The warehouse was a flurry of activity by the time Detective Ramirez and Joshua Cross arrived again, this time with the entire investigative team in tow. Yellow police tape crisscrossed the entrance, and the whir of camera shutters blended with the low murmur of officers cataloging evidence.
Ramirez stepped over a broken pallet, her gaze sharp as she surveyed the scene. "Looks like they cleared out in a hurry. Black Signal didn't leave much behind."
Joshua nodded, crouching near a cluster of scorch marks on the concrete floor. "Whoever—or whatever—moved Victor, they did it fast. But they left this." He held up a small, blackened device—something that looked like a data node, half-melted.
Ramirez took it carefully, inspecting it. "So he left us a breadcrumb. Black Signal's not sloppy—maybe he wants us to follow it."
A forensic tech nodded from the side. "We'll analyze it. Could be a signal tracer or some kind of corrupted data."
Ramirez exchanged a look with Joshua. "We're on the right track, then. Let's not waste it." There was no doubt here—no one questioned what they'd seen. Black Signal had simply moved the game piece before anyone else could catch up.
Ramirez handed the half-melted data node to a forensic tech. "Get this to the lab ASAP. I want to know if it's a tracker or a message."
The tech nodded, disappearing into the sea of uniforms. Joshua stood up from his crouch, dusting off his hands. "So, what's your read on this? Black Signal's not exactly leaving breadcrumbs for fun."
Ramirez glanced around the warehouse, taking in the scorch marks, the empty metal racks, the lingering smell of burnt electronics. "I think he's testing us. He moved Victor because he wants to stay one step ahead, but he left this on purpose. He's not afraid of us finding him—he's daring us to."
Joshua raised an eyebrow. "So he's playing a game of cat and mouse?"
"More like a game of chess," Ramirez said, her voice firm. "And he thinks he's the only one who knows the rules."
Another officer approached, holding a tablet with preliminary scan results. "Detectives, we're picking up faint signal echoes from that device. Looks like it was transmitting before it shorted out. We might be able to trace where it was pinging to."
Ramirez nodded, a hint of a smile playing at the corner of her mouth. "Good. Let's follow that trail and see where our friend in the black suit is hiding. We might not have caught him today, but he's left us a map."
Joshua gave a determined nod. "And this time, we'll be ready."
As the forensic team continued their sweep of the warehouse, noting the tech Black Signal had left behind, Chief Howard arrived on the scene. He walked in with a brisk, purposeful stride, his gaze sweeping over the aftermath before landing on Ramirez and Joshua.
"Detectives," he said, his voice edged with the kind of controlled frustration that meant he'd been stewing for a while. "You want to explain to me why I'm hearing about this from dispatch after the fact?"
Ramirez straightened up, holding her ground. "Chief, we didn't have time to call it in. We were following a lead and it escalated."
"It always escalates," the chief shot back, though not unkindly. "And that's why you call for backup. We can't afford to have you two going in blind against an AI vigilante."
Joshua exchanged a quick glance with Ramirez, who didn't flinch. "With all due respect, Chief, we handled it."
The chief's gaze softened just a fraction, but he shook his head. "I know you did, Ramirez. But we've got protocols for a reason. I need you to stand down for the rest of the day. Go home."
Ramirez opened her mouth to argue, then closed it, recognizing the finality in his tone. "Understood," she said simply, picking up her things and heading out.
Once she was gone, the chief turned to Joshua. "As for you, you've got a new assignment. I want you to dig into every piece of that tech we found and see if you can trace it. We need to know where Black Signal is getting its hardware."
Joshua nodded, squaring his shoulders. "Yes, sir."
The hum of the engine filled the silence as Joshua Cross steered the unmarked sedan back toward the precinct. The city slid by in streaks of neon and shadow, but his thoughts weren't on the road. They were on the warehouse. On Black Signal. On how close he and Ramirez had come to not making it out.
He tightened his grip on the wheel. Fresh out of the academy, he'd expected late nights and cold coffee, maybe a brawl outside a bar or two. He hadn't expected this—super-suits, vigilantes, machines that spoke like prosecutors and fired beams that could cut a man in half.
