05:12 AM – Metro City, N.P.U. Headquarters.
There's something about the hallways at this hour they always feel colder right before dawn. The buzzing fluorescent lights overhead cast sharp shadows on the tiled floor, making everything look clinical and, well, lifeless.
Adrian adjusted his jacket collar as he pushed through the double doors. His boots echoed sharply against the steel and the silence that filled the space.
Honestly, no matter how many times Adrian had walked these halls, the air in them never really got any easier to breathe. Just too clean. Too rehearsed.
Behind a cluttered desk sat Captain Elias Ward, who looked up from a stack of reports. His uniform was crisp and neat, but the fatigue etched into his face told a different story. Those dark crescents under his eyes? They were the kind that came from battles neither of them had ever really signed up for.
"Adrian," Elias greeted, his voice softer than protocol usually allowed. "Thanks for coming in early."
Adrian gave a quick nod. He didn't sit down.
"Didn't think I had a choice," he said flatly.
A faint smile flickered across Elias's tired features, though it faded almost immediately. "Still a smartass, I see." He slid a folder across the desk black cover, with bold letters stamped across it in heavy red ink: [N.P.U. EYES ONLY]
For just a heartbeat, Adrian's hand hovered above it. Long enough, really, for Elias to catch the hesitation. Then he flipped it open.
The pages crackled faintly. Some of the lines flickered as though the file itself didn't want to be read.
FILE ACCESS: GRANTED
SUBJECT: Worker Disappearances – South Metro Industrial Zone
Irina K. Dovale – MISSING. Last shift: 08/21. Age: 29. Night worker, chemical disposal sector.
Marcus H. Leigh – MISSING. Last shift: 08/23. Age: 34. Transport operator, documented complaints of unsafe conditions.
Daniel R. Pi3rc3 – MISSING. Last shift: 08/25. Age: 41. Senior maintenance. Final logged message: "Still hearing scr—[DATA CORRUPTED]."
Unnamed Male – Recovered deceased. Body heavily deteriorated. Abnormal muscular growth noted. Autopsy incomplete due to [SIGNAL INTERRUPTION].
NOTES:
- Disappearances linked to Nexo Pharmaceutical Corporation's South Metro facility.
- Recruitment method: promises of higher pay + extended medical coverage.
- Convoys seen moving at irregular hours, destinations: sub-levels [███].
- Informants reference trial injections of an "Enhanc3ment Serum."
OBSERVATIONS:
- Subjects experience rapid tissue distortion within 3–6 hours.
- Psychological collapse: aggression, compulsive violence, erasure of identity.
- Survival rate beyond 48 hours: 0%.
RECOMMENDATION:
- Infiltrate South Metro Nexo Pharmaceutical facility.
- Secure any surviving samples of Cauteris [Antidote]/ serum schematics.
- Retrieve living witnesses if possible.
- DO NOT ENGAGE altered subjects without clearance.
AUTHORIZATION:
Operation sanctioned by Nemesis Protocol Unit (N.P.U.)
Commanding Officer: Captain Elias Ward.
Field Lead: Adrian Cole.
Adrian's fingers tightened on the folder. The names seemed to blur together Irina, Marcus, Daniel. Real people who'd walked into that facility and, well, never walked out. His jaw clenched as his eyes found the survival rate again.
Zero percent.
"You want me to walk into that nightmare," Adrian said quietly.
Elias leaned back in his chair, rubbing his jaw. "I wouldn't ask if I had anyone else. You know that." His voice dropped lower. "Off the record? If I could burn that place to the ground myself, I would. But orders are orders. They want answers, and you're the only one I trust to get them."
Adrian let out a breath hollow, really, with no humor in it at all. "You're asking me to go back into Nexopharma's shadow."
"I know," Elias said, his gaze steady and unwavering. "But we don't get to say no, do we?"
The silence that followed was thick and uncomfortable. After a moment, Elias slid an earpiece across the desk. "Helicopter's on the roof. Three hours."
Adrian pocketed the earpiece. The folder felt impossibly heavy in his other hand. His pulse was hammering he could feel it in his throat as he turned toward the door.
"Adrian."
He stopped, though he didn't turn around.
"Come back," Elias said softly.
Adrian's hand found the door handle. The metal was cold against his palm. "I'll try."
08:00 AM – N.P.U. Headquarters, North Metro, Rooftop
The stairwell, as it turned out, smelled like a rather unfortunate combination of bleach and mold. Somehow, that made both smells worse.
Adrian climbed the stairs slowly, his boots scraping against peeling paint with each step. The folder was tucked under his arm a constant, uncomfortable reminder of what was waiting for him in South Metro.
When he finally reached the top, he shoved the rooftop door open with more force than necessary. The wind hit him at once sharp and biting, carrying with it the smell of exhaust and rusted metal.
The city sprawled out below in shades of steel and smoke. The early light was bruised and gray, looking more like a dying bulb than any kind of proper sunrise.
There it was the helicopter, its rotors already thrumming in a steady, violent rhythm, kicking up grit and dust. And there, leaning halfway out of the cockpit with his headset askew and his black hair whipping wildly in the rotor wash, was Garrick.
His blue eyes caught the light as a grin split across his face. "Rise and shine, Agent," he called out cheerfully. "Didn't think I'd be your personal alarm clock today."
Adrian crossed the tarmac, pulling his coat tighter against the wind. He climbed into the cabin and strapped himself in, pointedly not looking at Garrick while he did so.
