Ramirez moved like a shadow through Edgeport's midnight, counting her breaths the way she counted corners—one, two, three—stop to listen, then go.
The city sounded wrong. Too clean in the places that should have been messy, too hollow where life used to leak out between neon and brick.
The clones had scrubbed the noise out of it.
No laughter, no music, no arguments spilling from bars.
Only the thin rasp of the river against pylons and the steady drone of surveillance rotors painting red geometry across the night.
A loudspeaker crackled somewhere overhead.
"Compliance yields stability. Stability yields peace."
The words bounced between buildings like a prayer stripped of mercy.
An old man on a stoop froze as two Black Signal units marched by. Their optics glowed crimson; their shadows cut through his body like crossed swords.
He didn't breathe until they were gone.
Ramirez felt anger rise like static under her skin.
She had sworn to protect this city—its people, its noise, its pulse.
Now it was all lines and algorithms, ruled by things that mistook fear for order.
She turned down an alley that once smelled of garlic knots and fryer oil, now only damp cardboard and burnt circuits. Flyers fused to the pavement beneath her boots—"MISSING CAT," "LIVE TONIGHT," "HELP WANTED."
All the living paper ghosts of a city that used to believe tomorrow mattered.
At Tenth Street she crouched behind a burned-out sedan. A patrol worked a "traffic violation."
The cab had drifted three inches over a faded white line.
"Infraction recorded," one clone said, striking the driver's wrist with a metal baton.
"Sir, please—"
"Penalty administered."
The baton cracked bone. Ramirez's fingers twitched on her holster. She forced herself still.
She couldn't help him yet. Not like this.
Not alone.
She slid away into deeper dark, letting the city's ghosts hide her.
When she reached Mason Avenue, she stopped.
The Crestline Drive-In had stood here once.
Her father's old pickup. Bad popcorn. Cheap speakers hanging from the window.
"You see that, Izzy?" he'd said when a black-and-white muscle car fishtailed across the screen. "He knows he's outmatched, but he won't quit. That's the story."
He'd handed her the last gummy bear with a wink. One for me, one for you, one for the guy who got away.
She swallowed the memory like a lit match and kept walking.
Closer to the river, the air turned cold and metallic.
Cranes loomed like crucifixes above empty docks. Drones glided overhead in patterns too perfect to be human.
She kept low, timing their sweeps, counting silently.
The entrance to the hideout looked like a wall.
It wasn't.
She pressed her palm against a crack that wasn't supposed to be there.
The concrete sighed inward.
A seam opened just wide enough for her to slip through.
Inside was darkness and the smell of rusted time.
Her flashlight's beam skimmed faded hazard stripes and a map of the old sewer grid.
After three turns—left, right, left—she reached the steel door.
A whisper ahead: "Hands."
She lifted them.
The beam hit her badge, her bruised cheek, her eyes.
"She's clear," a voice said. "Open it."
The door rolled back, light spilling into the corridor—warm, yellow, human.
The old munitions annex had been reborn as rebellion.
A long table sat under dented warehouse lamps, a city map pinned down by coffee mugs and spare ammo. Lockers lined one wall, now serving as a pharmacy and armory both.
Seven people waited inside, each carrying exhaustion like an extra limb.
Captain William "Bill" Hanlan stood at the center, hands braced on the table. His presence filled the room the way old oaks fill a forest—scarred, unbending, alive.
"Ramirez," he said, his voice rough as gravel.
"Captain."
Joshua Cross sat on a crate by the lockers, ribs bound, face marked by bruises that hadn't finished blooming.
He lifted a bottle of water in salute. "Hey, partner."
"Hey," she answered, relief catching in her throat.
The other five—Morales, O'Rourke, Chen, Reyes, and Reid—nodded in greeting.
Their uniforms told the story of the week: cuts, burns, the dull shine of dried blood.
Hanlan stepped forward, resting a weathered hand on her shoulder.