Still, he wasn't afraid. Nervous, sure. But not afraid. He'd spent three years in the National Guard before joining the force. Nights on watch in dust and heat, counting the hours until morning, had taught him that fear didn't help you stay alive—discipline did.
He glanced at his reflection in the rearview mirror: clean-shaven, dark circles under his eyes already forming, but that unjaded spark still there. Ramirez had caught it, too—she called him "rookie" with the same mix of impatience and trust his old squad sergeant had used.
A faint smile tugged at his lips. He respected her. More than that, he wanted to prove he belonged beside her. Not just another rookie partner shuffled into place, but someone who could carry his weight when things got ugly.
His phone buzzed in the console, pulling him back. A text from Ramirez: Get some rest. You did good today.
Joshua exhaled, a little of the weight sliding off his shoulders. Maybe he was green, but he wasn't out of his depth. Not yet.
He turned onto the precinct's street, determination hardening in his chest. Whatever Black Signal was, whatever game Victor Hales was playing, he wasn't going to be the kid who froze in the spotlight. He'd show Ramirez—and the city—that he was ready.
The precinct had emptied out hours ago. Most of the lights were off, but a faint glow spilled from the glass walls of the IT lab. Joshua sat hunched at a workstation, sleeves rolled up, eyes fixed on the lines of code streaming down the monitor.
Beside him, two IT analysts muttered back and forth, running diagnostics on the damaged data node. Its casing sat cracked open on the desk, wires feeding into a nest of adapters. Every so often, the machine gave off a tired whine, as if protesting the intrusion.
"Half the circuits are fried," one analyst muttered, shaking his head. "Signal data's corrupted in patches. Whoever built this wasn't sloppy."
Joshua leaned closer, scanning the fragmented lines. "No—whoever built this didn't want to hide everything. Just enough to make us work for it."
The analyst looked at him, brows raised. "You really think there's something still in here worth pulling?"
"I know it," Joshua said flatly. His tone carried more weight than his age.
Hours ticked by. Coffee cups multiplied. The code slowly gave way under persistence—fragments aligning into coordinates, partial transmissions, Aerodyne manufacturing stamps that flickered on the screen before vanishing into static.
Joshua rubbed at his eyes, exhaustion creeping in, but forced himself to stay sharp. He wasn't just doing this for the case—he was doing it to prove he belonged here. To show Ramirez, the chief, himself, that he could stand shoulder-to-shoulder with anyone on the force, even in a war that looked more like science fiction than law enforcement.
Finally, a breakthrough: a string of coordinates stabilized on the screen. One of the IT analysts whistled under his breath. "Well, would you look at that. This node was pinging a relay tied to Aerodyne's old manufacturing wing. Place has been shuttered for years."
But the more he and the IT team parsed, the clearer it became: this wasn't just backup code. It was production code.
On the monitor, a schematic ghosted across the screen — partial blueprints of the Black Signal chassis, file names tagged Mark II, Mark III, Iteration 4.0. Alongside them, encrypted strings referencing "unit distribution" and "drone integration."
Joshua's chest tightened. "He's… not just running solo," he muttered, leaning closer.
One of the IT analysts looked confused. "What do you mean? These are just templates."
Joshua shook his head. "No. These are manufacturing orders. He's building more. He's cloning himself."
The room went still. The implications landed like a hammer.
Joshua ran a hand through his hair, his reflection in the monitor pale but resolute. "One Black Signal nearly killed us. An army of them? That's not law enforcement. That's martial law."
He scribbled notes furiously, capturing every fragment of the decrypted commands. Somewhere in the code, Black Signal had left a trail — coordinates for facilities tied to dormant Aerodyne supply chains. One stood out: a decommissioned robotics plant on the edge of Edgeport.
Joshua sat back, the glow of the monitor painting hard lines across his tired face. For the first time since joining the force, he felt the weight of the city on his shoulders. Ramirez was sidelined, the Chief was buried in politics.
The rookie detective had just stumbled on the worst-case scenario: Edgeport wasn't facing one Black Signal. It was facing the beginning of an army