They gathered around the holo-table like generals before a war.
The Twins' training floor stank of sweat and oil; the lamps threw everyone's faces into hard relief. Blueprints spun above the table—Warehouse 47's layout, convoy routes, drone patrol arcs, and the Pulse Core's mobile cradle mapped in wireframe. Eve's fingers moved over the air as if she were conducting a small storm, calling up feeds and folding them into new shapes. The hum of the base felt like a heartbeat.
"Two nights," Eve said. Her voice was clipped, efficient. "That's our window. They move the core at 0200. Convoy timing: departure at 0130, checkpoint at 0147. Drone swarm repatterns at 0138. Security lull around 0145 while they swap control nodes." She stabbed a point on the holo. "That's when we hit them."
Kai didn't need the numbers repeated. He watched the projection, letting the routes burn into him like a map tattooed on muscle. The EMP could change everything, but only if they didn't get chewed to scrap by federal dogs or TetsuCorp's private guards.
He looked up and addressed the room. "Roles. Clear and silent. No improvisation unless I give it."
They all knew how he meant it—improvisation from anyone else tended toward disaster.
Eve folded her spider-arms into their sheath and stepped forward. "I'll plant the vector. I'll need a feed into the convoy swarm before it reaches Mainline Street. I'll spoof their command mesh long enough for Drift to intercept and Altacora to secure the crate. Twenty-seven seconds is generous; we'll take fifteen."
Drift cracked his knuckles and grinned like a kid at the edge of a cliff. "I'll tune the route—two choke points, one steam vent, and a service arch. I'll make them slow down and blind the escorts. After that, it's our lane. If the serpents or the dogs show, I burn the alley and we vanish."
Crow set her rifle across the holo's edge, voice level and cold. "I'll overwatch all choke points. If anything moves at more than twenty meters, they don't exist anymore. No mercy, no questions. Altacora, you handle close quarters retrieval and local crowd control."
Lady Altacora—Altacora—inclined her head, the faintest flourish of her parasol-turned-weapon at her hip. "I'll be the cut between their jaws. Wings for vertical, fan for entry, whip for suppression. I'll get that crate out of the van and into Drift's hands."
The Twins were quieter than usual. Kane traced a recruiting line along the map, eyes sharp. "We can provide muscle to hold the southern flank. My boys can block the rear exits and keep local enforcement busy. Kyra will take the lead on any combatives inside the perimeter. She likes breaking things."
Kyra cracked a smile that was almost feral. "I'll break what needs breaking. If a dog looks at me funny—well, it won't look for long." She flexed once, the room humming with the threat and promise of raw power.
Eve glanced at Spencer. He felt the weight of her gaze like a thin glove. "You're with me," she said. "You'll be the vector runner—watch my taps, feed me overlays, pull micro-jams on command. You stay shadowed. No heroics."
Spencer's mouth went dry, but his fingers found a steady rhythm on his slate. "Got it."
Kai's plan wasn't just a list of who did what. It was a choreography of deception and speed. He walked them through the motions, slow then fast, a drill that stitched together into one lethal beat.
"Approach," he said. "Drift takes the northern alley, slow and steady. He drops us two blocks out. Station the car in the shadow of the steam vents. Eve sends a scout packet into their drone grid at 0136—fake a maintenance ping and open a brief lane. That's when Drift accelerates through the choke. Altacora and Kyra hit the van; Crow keeps eyes on the roofs; Kane's team seals off the rear exits. I go with Altacora to break the crate and secure the drive physically. Eve clamps the pulse, we bag it, and we disappear."
He let the last clauses hang in the air. He'd seen plans work and collapse, the difference always the same: execution.
Eve hauled a small bubble into the holo—an overlay of the convoy's expected comms. "I'll need a mirror node on the west-side comms cabinet. It's exposed during the swap. Spencer, that's your job—to plant the jitter worm I designed and keep eyes on the packet echo. If anyone tries to trace us, it should go to a loop."
Spencer felt the responsibility like a live wire. He swallowed and logged the command chain, the code already forming in his head. "I'll inject it in at 0137. I'll have twenty seconds of control before the fallback cascade."
"Twenty seconds is a lifetime," Altacora muttered. She flicked her fan open and closed it, metal singing against air. "Make it count."
Kai added the contingencies—escape corridors, false leads, burner nodes that would light ghosts across the grid. "If Oblivion shows," he said quietly, "we don't try to wrestle. We draw. We bait. Kyra's strength is a hammer. Use it to create openings, not to stand in the middle and shout."
Kane lifted his hands, already moving through the mental logistics. "We'll stage a decoy fight at the northern square. Local enforcement will flood there first. Gives Drift more room on the mainline."
"You'll be visible," Crow said. "That's fine. Be visible to them and invisible to their systems."
The room fell into a working silence—each team member aligning pulse and plan. In the corner, a stack of crates held the tools of their trade: jammer cores, EMP grenades (small ones, for diversion), false license plates, and a single, matte-black satchel labeled: Mark-V Targeting Module — SAMPLES. The real prize, the Pulse Core, was still a step away—locked within the convoy's cradle. This module would tell them where to strike, how to trigger the core in a controlled way without frying themselves.
Eve pointed a finger at the satchel. "This module must be in our hands before we touch the core. It's the translator between our pulse and their hardware. Without it, a misfire fries friend and foe alike."
"Agreed," Kai said. Then he fixed his gaze on Spencer, the boy whose jitter had toppled the dog weeks ago. "You understand what this means, kid? One wrong sequence and a city block becomes a graveyard."
Spencer's throat tightened. "I know."
Kai's jaw softened for a breath. "Then don't think about heroics. Think about rhythm. Find the beat and keep it. If you do that, we all get home."
They rehearsed in quiet bursts—Eve and Spencer running signal runs, Altacora practicing a twelve-second vault that included a fan toss and a whip break, Kyra smashing concrete columns until her fists bled and kept going. Drift raced the route again and again, calibrating throttle to steam vent timing. Crow set up imaginary sightlines, counting windows and balconies, marking the angles where a rifle could miss—because in the cities, a miss might mean a life.
When the sun bled to neon and the base lights dimmed, Kai finally let them rest. The plan had bones; the final flesh would be placed in the night.
At the edge of the training floor, Eve came to Spencer and tapped the slate he'd been working on. Her spider-arms glimmered faintly as she folded them away. "Listen to me," she said, softer than she'd been all evening. "When we run this, you'll be looking at numbers and not people. That's how you stay alive. Keep the loop alive. Watch the echo and never let it stabilize."
Spencer nodded, afraid to ask the question buzzing in him. "What if Oblivion shows up?"
Eve's eyes were flat and honest. "Then you run. You hide. You don't die here."
He wanted to be braver than the quaver in his chest. He wanted to be the kind of recruit who could stand with Kyra and take a blow. But he understood the truth in her words. There were things bigger than courage; there were instincts and timing and the cold mathematics of survival.
Kai gathered them once more, the plan sliding into them like oil into gears. "We do this clean," he said. "We take the module, we take the core, and we disappear. No glory. No parades. We come back with the means to fight, or we come back not at all."
They melted into shadow to prepare—armor checks, charger clips, last-minute code patches. The city spun on above them, neon and indifferent. Two nights would decide the arc of their war.
Outside, Drift warmed the engine. The route was waiting. The night was patient.
They stepped into it.