The unnatural tap-tap-tapping on the rusted factory roof wasn't wind. It wasn't rats. It was an insistent, irregular drumbeat echoing through Dare's skull, perfectly synchronized with the throbbing migraine the Dumpster Coin had gifted him. He sat frozen in the suffocating darkness, the stolen candle snuffed out, the coin clutched so tightly in his fist the intricate edges bit into his palm. Its familiar hum was now a low, angry buzz beneath his skin, reacting to… something. Fear, cold and greasy, coated his insides.
Sylvia? Had her people tracked him back here already? Maybe fancy drones with silent rotors could tap like that? Or worse – the "clean-up crew." Rich folks like the Van der Lindes probably had guys who made Sylvia look like mall security. Guys who dealt with gutter trash efficiently, permanently. His mind conjured images of sleek black vans and men with expressionless eyes.
But Sylvia wouldn't tap. She'd kick the damn door down. Or snatch him while he slept. This felt… different. Clinical. Observational. Like bugs under a microscope getting prodded.
Tap… tap-tap… scrape…
A new sound. Metal scraping on metal. Delicate. Purposeful. Getting closer. Not directly above anymore. Moving. Towards the gaping hole that served as a window on the factory's second floor.
Dare's survival instincts, honed by years of avoiding trouble, screamed run. But where? Into the frozen Detroit night? That was begging for frostbite or another run-in with the Leroy types. He stayed low, pressed against the cold concrete wall behind a pile of decaying packing crates. His breath fogged in the frigid air, white puffs barely visible in the sliver of moonlight filtering through the broken window.
His focus narrowed to that gaping hole. The tap-scrape sound paused right outside it. Silence descended, thick and heavy, pressing in on his ears. Only his own heartbeat hammered, loud as a bass drum against his ribs. Then… movement.
Something small, roughly the size of a fat cockroach, crawled over the jagged edge of the broken window frame. It wasn't organic. It gleamed dully – a dark, oily black metal shell, segmented like an insect's body. Tiny points of light, like pinprick LEDs, flickered along its spine. It scuttled a few inches onto the dusty floor of Dare's sanctuary, its multi-jointed legs moving with eerie silence. A single, articulated sensor stalk, tipped with a shimmering blue lens, swiveled slowly, scanning the dark interior.
What the actual fuck is that?
The thing pulsed with a faint energy signature that made the coin in Dare's hand twitch. It wasn't human tech. It felt… colder. Sharper. Alien. Pete's words about 'auras' flashed in his mind. Was this the trouble drawn by his big-mouthed stunt on the street? Not human cleanup, but… pest control from beyond?
The drone-scout completed its initial scan, its lens fixing on the pile of crates Dare hid behind. It didn't rush. It scuttled forward with unnatural patience, its legs clicking softly on the concrete. Dare felt a surge of near-panic. If it saw him… what then? Signal for reinforcements? Zap him with a laser?
Don't see me. You're just looking for loose wiring. Rusty bolts. Nothing interesting here. He thought it desperately, squeezing the coin. The hum intensified, sending fresh waves of nausea and pain washing over him. He pushed the thought at the scuttling thing, pouring his terror into that simple wish: You see nothing. Go away.
The coin pulsed hot in his hand, scorching his skin for a split second. Pressure exploded behind his eyes like a shotgun blast. He nearly cried out, biting his lip hard enough to draw blood. The taste of copper filled his mouth.
The tiny scout froze mid-stride. Its blue lens flickered erratically. It backed up a fraction of an inch, its segmented body seeming confused. Its sensor stalk tilted this way and that. Then, abruptly, it turned away from the crates. It scuttled rapidly towards the center of the large, open space, seeming drawn instead to a pile of decaying cardboard and plastic sheeting. It nudged at a piece of torn plastic, its lens scanning intently, as if suddenly fascinated by mundane debris.
Holy shit. It worked. The relief was drowned instantly by a tsunami of pain. Dare slumped lower, dry heaves wracking him. The migraine threatened to crack his skull open. The coin felt like a burning coal. Cost. Always a cost.
