The world narrowed to the space between heartbeats. The roars outside were a coordinated hunt, triangulating their position. Kaelen killed the lights, plunging the studio into the eerie glow of holographic interfaces.
"Plan," Anya snapped, her voice rough but controlled. The beast was caged, for now. She drew her sidearm, the weapon's hum a comforting promise of violence.
"The roof," Kaelen said, his mind a map of conduits and escape routes. "There's an old maintenance bridge to the adjacent sector. Less surveillance."
He grabbed a portable dataspike containing Jax's ghost and his analysis, then followed Anya into the hallway. The building was old, the stairs concrete and echoing. The sub-sonic drone of the Pacification Grid was a constant, oppressive presence, a leash straining to hold back its hounds.
They burst onto the rain-slicked roof. The city sprawled around them, a tapestry of light and shadow. And in those shadows, things moved. Large, impossibly fast, their forms blurring in the neon haze.
Anya fired a warning shot into the dark. A searing blue plasma bolt lit up the night. For a split second, they saw one of them, crouched on a nearby ledge. It was a nightmare of fused muscle and dark, matted fur, its limbs elongated, ending in claws that scraped grooves in the concrete. But its eyes... its eyes held a feral, tragic awareness.
It didn't attack. It tilted its head, and a low, chuffing sound escaped its maw. It was a question. A lament.
"Jax?" Anya breathed, lowering her weapon a fraction.
The creature—Jax—recoiled as if struck. He let out a pained whine, then bounded away, melting into the darkness. The other roars in the distance fell silent. The hunt had been called off.
"They're not just attack dogs," Kaelen said, understanding washing over him. "They're prisoners. He recognized you, Anya. He remembered."
They reached the rusting maintenance bridge, a skeletal structure swaying in the wind. As they crossed, Kaelen risked a look down at the dizzying drop. He saw a black, unmarked armored vehicle pull up to his building's entrance. Figures in OmniCorp tactical gear poured out.
"They're cleaning up," Anya said grimly.
They made it to the opposite roof just as the sound of breaching charges echoed from Kaelen's studio. They were safe, for the moment. But they were also exposed, hunted, and tethered to a secret that was tearing them both apart. Kaelen by the frequencies he alone could hear, and Anya by the beast that was now a part of her bloodline. The only way out was to find the source of the static—the alpha frequency—and break the chain.