unseen drones sliced through the dense canopy, their scanning lights never touching the ground where Gene moved like a ghost, silent, unseen, and deadly determined.
Her breath came shallow as she sidestepped the main patrol routes, adrenaline honing every sense. The looming estate was no longer a place of childhood stories or distant threats; it was a fortress, a prison, and the stage for all the lies waiting to unravel.
Whatever waited behind those gates, she knew there was no safety here. Only answers. And whatever cost they demanded, she was ready to pay.
Gene pressed herself against the moist trunk of a sprawling fir, letting its dense silhouette absorb her form. The estate's perimeter fence glimmered under a weak purple floodlight, a shimmering thread tying together a maze of sensors and alarm tripwires.
The fence seemed less a physical barrier and more a living thing; a restless, protective skin, ready to illuminate and attack at the first sign of trouble. Her pulse thudded in her ears; she forced herself to slow her breathing. Fear made you sloppy. Fear made you a target.
Using the mask's optical enhancer, Gene switched her view to infrared. The fence glowed orange against a purple-black world, spiderweb-like signals flowed through its metal, tying back to a control node somewhere on the estate grounds.
Between her and the fence were two drones, their searchlights creeping back and forth in overlapping sweeps. She pressed a small, specialized dart into her wrist launcher; a miniature electromagnetic pulse, designed to shock their processors just long enough for her to dart past undetected.
With a deep, centering breath, she pressed a button. The dart flew, a nearly silent needle piercing the air and hitting a nearby power box. A brief cascade of sparks fell like dying fireworks.
The two drones faltered, their movements freezing just for a moment; a perfect, fleeting window. Gene darted forward, a dark silhouette against a riot of purple and orange signals, slipping through the fence just as the machines recovered their senses and continued their troubled sweep.
Her shoulder pushed against a rusted service gate. She tried it; locked, of course, but a small piece of specialized resin pressed into the keyhole made short work of it. The resin flowed into the mechanisms, solidifying into a perfect replica of a key in seconds.
With a small twist, the gate opened with a hushed, mechanical sigh. Inside, a labyrinth of gravel paths and abandoned greenhouses opened up before her, a hidden world within the estate, a place Harry Lennox hadn't meant anyone to find.
As Gene pressed forward, careful not to disturb a single leaf underfoot, the silence seemed oppressive, a physical pressure against her eardrums. Whatever lay at the center of this labyrinth, Marlow's true role, Igor's fate, the conspiracy tying them all together, it was close now. She could feel it, a rush of anticipation battling her fear.
The next move might be her last… but there was no turning back. Whatever it cost, whatever fell in her wake, Gene was going to find the answers concealed in the dark.