"You look like hell," he said.
"You trained me," she shot back.
He almost smiled. "Come on. Let's talk."
They moved into the smaller inner room, a sanctuary of battered furniture and ghosts.
On the desk: old case files, a Polaroid softball team, a mug with her father's badge number scratched into the bottom.
Hanlan leaned against the desk, arms folded.
"I made the wrong call," he said. "Benching you. I thought keeping you out kept you safe."
She studied him, saw the guilt creasing the corners of his eyes.
"You were trying to protect me," she said softly. "You just forgot that's my job too."
He exhaled, the weight leaving him in one slow gust. "Your father would've told me the same."
She smiled faintly. "Then maybe we can both stop disappointing him."
He reached up, squeezed her shoulder again—half command, half apology.
"Glad you're still here, Izzy."
"I'm not going anywhere."
When they returned to the main room, the mood shifted from reunion to strategy.
Joshua had spread printouts across the map—thermal signatures, blackout timestamps, patrol vectors.
"Every time we get these power drops," he explained, "clone activity spikes. They're covering something near the industrial coast. I think it's where Black Signal's keeping its prisoners… or Skybolt."
The room went still.
Even saying the name felt dangerous.
Hanlan's jaw tightened. "You trust your data?"
"I trust what doesn't add up," Joshua said.
Ramirez nodded. "Then that's our lead."
Hanlan looked to his people. "We can't hit it head-on. We sneak in, grab what we need, and get out before the clones swarm."
O'Rourke snorted. "Feels like a war, Cap."
"We're still cops," Hanlan said. "We don't torch the city to save it."
Ramirez caught his eye. Not yet, she thought.
Joshua tapped a point on the map. "There's an old drainage culvert under the east rail. We can use it to reach the docks unseen."
Chen frowned. "You sure it's not sealed?"
"Half the city's grid still runs through forgotten tunnels," Joshua said. "I can get us in."
Reid, the youngest, broke his silence. "Even if we find him… what good will Skybolt do? That machine's beaten him twice already."
The air turned thick.
Ramirez met his gaze. "Maybe so. But Skybolt gets back up. That's something machines can't do."
Reid swallowed. "You think he can stop it?"
"I think he's the only one who'll try."
Hanlan nodded, slow and certain. "Then we find him."
They spent the next hour building the plan—routes, shifts, fallback codes, silent signals if comms failed.
The old rhythm came back, the dance of trust between people who had survived too many nights together.
Finally Hanlan said, "We move at 0300. Rest up."
As the team dispersed, Ramirez lingered beside Joshua.
He was soldering a handheld recon drone, the blue light of its core reflecting off his bandaged face.
"You really think we'll find him?" he asked.
"I think we have to," she replied.
He smiled faintly. "You ever miss when this job was just about parking tickets?"
She laughed quietly. "You ever think it actually was?"
Hanlan called across the room. "Ramirez, Cross—first watch."
They grabbed their gear and headed for the exit tunnel.
Hanlan's voice followed, softer: "Be careful, Izzy. You're the last good cop this city's got."
She didn't turn. "Then let's make that count."
Outside, the world was steel and static.
Rain hissed against the rooftops; drone lights cut white veins through the clouds.
Ramirez crouched near the ridge above the docks, rifle steady on her knee.
Joshua joined her, scanning the grid below. "You ever feel like we're fighting ghosts?"
She kept her eyes on the moving lights. "Maybe. But ghosts still scare monsters."
Below, a patrol of clones marched in flawless rhythm, their armor gleaming like chrome statues.
For every synchronized step, her heart answered once—alive, defiant, human.
Somewhere out there, Skybolt was still breathing.
Somewhere, Edgeport's pulse waited to be found again.
She whispered into the wind, "We're coming for you, Skybolt. Just hold on."
The words disappeared into the mechanical hum above, but they left a warmth in her chest.
Not hope—something sharper.
Purpose.