"An alarm clock's supposed to be useful," Adrian said. "You just make noise."
Garrick laughed a sound that cut cleanly through the engine's drone. "Cute. Real cute. Just try not to redecorate my seats again, yeah?"
"Fly straight," Adrian shot back, "and I won't have to."
"Deal." Garrick's hands moved across the controls with easy, practiced confidence. "ETA to South Metro: thirty-two minutes. Try to enjoy the scenic route,"
The rotors roared even louder. Then the helicopter lifted, and suddenly the rooftop was falling away beneath them. The headquarters shrank rapidly into just another gray block among hundreds of others. The city unfolded below a sprawling mess of glass and concrete that caught what little morning light there was.
Adrian said nothing at all. He just pressed his shoulder against the cabin wall and watched as the world tilted.
Garrick, as it turned out, liked to talk. He kept up a running commentary for the first few minutes something about air traffic patterns, and then about some new restaurant he'd tried last week.
Adrian tuned most of it out, honestly. The words just became noise after a while, blending seamlessly with the steady thrum of the rotors.
His hand found the folder again. He didn't open it just felt the weight of it against his lap, the sharp edges pressing insistently through the fabric of his coat.
Irina. Marcus. Daniel.
Just names on a page, really. People who'd been reduced to entries in a file marked N.P.U EYES ONLY, their final moments nothing more than corrupted data and signal interruptions.
Zero percent survival rate.
Adrian's jaw tightened. He turned his gaze toward the window.
The city was changing beneath them now. Those gleaming glass towers were giving way to much older buildings, brick and mortar stained by what must have been decades of exhaust.
Smokestacks rose like broken teeth against the skyline. The streets below were getting narrower, twisting in on themselves, becoming almost labyrinthine.
This was the threshold, then. The line between North Metro's polished facade and South Metro's decay.
He'd crossed it before, of course. But somehow, every single time felt like the first time.
Garrick's voice crackled through the headset. "You good back there? You've gone awfully quiet. That's either very good or very bad, in my experience."
"Just enjoying the view," Adrian said.
"Liar," Garrick replied easily. But he didn't push it. The helicopter banked slightly, adjusting course.
Adrian closed his eyes. He tried, really tried to find that empty space in his mind where missions usually lived. Clinical. Detached. Just another job. But the folder was too heavy against his lap. The names too real, somehow.
Behind his eyelids, smoke began to curl. Not here, he told himself firmly. Not now. This was a different place, a different time entirely. But still, flames eating through walls. Ceiling beams groaning horribly before they—
His eyes snapped open.
The city sprawled below, completely unchanged. It was just smoke from a hundred different chimneys down there. Not fire. Not burning. Just Metro on what looked like a perfectly ordinary morning.
He forced himself to breathe properly. In. Out.
The helicopter dipped lower. Adrian pressed his forehead against the cold glass of the window, watching as his reflection ghosted across the surface. He looked tired, he thought. Older than he actually felt.
"Twenty minutes out," Garrick said, glancing back briefly.
Twenty minutes.
Adrian's fingers drummed restlessly against the folder. He thought about opening it again, maybe reviewing the details one more time. But honestly, he'd already memorized every single word. Every corrupted line. Every carefully redacted section.
So instead, he just watched as South Metro grew steadily larger below them. The buildings getting lower. More densely packed together. Rusted metal and crumbling concrete everywhere. Streets that honestly looked like scars cut directly into flesh.
Somewhere down there, people were vanishing. Being unmade, really.
And he was flying straight toward it.
The helicopter shuddered slightly turbulence, probably, or maybe just wind. Adrian couldn't really tell. Garrick corrected smoothly, his hands steady on the controls.
"Ever think about doing something else?" Adrian asked suddenly.
Garrick glanced back, looking genuinely surprised. "What, like accounting or something?"
"Anything," Adrian said, "that doesn't involve flying straight into hell?"
There was a pause. Then Garrick's grin returned, though it was softer this time. "Well, where's the fun in that?"
"Fun," Adrian echoed, turning back to the window. "Right."
The city stretched endlessly below them. Gray and brown and rust. No green anywhere. No color at all, really. Just survival compressed tightly into narrow streets and sagging buildings.
Adrian closed his eyes again. This time, at least, he didn't see smoke. Just darkness. Just the steady drone of the rotors and the cold, constant press of window glass against his forehead.
Thirty-two minutes, Garrick had said earlier.
They were almost there now.
Garrick's voice cut cleanly through the silence. "South Metro perimeter coming up. Warehouse district's your drop point. I'll be waiting right there when you need extraction."
"If I need extraction," Adrian said.
"When," Garrick corrected firmly. His tone didn't really leave room for argument. "You're not the dying-heroically type, mate. Too much paperwork involved."
Adrian opened his eyes. South Metro filled the entire horizon now a vast sprawl of industrial decay and desperate humanity. Somewhere in that tangled mess of streets and shadows was Nexo Pharmaceutical. And somewhere inside Nexo, presumably, were answers.
Or just more bodies.
The helicopter began its descent. Adrian's hand moved almost automatically to his sidearm, checking it out of pure habit. Loaded. Safety on. Everything in its proper place.
Everything, that is, except the certainity that he'd actually walk back out.
The folder sat heavy on his lap. Seemingly growing heavier with every passing second.
He tucked it carefully into his jacket pocket and tightened his straps as the helicopter dropped steadily lower.
The city wasn't done with him yet.
And honestly? He wasn't done with it either.