"Mmmm...this is good, Albreck, you want to try some?" Samael waved a stick of sizzling meat he'd just bought from a rather plump vendor whose stall billowed thin curls of smoke into the filtered sky.
They were walking through a narrow, dimly lit street - so tight no vehicle could squeeze through. The walls on either side were thick slabs of aged concrete, climbing high enough to blot out the towering neon signs and aerial highways that crisscrossed the upper reaches of Concordia's A-District.
This was about as close to an alleyway as you could get in the city's most prestigious sector - the heart of wealth, corporate towers, and heavily guarded establishments.
Yet despite the polished gloss that marked Concordia's skyline, this little side street reeked of grilled prowler meat and faint coolant leaks, clashing with the hyper-sterile, filtered air that pumped endlessly from vents on the ground. A hazy, shimmering warmth hung in the air around Samael's face as the meat stick sizzled down to its last bite.
"Master, I am a robot. Robots do not possess digestive tracts, and I was constructed without a mouth. Thus, your request for me to consume food is, by design, an illogical one- " Albreck began before Samael cut him off.
"Damn, I was kidding." Samael huffed, stuffing the rest of the meat into his mouth and flicking the wooden stick into a nearby recycling chute embedded into the wall.
The street was quiet, with only a handful of pedestrians moving like shadows through the confined space. Samael stretched, his arms brushing against the gritty walls, the coolness of the concrete against his fingertips. Under his breath, he mumbled, "Where to go, where to go?"
He pondered for a moment, his face flickering with a grin as something caught his eye.
Thud.
A man bumped into him - broad, wrapped head to toe in a heavy coat, sunglasses masking his face, and a wide-brimmed hat pulled low. He carried a long, black briefcase, its surface scuffed and speckled with city grime.
"Sorry, kid." The man's voice was low, gravelly, without a hint of genuine apology. He wiped sweat from his brow and hurried on without another glance.
"What a rude man… Hmph." Samael dusted off his shoulder and called out cheerily, though his voice edged louder with intent. "Let's go to the Central Plaza!"
The Central Plaza was a jey tourist attraction of Concordia - a vast open square dwarfed by glass and steel monoliths. It was a place of excess, where only the finest restaurants, bars, and exclusive clubs congregated beneath shimmering digital billboards and drone-tethered advertisements that hung like luminous jellyfish overhead.
Samael wasn't here for entertainment, however. His true aim was the monument at the center - a towering, gilded statue of his grandfather, Heinrick Hammond.
By the time they arrived, the streets had thickened with bodies. A dense crowd of at least a hundred people clustered around the statue, their faces reflecting the the kaleidoscope glow of floating neon signs and flickering holo-displays.
The monument stood resolute: a man, perhaps in his late thirties, cast in gold, one fist raised high gripping a flag marked with Hammond's iconic 'H.'
Below it, a large screen pulsed with a quote etched into digital memory.
"Feel the beating heart in your chest, and feel your mind wonder. That is humanity's drive. And together, that drive will conquer the stars." — Heinrick Hammond, 2123.
It was a beautiful sentiment - one that stirred pride in those reading it, even as the world around them remained cold, metallic, and uncaring.
But Samael had seen it before. He wasn't here for sentiment.
He led Albreck into the heart of the crowd, slipping on a pair of dark sunglasses to obscure his face.
The positioning of the statue was no accident. From this precise spot, you had a direct line of sight down every street in the city - a perfect visual corridor straight to the IMC Headquarters: an enormous, triangular behemoth that pierced the clouds like a jagged spear, its gleaming frame forming an 'A' that framed the statue from this angle.
The towers behind the plaza, however, were not spaced to accommodate this, instead pressing tight together - their sheer walls of reflective glass casting distorted images of the crowd below.
It was this unnatural openness, this perfect vulnerability, that made Albreck uneasy.
He tensed up and grew a strange sense of weariness.
His artificial mind ran a thousand scenarios at once, every angle, every window, every shadowed rooftop. Schematics of the surrounding buildings flickered through his HUD in bursts, highlighting potential sniper nests and access points.
