By daylight, Kai was just another ghost in Erevos.
He wore the mask well—ordinary jacket, scuffed boots, hair tied back like a laborer. He moved through the noise of the lower districts, a phantom swallowed by neon. At the fabrication yard, he clocked in with hundreds of others, his hands greasy with machine oil instead of blood.
The world never knew that the man fixing conduit by day was the same shadow who broke government vaults by night.
When the whistle blew, Kai left the shift behind, the grime of the yard still clinging to him. He didn't even shower before heading down into the catacombs beneath Sector 9, where ShadowNet's base glowed with scattered holo-screens, ammo crates, and the faint buzz of generators.
The others were already waiting.
Crow cleaned her rifle with mechanical precision. Drift leaned against the wall, boot tapping, ever restless. Spencer sat cross-legged, a slate open on his lap, eyes darting with code that looked like static to anyone else. And Eve—her spider-arms folded neatly against her spine—watched Kai with an intensity that never softened.
"You're late," she said, though her mouth curved faintly.
Kai tossed his jacket aside. "Day job pays the bills. You said it was urgent."
Eve stood, pulling a projection into the air with a flick of her wrist. A diagram bloomed: schematics of a collar, pulsing blue just like the ones they'd torn off the Oblivion hounds.
"This is Project Oblivion," she began. "Not just cyber-dogs. It's a federal weapons initiative. Hybrid war-machines. Biotech, AI, and cybernetics rolled into one. Each unit learns, adapts, replicates patterns. What we fought were just the entry-level hunters."
Spencer shifted uneasily. "Entry-level?"
Eve nodded. "They're scaling up. There are larger frames. Pack leaders. Rumors of humanoid Ob units that can command squads."
Crow muttered a curse under her breath.
Eve swiped the diagram away and brought up another: a sleek black canister mounted in a containment rig, humming with electromagnetic coils.
"This," she said, "is the Mark-V Pulse Core. A directed EMP weapon developed by TetsuCorp. Prototype only. One blast, and any cybernetic system in range fries—Oblivion included."
Drift let out a low whistle. "Sounds like cheating."
Eve's eyes narrowed. "Sounds like survival. Without something like this, next time we won't walk away from those dogs. And they will send more."
Kai leaned back in his chair, expression unreadable. "Where is it?"
"Warehouse 47," Eve replied. "Heavily guarded, automated defenses, corporate contract security. The usual nightmare. But it's mobile. In two nights, they're moving it to a secure lab. That's our window."
The room fell silent. The hum of the base filled the space.
Spencer looked at Kai, then at Eve. "So… we're stealing an EMP to fight killer cyber-dogs?"
Drift grinned. "Kid's catching on quick."
Kai finally spoke, his voice low, steady. "If we move, we move fast. Eve, you're lead on intel. Crow, prep loadout. Drift, keep the engines hot. Spencer—" he fixed the boy with a look that was equal parts warning and trust, "—you're with Eve. Learn, but stay alive."
Eve inclined her head. "Then it's decided. ShadowNet goes hunting."
The holo-display flickered off. For a moment, no one spoke. Each of them understood the weight of what they were planning: a strike not against gangs, not against rivals, but against the corporations and the federal machine itself.
Project Oblivion had drawn first blood. Now ShadowNet would answer
⚡ This chapter sets up their next big heist mission — the EMP grab.
Do you want the next chapter (15) to be the planning montage (blueprints, disguises, infiltration paths, team dynamics) before the action, or do you want to jump straight into the heist to keep the pace high?