The rain in the industrial sector didn't fall. It seeped.
A greasy, chemical-laced drizzle that sweat from the bruised sky. It carried the tang of mag-lev factories and the sweet scent of decay.
Down here, the city showed its rusted, weeping foundations.
Selena Ji huddled in the shelter of a corroded loading bay. Neon signs bled into the puddles at her feet, a swirling painting of despair.
Come on, Silas. You picked the five-star ambiance of 'Stabbers' Corner'. The least you could do is be on time.
Her source was late. Terrified sources usually were.
In Elaris, when the subject was the Althera Group, the fear was justified.
There was a quick movement.
A man, bent over and looking scared, stepped out of the shadows.
He wore the simple gray work uniform of an Althera dockworker. This was Silas.
[Analyzing Source: Silas. Status: Paranoid. Reliability: High. Risk: Extreme.]
He scurried the last twenty feet, a man drowning in fear.
"You came," he wheezed, smelling of cheap stimulants and terror.
"I said I would, Silas," Selena said, her voice low and calm. "You said you had something."
"Something is wrong," he stammered.
"For the last six months… there have been shipments. Off-book. Coming from R&D, heading to the outer colonies."
Selena's journalistic instincts sharpened. "Off-book how?"
"Listed as 'Agricultural Machinery Parts'," he whispered.
"But the weights are wrong. Too heavy. And the security… it's a special unit. They answer to Rourke himself."
[Target Profile Updated: Kaelen Rourke. Connection: Black Operations.]
The name landed like a stone. Kaelen Rourke. Chief of Logistics. An Althera lifer.
"They use shielded containers," Silas continued. "Military-grade. Last week, a kid dropped one. The casing cracked."
He swallowed hard. "It wasn't tractor parts, miss.
I saw it.
Weapon components. The nasty stuff. Plasma conduits, accelerator coils."
Selena's heart pounded against her ribs. This was it. A thread. If she pulled it, the whole tapestry might unravel.
"Can you prove it?"
Silas shook his head frantically. "No. They track everything.
But… I got this." He fumbled inside his jumpsuit and pulled out a small, grimy data chip.
[Item Acquired: Encrypted Data Chip (Unidentified Serial Number).]
"From the damaged container," he said, thrusting it into her hand. His fingers were cold as ice.
"The kid who dropped it? He didn't show up for his shift the next day. His locker was just… empty. Like he never existed."
"The right thing gets you erased in this city," he muttered, already backing away. "I was never here."
He melted back into the shadows.
She was left alone with a secret heavy enough to sink her.
The journey back to The Veracity Index was a tour of the city's class divide.
A rattling mag-train through the lower levels. Looking through the dirty window, she saw the sparkling towers of the upper city. They seemed beautiful and impossible to reach.
Adrian Kain lived up there, in the clean air. She lived down here, breathing the exhaust.
The Veracity Index was a cramped, third-floor office.
The elevator smelled stale and sad. The office was a mess that made sense to him, with data screens, recycling bins, and the usual strong smell of burnt coffee.
It was home. It was also a sinking ship.
Her editor, Ben Carter, was hunched over his terminal. A mountain of a man in a protesting chair.
"You look like you just wrestled a sewer rat for its dinner," he grumbled. "What did you get?"
She placed the data chip on his desk. "A lead. A big one. Rourke's division is smuggling military-grade weapons components off-world."
Ben picked up the chip as if it were a live insect. He let out a long, slow sigh. The 'you're-going-to-be-the-death-of-me' sigh.
"Selena," he said, his voice was intense.
"Althera is a sovereign state with a marketing department. You don't just poke them; you declare war."
"Which is exactly why we have to do it!" she shot back. "Who else is going to?"
"They have an army of lawyers," Ben argued.
"They have the best hackers. We have three reporters, a screaming coffee machine, and you."
"And the truth," Selena added quietly.
Ben's expression softened. "I knew your father."
[Accessing Core Motivation Protocol. Trigger: Daniel Ji.]
The mention was a gut punch. Her father, a brilliant journalist broken by the machine. He'd died of a thousand tiny cuts to his soul.
"This is different, Ben," she said.
"He thought he could change the machine from the inside. You can't. You have to be outside, throwing rocks."
"Or you get crushed by the gears," he finished. He looked from her face to the chip. He'd already lost. "What's on it?"
"A serial number. Encrypted. If I can crack it, it could be the key."
"Alright," he sighed. "But you do this carefully. No story is worth your life. Promise me."
"I promise," she lied.
She plugged the chip into her terminal. The file was tiny. As she tried to open it, her screen filled with impenetrable code. A digital wall.
[Attempting Decryption... Failed.]
[Analyzing Encryption Signature... Kain Industries Proprietary Algorithm. Classification: Military-Grade.]
The irony was a bitter pill.
She was getting very frustrated. She leaned back, staring at the screen full of code that was keeping her from the truth.
An alert popped up.
[Incoming Transmission: Anonymous. Untraceable.]
Her heart skipped a beat. She accepted. A file began to download. An encrypted data packet. No sender ID.
A preview window opened. A partial shipping manifest. "Advanced Terraforming Aids."
But one line made the hair on her arms stand on end.
Sub-component: "Plasma Injector Casings."
It was real. All of it. He felt a rush of excitement because he had won.
Then she saw the second file. An encryption key. A text note typed itself out on her screen.
[THIS CORROBORATES YOUR SOURCE. THE FULL FILE IS ON THE CHIP. THE KEY IS IN THE ATTACHMENT.]
[GOOD LUCK. YOU'LL NEED IT.]
The connection terminated.
The file sat on her desktop, a digital Pandora's Box. Someone else was watching Althera. Someone who knew about her, her source, and the chip.
Someone who wanted her to open that box.
A wave of tension washed over her. She was no longer just the hunter.
She was a piece in someone else's game. And she had no idea who was playing.