The comm crackled in Rhys’s ear. Onyx’s voice, a detached hum, faded into static. “Rhys? Are you there?” He didn't answer. His eyes were locked on the monitor. A black armored van. No markings. Definitely not local enforcement. The alley outside his safe house became a predatory maw. “Kael! Zia! Perimeter breach. Unmarked vehicle. Three subjects deploying.” Rhys’s voice was a flat command. His fingers flew across the interface, pulling up local traffic cams, public feeds. Nothing. They were ghosts. Downstairs, Kael swore. “Ghost tech. Not standard.” He grabbed his vibro-blade, its dull edge humming. Zia already had her drone out, a Hornet-class scout, zipping towards the reinforced window. “Doors locked, but they’re not knocking,” Zia reported, her voice tight. She patched the drone feed to Rhys’s screen. Infrared vision painted the approaching figures. Heavily armored. Pulse rifles slung across their chests. Professional. Too professional. One of them, a bulky figure at the lead, raised a hand. A silent command. The others fanned out. Two headed for the main entrance. The third moved around the side, looking for an entry point. “They’re not waiting. Kael, secondary exit. Zia, use the Hornet for distraction. Keep their heads down.” Rhys’s neural pathways screamed. The effort to process the data, to project the escape vectors, was immense. A cold sweat slicked his brow. Kael moved with practiced ease. He kicked open a rusty panel in the back wall. A narrow, crumbling passage. “This way, Zia. Move it.” The drone zipped through a broken pane on the second floor. A burst of static. Then, the piercing shriek of its sonic disruptor. The armored figures flinched, momentarily disoriented. “Good, Zia. Keep it up. Kael, you have ten seconds.” Rhys’s fingers danced. He toggled street lights, rerouted power grids. Small, local chaos. Enough to slow them. Footsteps thudded above. The heavy lead figure. “He’s going for the roof,” Rhys grunted. “They know the layout. How?” “Onyx, you there?” Rhys subvocalized. No response. The line was dead. He was cut off. Kael squeezed through the passage, Zia right behind him. The air was thick with the smell of mold and damp earth. “This thing barely fits,” Kael muttered. He pulled a collapsible grapnel from his pack. “Hold on,” Zia said. She sent the drone on a dizzying, evasive pattern. Pulse rifle fire spat from below. The Hornet darted, barely escaping a direct hit. Rhys watched his monitors. The main door of the safe house buckled. A breaching charge. A dull *thump*. Splinters flew. “They’re in! You need to be clear now!” His voice was raw. Kael secured the grapnel to a corroded pipe. It groaned. “Might hold.” He tested it, then dropped into the alleyway below. Zia followed, sliding down. The drone continued its harassment. “They’re deploying a countermeasure,” Zia warned. A focused electromagnetic pulse. The Hornet sputtered. Its camera feed fractured. Then, silence. “Drone’s down.” “No time. Run!” Rhys yelled. “Alley west, then cut north through the market. Blend in.” Kael and Zia pounded the pavement. The sounds of pursuit were close. Heavy boots. The whir of a small, agile pursuit drone. It was faster than Zia’s, sleeker. Rhys tracked their progress through the city’s public eye. He blurred their faces, distorted their outlines. A thousand small, illegal manipulations. Each one a spike of agony through his neural pathways. “Rhys, they’re closing!” Kael shouted, panting. “Too many of them.” The pursuit drone locked onto Zia. Its targeting laser painted her back. “Zia! Roll left!” Rhys screamed. A split-second decision. He overloaded a nearby data junction, causing a localized power surge. Streetlights flickered. The drone wavered. Zia ducked, narrowly avoiding a stun blast. “They’re adapting quickly,” Rhys muttered to himself. He slammed his fist on the desk, the pain a dull throb compared to the fear coiling in his gut. They were outmatched. Then, a new voice in his ear. Onyx. Clear as a bell. “Rhys. They’re called the ‘Hunters.’ Project Chimera’s field arm. They want you alive. Or at least, the component. They track neural signatures. Your old one. Aether’s.” Rhys’s blood ran cold. His neural feedback surge. The crippling event that had severed his connection. They were hunting his *ghost*. The remnants of his unmatched brilliance, somehow still active, still valuable. “What component?” Rhys demanded, his voice strained. He watched Kael and Zia dart into the crowded market. Chaos. Merchants shouting. People jostling. Good. “Your residual imprint. The architecture of your neural interface. They believe it holds the key to stabilizing their own experimental neural nets. For Chimera.” Onyx’s explanation was clinical. Detached. “My brain?” Rhys felt a sickening lurch. “They want to dissect my brain?” “Something like that. Kael and Zia are decoys now. Good ones, but decoys. You are their primary target. They just identified your current location. Move.” Rhys didn’t need to be told twice. He tore off his neural interface, the wires snapping against his skin. The immediate silence was deafening. He was blind. Cut off. Aether was gone. Rhys Vane was just a man. He grabbed the emergency pack he’d always kept ready. His old comm unit, a burner chip, a few nutrient paste sachets. He jammed a data stick into his console, initiating a full data purge. It would take minutes. Minutes he didn’t have. Heavy footsteps. Near. The upstairs door. They were already through. How did they know? “Onyx! Where do I go?” Rhys’s voice was a desperate whisper into the disconnected comm. “There’s a dead drop. Under the old bridge, Sector Gamma. A new contact. ‘Spectre.’ He can get you out. And he might have more on Chimera.” Onyx’s voice was fading again, like a radio losing signal. “And Kael and Zia?” Rhys’s voice hitched. “I’ve opened a back channel for Kael. A secondary extraction point, deep in the Undercity. He’s resourceful. He’ll get Zia there. You focus on survival. Without you, the component is useless to them.” The thought was cold comfort. Rhys stared at the flickering screen. Kael and Zia’s blips, still moving through the market, pursued by several red dots. He was abandoning them. He had to. For their sake, and his own. The door to his office exploded inward. A concussion grenade. The blast threw him across the room. His head slammed against the wall. Stars exploded behind his eyes. He tasted blood. Through the ringing in his ears, he heard heavy boots enter. He scrambled, grabbing a forgotten emergency plasma pistol from a hidden compartment. One shot. No more. He pushed himself up, vision blurred. Three figures stood silhouetted in the doorway. Pulse rifles raised. The lead figure, the bulky one from the alley, took a step forward. His visor gleamed. “Aether. We have you.” Rhys gritted his teeth. Not Aether. Never again. He wasn’t a legend. He was just a man with a dying spark and a promise to keep. He aimed the plasma pistol. The power cell hummed to life, a tiny, fragile hope. Then, a sharp pain in his neck. A dart. His muscles seized. He dropped the pistol. His legs gave out. The world tilted. The figures closed in. Hands grabbed him. The last thing he saw before darkness claimed him was Kael’s blip on the dying monitor, surrounded by red. And the terrifying certainty that his gambit had failed.

Unleashed Hounds