The frigid, polluted water of the Neo-Haven harbor closed over Aris's head. It was a sensory assault: the sting of industrial runoff, the heavy, muffled silence broken only by the hydraulic groan of the Tidal Locks overhead.
He was in the Apex Form—pure Lupus Canis—a massive, silent, black-furred predator gliding through the gloom. This was the form he dreaded the most. It offered unparalleled speed and stealth, a pure animal efficiency that required constant, agonizing mental restraint. To let the beast lead here was to drown in instinct.
Monologue: Environmental resistance at 98%. Apex Form is sustaining core temperature. Apex Run velocity is 40 knots. Tidal current compensation is necessary for stealth.
He engaged the Sensory Dispersal Cloak, a field of static that swallowed light and muffled the subtle vibration of his movements. Underwater, the cloak was even more effective, turning his massive form into a mere shadow in the dense, chlorophyll-tinged water.
The target was five hundred meters down, along the massive concrete foundation of the Locks. Kaine had built the proxy servers into the one place the city's engineers guaranteed was impenetrable: a decommissioned floodgate control station.
Aris followed the subtle vibrations of the current, navigating by the thermal signature of the deep sea vents used by the station for climate control. His Sonic Nullifier, a faint blue field around his wrist, hummed softly, filtering out the low-frequency sonar pulses that Kaine's security forces used to sweep the area.
A flicker of movement ahead.
Two of Kaine's security units—small, aquatic drones—patrolled the junction box. They were sleek, black ovals equipped with passive sonar and high-intensity, chemical-resistant lasers. They were not SCD operators, but they were deadly.
Aris froze, becoming a silent, black outline pressed against the concrete.
Monologue: Drone detection range: 10 meters. Their movement pattern is predictable: three-second sweep, one-second pause. Direct engagement probability: High risk of sustained sonic ping.
He watched them cycle, the methodical rhythm of their sweep a mocking echo of Kaine's obsession with order. Brute force was not an option. A fight would create seismic disruption, alerting the entire port authority and, worse, Kaine himself.
He engaged the Apex Run in short, precise bursts, using the three-second window to close the distance. He moved not with power, but with the subtle efficiency of a natural force, timing his movement to the drone's sonar ping. He was within three meters of the first drone, close enough to feel the pressure wave of its movement, before it registered his presence.
The drone's internal processor registered the anomaly—a cold, large object that shouldn't be there. It stopped its sweep, and a small, red sensor light began to pulse.
Aris acted. He didn't claw the drone; that would shatter the outer hull and release a torrent of acoustic noise. Instead, he used his forearm, a solid mass of muscle and bone, to deliver a Kinetic Force Amplification pulse—a non-destructive, focused shockwave—directly to the drone's impeller housing.
The drone shuddered violently. Its internal machinery seized, short-circuited by the sudden kinetic resonance, and it drifted inertly into the heavy current. The second drone, still operating on its cyclical sweep, failed to register the precise moment of failure.
Aris was at the junction box. It was a two-meter diameter circle of reinforced, deep-sea manganese steel. Impregnable to anything short of a plasma cutter.
He phased the transformation, the water boiling around him as the enormous Gen-Wolf form violently displaced the volume. The muscles swelled, his bones knitting into their massive, engineered strength.
Monologue: Time exposed: Maximum 10 seconds. Focus on the apex hinge points.
He drove his five-fingered, clawed hand deep into the junction box's locking mechanism. He ignored the pressure of the deep water, the agonizing burn of his muscles already consuming the Stabilization Agent Lena had provided. With a terrible, grinding shriek that echoed off the deep walls, he tore the heavy seal away from the concrete.
The internal wiring was exposed. Aris shifted back immediately, the Gen-Wolf form receding and leaving the smaller, exhausted man in its place. He was cold, shaking, and hyper-aware of the massive sonic disruption he had just created.
He reached into the waterproof pouch and plugged Whisper's trojan into the main terminal port. A small, green light on the drive blinked rapidly for five agonizing seconds.
Then, it went solid. Data acquired.
The junction box shrieked as emergency sealant protocols kicked in. It was time to leave.
Aris phased once more into the Apex Form and shot upward, a silent, powerful torpedo racing toward the surface, leaving the cold, polluted chaos behind him. He had the intel, but he knew the cost.
Monologue: Code of Conduct (Tenet 1: Stealth and Subtlety)—Compromised. Energy expenditure: Critical. Kaine now knows his sub-levels are vulnerable. The SCD response will be immediate.
He surfaced in the dark harbor, transitioning back to human form on a secluded loading dock. The SCD would be mobilizing now, not searching for a man in a boat, but a thing that moved like a creature of the deep. He was alive, but the game had just escalated. He was no longer hunting Kaine; he was drawing a target on his own back.
Anya "Whisper" Rossi was waiting for him in a rusted-out van nearby. As he climbed in, shivering, she tossed him a towel and a pair of dry clothes, her eyes still glued to her terminal.
"Did you get it?" she demanded.
"The server is compromised," Aris said, peeling off his tattered suit.
Whisper's fingers flew across the keyboard. A flood of encrypted data cascaded across her screen. She gave a low, impressed whistle. "Holy hell, Aris. This isn't just financials. It's schematics, research logs, personnel manifests... and a full manifest for something called Project Uniformity."
"Uniformity," Aris repeated, the word sounding sterile and chilling. "What is it?"
Whisper frowned, scrolling rapidly. "I'm still parsing the data structure, but it looks like a city-wide bio-agent deployment system. And the core virus? They call it the 'Tempo-Uniformis'."
Aris froze, the name echoing the neurotoxin that had just slowed his healing. He felt the cold seep into his bones, deeper than the harbor water.
"It's not just a defense mechanism, Whisper," Aris whispered, his voice gaining the low, strained quality of Dr. Thorne. "It's a plague. Kaine is not just trying to kill me; he's trying to rewrite the city's biology."