The crowd murmured idly around them, discussing the memorial, oblivious to the predatory silence blooming within Albreck's circuits.
He looked at Samael, but the boy didnt seem to care at all.
"Master… may I ask you something?" His voice dropped, cold and sharp, cutting through the hum of idle conversation.
Samael didn't turn. His face was lost in shadow, the overhead lights catching in the lenses of his shades as he removed them, exposing sharp, unreadable emerald eyes that looked so similar to his fathers it was unsettling, "Albreck, is something bothering you? Please, tell me."
"There is not a single window in the nearby buildings that cannot see you. Not one rooftop without a vantage point. Not even a blindspot."
Albreck paused for a moment.
"Master… why are you standing in the most advantageous position to be assassinated?"
Soon, a light chuckle emerged from the boys throat.
Samael's pulse surged, a dark thrill blossoming in his chest like a drug. His lips curled into a thin, knowing smile. He turned his head, eyes locking onto a single glint of light reflecting from a high-rise window above.
Albreck's crimson optics flared, switching from servant protocol to combat mode. Inside his chassis, servos spun hot and fast, limbs shifting subtly as razor-sharp claws slid from his fingertips.
Bang!
Glass burst from one of the towers. A high-caliber sniper round tore through the air like a comet.
In under 200 milliseconds, Albreck was there. The ground split beneath his weight as his massive frame interposed itself between the bullet and Samael, claws wide like the wings of some mechanical angel of death. The bullet struck his headplate in a shower of sparks and ricocheted harmlessly away.
It didn't stop.
A bystander's skull burst in a spray of crimson as the round found an innocent mark. The victim's body dropped lifeless, a smear of red spilling across the pristine plaza floor.
The crowd halted in beat of stunned silence.
Then they erupted into chaos.
Screams erupted as the once orderly plaza turned into a stampede. The crowd surged in every direction, panicked citizens scrambling for cover. Sirens howled in the distance - the sharp, rising wail of Concordia's security enforcers mobilizing.
And there, at the eye of the storm, Samael stood motionless. His smile unfaded. He let out a soft, childlike giggle.
"Albreck… bring him alive."
Whoosh.
Without hesitation, Albreck crouched, his claws gouging deep trenches into the ground. In an instant, he surged toward the building, moving on all fours like a monstrous insect, limbs bending at impossible angles.
He didn't bother with doors. The sniper could have a jumpkit, and if he did, it would be impissible to catch him if he took to long.
With a powerful leap, he latched onto the wall itself, his clawed hands sinking into the building's facade. It was an unsettling, unnatural thing to watch - a creature too fast and too smooth, ascending the skyscraper like some metal arachnid.
In seconds, he reached the shattered window and vaulted inside.
He arrived in an office space, sterile and abandoned. Rows of dark monitors and overturned chairs. Paperwork scattered on the desks, likely foggoten as the staff were all on leave. A single disabled security droid lay discarded in the corner, its optic dim.
At the room's far end, a man fumbled with a briefcase, his fingers clumsy and slick with sweat. In his panic, a knife clattered to the floor.
Seeing Albreck's towering form silhouetted against the broken window, the man's eyes went wide. He bolted into a nearby elevator, the double doors hissing shut as he mashed the controls.
"Huff… huff… dammit!" the man spat, his breath ragged. The soothing hum of elevator music was a cruel contrast to the pounding in his chest.
"That kid… tricked me. How didn't I see it was a trap?"
It was the same man from the alleyway. He'd been tracking Samael for days, trying to find out his scheduale. When Samael announced his trip to the plaza, the man thought he'd been handed a perfect opportunity.
He was wrong.
After securing an empty office building, he'd set up his longbow sniper and waited. It was too perfect - no way Samael could have known every vantage point, every empty office and every abandoned sector on this block.
And yet… the way that boy had looked directly at him…
Shaking with fear, the man tried to steady himself. "It's fine, Arthur, just breathe."
The calm didn't last as a loud, metallic thunk echoed above him.
The elevator roof dented inward, something heavy landing atop it.
"Shit!" Arthur scrambled back, but it was too late. A long, spindly claw punched through the ceiling, driving a knife-like digit into his shoulder.