The system's path was a cold, blue line superimposed over her vision, leading her not to a simple camp, but to a dilapidated warehouse half-swallowed by the jungle.
Her cold eyes squinted. This was it. The air itself felt heavier here, tainted with the stench of diesel, stale sweat, and something else… something metallic and foul.
From her vantage point, she counted five men. They weren't bored guards; they were professionals. Two patrolled the perimeter with slung rifles, their eyes constantly scanning. Another three lounged by a makeshift fire, but their postures were alert, their hands never far from the pistols at their hips. This wasn't just a trafficking operation; it was a military-style outpost.
And the captives weren't in a cage outside. A heavy, rusted door set into the hillside suggested they were underground.
'This changes everything,' she thought, her stomach clenching. A direct assault was suicide.
She became a ghost. She used the dense foliage, moving with an unnatural silence granted by the system's borrowed instincts. Her target was a lone guard taking a piss behind a thicket. She didn't have the strength for a clean kill. As he zipped up, she looped a length of wire from a nearby broken crate around his neck from behind, pulling with every ounce of her desperate strength.
He thrashed, clawing at the wire, his boots kicking up dirt. It was ugly, brutal, and took far too long. Finally, he went limp. Tang Xiya released him, her hands trembling, the coppery taste of adrenaline filling her mouth. She rifled through his pockets. A keycard. A pistol. Two spare magazines. She took them all, the weight of the gun foreign and comforting in her hand.
The second guard was inside the warehouse, checking a monitor showing grainy footage of the forest paths. She slipped in through a broken window, her steps silent on the concrete floor. She was behind him, the pistol raised. She could shoot him. But the sound…
Instead, she reversed the gun, intending to pistol-whip him.
'Clang.'
She suddenly froze when her foot kicked a loose piece of metal piping.
The man spun around, his eyes quickly widening with shock. "Hey! Who—"
'Bang!'
The gunshot was deafening in the enclosed space. Her shot, fired purely on panicked instinct, took him in the shoulder. He screamed, collapsing against the console.
Shouts erupted from outside. "Gunshot! Inside!"
So much for stealth. The fight was on.
She ducked behind a stack of crates her heart cold and racing as the three men from the fire burst through the door, weapons raised.
"What the hell? Is that the girl?" one yelled in surprise, spraying bullets in her direction. Wood splintered above her head.
"Boss said she was some delicate rich bitch! F*ck! Liar!" another roared, firing wildly.
The third, a hulking brute with a scarred face, saw his comrade bleeding by the monitor. Rage contorted his features. "You! You killed my brother!"
He charged her position, ignoring the covering fire from his partners. Tang Xiya popped up, squeezing off two shots. They went wide, her unfamiliarity with the weapon betraying her. He was on her, grabbing her wrist and slamming it against the crate until the gun clattered away.
He backhanded her across the face. "I'm gonna enjoy this."
She fought dirty, a whirlwind of apocalypse-learned brutality. She drove her thumb into his eye, kneed his groin, bit the arm that tried to choke her. It was a savage, desperate dance. He was stronger, but she was angrier. She found the pipe she'd kicked earlier and swung it, catching him across the temple. He staggered.
A bullet splintered the crate by her head. In that fraction of a second, the brute flinched. It was all the opening she needed. Tang Xiya didn't think; her body moved on the memory of a thousand desperate fights in another life. She dropped into a crouch, her fingers closing around the cold, gritty length of the metal pipe she'd kicked earlier. As the brute turned back, roaring, she uncoiled upwards, putting the weight of her entire body into a short, savage arc. The pipe connected with his temple with a wet, sickening crunch of bone on metal. The roar died in his throat. He didn't stagger; he just folded, his eyes rolling back into his head as he hit the concrete floor, motionless.
In the chaos, Tang Xiya grabbed her fallen pistol. Two shots. Another man fell.
The brute, Scarface, clutched his bleeding temple, swaying. He looked from his dead friends to her, a wild-eyed phantom painted in their blood. "What are you?" he rasped, the words thick with confusion, rage and hate.
Tang Xiya raised the pistol, her arm trembling from adrenaline and exhaustion. She didn't answer. She pulled the trigger.
Click.
The sound was tiny, pathetic. The chamber was empty.
The confusion on his face melted into a slow, terrifying smile. His hand dropped to a tool rack, coming back up with a heavy, cleaver-like machete. The steel gleamed dully in the low light.
"Now you're mine," he promised, and began his advance.
**[Host's vital signs indicating extreme stress. Analyzing opponent... Suggesting tactical maneuver: Lure target towards unstable flooring near east wall.]**
The system's calm voice cut through her panic. She backpedaled, alert, leading him towards a section of the floor that looked rotted. He swung the machete, shearing off a chunk of her hair.
She feigned a stumble. He lunged. With a sickening crack, the floor gave way beneath him. He screamed, plummeting into the darkness below, the sound ending with a final, wet thud.
Silence.
Tang Xiya collapsed, gasping, surrounded by the dead. The warehouse was a charnel house. She had done it. She was alive.
But the mission wasn't over. She found the rusted door. The keycard from the first guard slid into a reader with a green light and a heavy 'clunk.'
The door swung open to reveal a flight of stairs leading down into a cold, artificially lit darkness. The metallic smell was stronger here. And now, she could hear the faint, hopeless sound of crying.
[Preliminary Objective Updated: Infiltrate the holding facility. Locate and liberate the captives.]
Taking a deep breath, Tang Xiya started down the stairs, the empty pistol feeling useless in her hand. The real horror was just beginning.
....
The stairs led not to a simple dungeon, but to a sterile, white-tiled corridor that looked utterly out of place beneath the jungle warehouse. The air hummed with the sound of generators and a low, electrical buzz. Doors lined the hallway, each with a small reinforced window.
Tang Xiya peered through the first one. Her blood ran cold.
It was a laboratory. Glass cages lined the walls. Inside, emaciated men and women were chained to beds, their bodies connected to machines that slowly dripped colored liquids into their veins. Their eyes were open, but utterly vacant, souls already extinguished.
This was far more than trafficking. Trafficking was just a cover.
She moved down the hall, her heart hammering against her ribs. The captives she was meant to save had to be here. She found a central holding cell. Through the window, she saw them: about ten people, huddled together on the floor. They looked terrified, but aware. They were the new stock.
She found a keypad beside the door. Kicking it in was useless. She was trapped.
"Looking for this?" a voice sneered.
She spun around and her blood went cold. A man in a security uniform stood there, holding a keycard. He must have been downstairs the whole time.
He grinned, raising a walkie-talkie. "I've got the intruder on sub-level—"