POV: Third Person (Mateo & Kenzie Centered)
THE EAST RIVER GRAVEYARD - 11:58 PM
Rain lashed against the skeletal framework of Pier 17, beating against rusty shipping containers stacked up like giant tombstones. Water poured over Kenzie's hood, adhering black strands to her cheeks as she leaned against a stack of moldy pallets. Her burner phone throbbed weakly in her hands:
`[SCAN COMPLETE: NO KNOWN TRACKERS. LOCAL COMMS JAMMED - 87% EFFECTIVE]`
Good enough.She caught sight of Container NYX, whose metal sides were scarred with peeling graffiti. A crude lightning bolt – spray-painted in faded blue –was marked on its side. Oracle's beacon or a bullseye?
CRASH!
The noise tore through the howl of the storm, ringing from within NYX. Kenzie winced. Not the whine of T.A.H.I.T.I. drones. Something more substantial. Living. A low moan came next.
They're already here.
INSIDE CONTAINER NYX
The air was thick with rust, wet rot, and ozone. Mateo Rostova leaned back on the chill of corrugated metal, breathing harshly. Rainwater dripped from the leather jacket onto the dirty floor. He had stumbled over a buried pipe wrench in the darkness, the clang so loud it had sounded like a gunshot in the small room. Now a burning throb throbbed above his right eyebrow where the wrench had hit him. Blood, coppery and warm, mixed with rainwater on his lip.
Idiot He clenched his fists, knuckles white. Keep it in check. Just breathe.
But the memory came back: Yellow AIM hazmat suits coming toward him, his mother's voice begging over the resonator's nauseating whine, \\\"Mateo, concentrarse! Demonstrenles que no eres un error!\\\"
CRACK.
The wrench that was used vibrated, then hovered six inches in the air, revolving slowly. Pebbles slipped in his scuffed boots like iron filings to a magnet. A searing pain flared behind his eyes – the warning.
Stop. Please, he panted, closing his eyes tightly. The wrench toppled over with a clank.
SHHHK.
The door of the container creaked slightly open. Mateo spun around, pounding heart. A small figure stood in the yard illuminated by the storm, hood low.
> KENZIE: (Whispering through the blinding rain) "Oracle sent you?"
> MATEO: (Surprised, backing up) "Whoa! Who the hell—" His boot caught on debris. He staggered into a precariously stacked pile of decaying crates. They toppled over in a chaos of shattering wood.
> KENZIE: (Bursting in, slamming the door) "Shut up! Do you want to die? They'll triangulate that sound!" She leaned against the door, panting, eyes raking Mateo: bleeding, wild-eyed, radiating fear. Her own skin crawled with static. Unstable. Like me.
>MATEO: (Wiping blood away, strained voice) "Hey, I received this strange anonymous note! 'Oracle' instructed me to come here if I needed answers. You know them?" He glared at her backpack and tech-glow phone.
> KENZIE: (Ignoring the question, pushing forward) "Show me that you're not T.A.H.I.T.I. What's your *thing*?"
>MATEO: (Bitter laugh echoing in metal box) "My thing? I just wanna be left alone in this messed-up world!" Rubbed palms against temples, headache worsening. The smashed crates started to rattle on the floor. The following is a brief excerpt from a longer work.
Kenzie's phone screen flashed:
`[WARNING: LOCALIZED GRAVIMETRIC DISTORTION - 3.7 SIGMA]`
Her eyes darted to the shaking boxes, and then to Mateo. His hands were shaking.
> KENZIE: (Squinting) "You move things." "Telekinesis."
>MATEO: (His fear honing his voice) "I don't move them! It just. *happens*! When I'm angry, or scared, or—" He threw his arm at her, at the container, at the storm raging outside. "Like this!"
> The rattling grew louder. Dust poured from the ceiling.
RED LIGHTS IN THE RAIN
FWOOOM! FWOOM!
Twin beams of intense crimson light cut through the slits surrounding the container door, lighting up the interior like prison searchlights. A synthesized voice boomed, icy and loud:
"THERMAL SIGNATURES VERIFIED. TWO ANOMALIES. CONTAINER NYX. DEPLOY CONTAINMENT TEAMS ALPHA AND BETA."
>MATEO: (Color fading from his face) "T.A.H.I.T.I.! They followed me. I led them directly to you."
