They moved like ghosts with wet soles, two silhouettes cleaving the night between stacked crates and smoking vents. The north alley smelled like grease and old tar; the blind spot at the window was a sliver of mercy and timing. Brendon had the map folded in his back pocket and the memory of Drago's ledger under his tongue. He could feel the plan like a thread against his ribs — four minutes of darkness, a staged dent, a truck's clatter, a gap in the cameras. That was all they needed.
Ninja Fox walked with a swiftness of a cat: no wasted motion, no noise beyond the breath in her chest. Without the hood the angles of her face were a study in small planes — cheekbones tight but still her mouth is covered by face mask. She wore dark clothing that drank streetlight and boots that made no sound. Brendon, playing the part of the delivery man, had a false badge tucked into his jacket and a box strapped to his chest. He kept his head low, shoulders working the role like an old actor polishing a lie.
Camelia's voice ghosted in Brendon's ear, low and precise. "Cams go dark in thirty." she said. "Four minutes, tops. Lines are jittery toward the north window — I'll patch you a blind feed. Drago's men are staging the dent on the service truck now."
Brendon felt the old, clean thrill of a door that would open if you pried it right. Around them, the plant's freight yard breathed; a single light blinked on the north wall and cast a shaky pool on the concrete. He tasted copper and thought of the brand.
"On my mark," Ninja Fox whispered. Her fingers were cool on the crate she carried like a prop; inside, where their pretense meant to hide contraband, she had fitted a small kit of her own: picks, a minimal crowbar, a set of wool wipes and a cloth to smudge fingerprints. She loved the cleanliness of necessary crimes.
The alley door was a utility door, not often used. Brendon caught the look Ninja Fox gave the hinge and knew the timing: now. His false hand brushed the metal plate and he faked an awkward shove, a delivery man's clumsy muscle. A truck by the loading bay coughed like a bad throat. A man in a reflective vest cursed in the distance. Somewhere nearby, metal met metal with righteous indignation — the staged dent.
Camelia hissed, "Now."
The cameras hiccuped. Lights along the feed pixelated into a smear. Brendon felt the surge of adrenaline like a chord struck just behind his ear. He turned the bolt with a practiced flick, and the door sighed.
Inside the shop the air held the stale sweetness of clotted fat and cheap disinfectant. The place smelled like the rest of the city — a mouth that had been rinsed but not cleaned. Brendon led, keeping to the shadows where grease and shadow could blend the outline of a shoulder. Behind the counter the manager's office sat like a heart waiting to be pried out: a desk, a leather chair, a small personal safe under a false bottom, and a filing cabinet that hummed with the small bad secrets of a business that pretended to be legitimate.
They were careful, and being careful felt like armor. Brendon moved with the half-memory of his thief days: eyes to windows, ears to hinge. He found the first guard in the storeroom — a man dozing in the smell of sawdust and the hiss of a refrigerator. Brendon couldn't hear Camelia's words over the rush of his blood, but he didn't need to. He moved like a shadow, hand sliding over the man's throat in a motion that was mercy and necessity. The guard's breath stopped and then resumed as Brendon wrenched a small cloth into the mouth, holding it until the man went quiet in a sleep deeper than drunkenness.
Nearby, the Hyena anthro's laugh — the one Brendon had heard the night before — was absent. The yard was colder and more professional. Yet one more human was awake: a man patrolling between stacks, cigarette ember bobbing like a small red moon. Brendon watched the man's pattern, timed his steps, and flanked him with the ease of someone who had crawled through vents and broken locks enough times to make it a sixth sense.
The first real fight came with the kitchen guard — a wide-shouldered man who smelled of yesterday's stew. He saw the movement, reacted, and in one graceless moment the night's choreography slipped. He swung a cleaver, a bright arc of metal meant to take life quick and loud. Brendon shifted into the motion as if it were a calculus problem: step inside the arc, palm to wrist, then twist and then the cleaver sang through the air on a line that missed flesh. Brendon's other hand found the man's elbow and snapped it like an old hinge. The cleaver clattered to the floor. Brendon drove his knee into the man's sternum until he coughed air back into him and then folded him into a web of rope and cloth. No blood surfaced. The man's breath came ragged and quiet.
Ninja Fox had moved like a shadow to the second guard, a wiry man who carried a baton. She didn't dance with him; she robbed him of his rhythm. Two small strikes to pressure points — jaw and throat — and the man tipped like a marionette with his strings cut. She cuffed him behind, slipping her fingers into a practiced knot. Her movements had the fluidity of a cruel hunter: fast, clean and efficient.