He watched through blurry, pain-filled eyes as the scout finished its suddenly redirected investigation. Losing interest in the cardboard, it turned towards a hole in the far wall leading deeper into the abandoned factory's guts. With unnerving silence, it scuttled into the darkness and vanished.
Dare waited, shivering and sick, for what felt like hours. The only sounds were the whistle of wind through broken windows and the desperate pounding of his own heart. The strange visitor didn't return. Slowly, agonizingly, he pushed himself up. He needed proof. He needed to know what almost crawled into his space.
Carefully avoiding the area where the scout had seemed interested (no sense triggering whatever sensors it had with his body heat or residual… aura?), he crept over to where it had entered and scurried around. Nothing. Then, near the pile of plastic sheeting it had fixated on after his desperate "suggestion," he saw it. A tiny shard of metal, no bigger than a fingernail clipping, glinting dully under the sliver of moonlight. It was curved, impossibly thin yet rigid. He picked it up. Cold to the touch, even through his gloves. As he held it, the Dumpster Coin gave a weak, answering pulse, confirming the fragment shared its source.
Slipping the shard into his pocket beside the coin, Dare felt a chilling certainty settle over him. Sylvia might be hunting him down by now, but she wasn't the only one interested in Darius Jackson. And whatever left this fragment… it played by different rules. Rules he didn't understand. Rules that involved silent taps on roofs and scouts sniffing out power signatures.
He was outmatched, outclassed, and running out of hiding places. His cosmic curveball just got a hell of a lot heavier.
Manhattan glittered like an angry constellation. In the Van der Linde penthouse, Olivia stood rigidly by the glass wall, ignoring the breathtaking view. Her father's call, laced with charming admonishment, still echoed in her ears.
"Olivia, darling, the Halverstons expect you tonight. Frederick Jr. flew in specially. His father is crucial to the new European initiative. Play nice, my star. Appearances matter." King Haakon Van der Linde's voice was velvet, hiding steel.
Appearances. Frederick Jr., a vapid investment banker whose charm extended solely to his trust fund manager. Another carefully orchestrated step in the Van der Linde chess game. A game Olivia felt increasingly trapped within.
Sylvia stood nearby, her expression impassive but her body radiating tightly coiled readiness. She held a sleek tablet. "Update, Ma'am. Jackson was located approximately ninety minutes ago through cross-referencing traffic cams near the initial encounter and known homeless encampment patterns. He appears to reside in the decaying Packard Assembly Plant complex on the outskirts of the city. Notorious for squatters."
Olivia turned, the diamonds at her ears catching the light like cold, accusing eyes. "The Packard Plant?" A surge of anger warred with her carefully cultivated poise. "That place is practically condemned. And you're just telling me now?"
"We had to confirm, Ma'am," Sylvia replied smoothly. "Sending a small, discreet team was prudent. Local authorities… unreliable in that area."
"Team?" Olivia's voice sharpened. "I said talk to him, Sylvia. Not ransack the place."
"Understood, Ma'am." Sylvia tapped her tablet. "Team leader reports perimeter secured. Minimal approach. Objective: locate and extract subject for questioning. Using non-lethal acquisition protocols." She didn't specify what those protocols were, but the term "acquisition" chilled Olivia. It sounded like handling stolen goods. Or hazardous waste.
A flicker of something powerful and unfamiliar sparked in Olivia's gut. Rebellion, sharp and bright. She pictured Darius Jackson in that crumbling ruin, maybe huddled just as she'd seen him, clutching his strange coin. Pictured Sylvia's "acquisition team" descending like shadows. The memory of that intense, alien pulse she'd felt near him, the same one that had made her see Pete, resonated within her. Extraction felt violently wrong.
Sylvia's tablet suddenly emitted a sharp, staccato chime. Her professional mask slipped for a fraction of a second, revealing surprise, then intense concern. "Ma'am, we're experiencing… interference."