> KENZIE:(Cursing, shoving her phone away) "They followed both of us! Oracle knew! This was a setup!" She saw a smaller, rusty service door in the rear of the container, half-hidden behind a crooked metal shelf. "There! Move!
Chaos erupted:
Kenzie clutched at the door. Her fear was at its apex – that solitary, hanging bulb above burst in a blue cascade of sparks and glass, plunging NYX into dimness that was lit only by the searching red beams outside.
* Mateo blindly trailed behind her. Boots pounded on the front door – *they were trying to break in. Fear mounted like a live wire.
* GROAN. SCREECH! The metal shelf next to Kenzie, rattled by the shock of the exploded bulb or Mateo's brute strength, ripped loose from its old bolts. It crashed forward like a fallen tree, directly into Kenzie's head!
KENZIE!" Mateo shouted. Not a thought, instinct. He extended his right arm, palm out, fingers spread. Not a push – a wild STOP.
A distorted air ripple appeared visible from him. The falling shelf JOLTED, suspended mid-fall inches from Kenzie's hood. Metal shrieked in protest. Mateo gasped, a small trickle of blood spilling from his nostril, the veins in his neck bulging like cables. The mental pressure was agonizing.
> MATEO: (Voice a guttural strain) "GO! NOW! CAN'T. HOLD!"
Kenzie crawled under the suspended death-trap, opening the stiff service door wide. Cold rain and wind flooded in.
Mateo let go with a gasp. The shelf CRASHED DOWN with titanic force, totally clogging the main entrance just as it buckled inwards under tremendous impacts. Distant shouts and the screech of metal on metal burst behind the barrier.
MAZE OF METAL AND RAIN
They stumbled out into a canyon of containers stacked high. Rain lashed down, creating walkways into torrential, ankle-deep streams. The wind howled between steel walls.
> KENZIE:(Spitting out rainwater, glancing over her shoulder) "They'll flank us! We need cover!"
MATEO: (Slumped over against a bin, shaking violently, slapping a hand against a nose that was bleeding) "I can't. run much further. head's splitting." His face was as white as chalk, his eyes dazed from the burst of power.
Kenzie glimpsed salvation: a thin, black crevice between two huge piles, barely wider than a shoulder, which opened into the looming, red-brown bulk of a long-abandoned gantry crane. Its lattice provided possible hiding places high above.
> KENZIE: "Here! Come on!" She pulled on his arm, dragging him toward the entrance. "And don't go ahead and drop the entire damn port on us, Quake!" >MATEO: (Giving her a weak, tortured look) "Real funny, Glitch." BZZT! Kenzie's burner phone vibrated insistently against the skin of her thigh in her pocket. Not a alarm. A soft, encrypted chime. She pulled it out as she wriggled through the gap. An incoming message flashed, routed through a dizzying chain of dead nodes: > // ORACLE [ANON-VERIFIED] // > >> SUBJ: SAFE(ISH) HOUSE - PRIORITY ALPHA << > >> BODY: PIER COMPROMISED. T.A.H.I.T.I. NETWIDE SCAN ACTIVE. ABANDONED SUBWAY ACCESS TUNNEL - GRID REF: 40.7128° N, 74.0060° W. ENTRACE VIA BROKEN VENT SHAFT BEHIND 'FALCON' GRAFFITI. 1.2 KM NE. LURE NOT INTENTIONAL. TRUST REMAINS OPTIONAL. MOVE. //ORACLE** Kenzie reached out and handed the screen to Mateo, its beam falling across their rain-soaked faces crowded into the small space. >MATEO: (Staring at coordinates, voice laced with pain and mistrust) "Another trap? Trick us down where there's no way out?" > KENZIE: (Looking at the precise grid ref, then out at the storm-lashed industrial hellhole) "Maybe. Or it's the only lifeline we have." She caught his bloodshot gaze. The distant wail of sirens cut through the rain. "You coming with me, Rostova? Or staying here for T.A.H.I.T.I.'s favors?" No trust. Mutual desperation and pattering rain alone. Mateo grunted harshly, propelling himself away from the container wall. Side by side, bent into the rain, they disappeared into the maze, trudging northeast for the coordinates, leaving the sweeping red searchlights behind them.