Detroit swallowed its secrets whole. Inside the vast, skeletal frame of the Packard Assembly Plant, Dare Jackson was cornered. Sylvia's people hadn't kicked the door down; they'd materialized like wraiths. Three figures in urban tactical gear, their faces obscured by integrated goggles and face masks, moved with predatory silence through the cavernous space. They hadn't found his nest yet, but they were closing in, using thermal scanners that occasionally flickered and sparked in their hands. Something was messing with their gear, making their search frustratingly slow.
Dare pressed himself deeper into a crevice between two enormous, rusted presses. The coin burned in his pocket. The migraine was a constant, debilitating drumbeat. He'd seen the flickering scanners, heard the muttered curses over their comms. The fragment? Or something else? The memory of the scuttling scout filled him with grim dread. Maybe its owners didn't appreciate uninvited guests either.
One of the figures paused near Dare's hiding spot, his scanner emitting static-filled nonsense. He tapped the device in annoyance. Close enough. Dare could smell the ozone tang of high-tech gear. He saw the man holster his useless scanner and draw a sleek, blocky pistol – not a gun, he realized with a new wave of terror, but some kind of Taser on steroids. Acquisition. The word took on terrifying meaning. He wasn't supposed to fight back. He was supposed to wake up restrained in a van.
Not happening.
He squeezed the coin. Forget subtle. Forget cost. Survival screamed: VIBRATE!
Not a command to believe. A raw, physical demand aimed outward. He imagined the rusted metal presses around him thrumming like gongs, the concrete floor shaking. He poured every ounce of pain, fear, and anger into that thought and shoved it out through the coin. The pressure spike behind his eyes was blinding white. He tasted copper again, felt wetness trickle from his nose. The pain was excruciating, a soul-deep tear.
SCREEEEEEE-
It wasn't the presses. It was the very air around the operative. It rippled violently, like heat haze turned up to eleven. The rippling focused in an instant – a concussive wave of focused vibration exploding outwards from the terrified man's position!
The operative screamed, a sound cut short as the air pressure punched him like a freight train. He was flung backwards, crashing hard into a metal support beam fifteen feet away. His helmet cracked on impact. He slumped, motionless. His weapon clattered to the ground. The other two operatives froze, staring in disbelief at their downed comrade. Their scanners whined and died completely. One of them looked frantically around, his training clearly unprepared for physics going haywire. He saw Dare crouched in the shadows, eyes wide, blood trickling from his nose.
"Contact! Point of disturbance!" he yelled, voice cracking. He raised his own non-lethal weapon, aiming shakily.
Dare couldn't move. Could barely think through the blinding pain. The coin was scorching hot, its hum distorted and loud. The world tilted violently.
Before the operative could fire, a brilliant light, cold and purple-white, flickered briefly from deep within the factory's darkness – from the direction the scout had vanished. It was gone instantly, but accompanied by a distinct tzzzt sound, like a colossal bug zapper.
The remaining operatives flinched, turning their attention towards the sudden, unnatural light. It bought Dare half a second. He didn't hesitate. He gathered the dregs of his strength, fueled by pure adrenaline and terror, and ran. Not towards any exit, but deeper into the decaying guts of the factory, towards the source of that brief, alien light. Away from Sylvia's acquisition team, away from the vibrating nightmare he'd created… and straight towards the unknown darkness that had sent the scout. The only thing potentially worse than being caught.
Sylvia's voice crackled over the comms in the operatives' ears: "Report! What the hell is happening?!"
The lead operative, staring into the ominous darkness where the light had flashed, then back at his unconscious teammate, then towards the escaping shadow of Darius Jackson, could only whisper, voice tight with something beyond confusion, bordering on primal dread: "Ma'am… we encountered… complications. Strong anomalies. Subject escaped… deeper into the structure. And Ma'am… I think we're not alone in here."
The gilded cage Olivia inhabited felt suddenly fragile. Her gaze snapped from Sylvia's pale face to the glittering cityscape below, her diamonds cold against her flushed skin. "Not alone?" she echoed, the words tasting like ash. The cosmic curveball Dare had been thrown? It was hurtling straight towards everything.