There was no briefing. No escort. No mission title on his wristband.
Just a coded ping:
ASSIGNMENT: BLACKEscort Priority Asset from Drop Point Echo-6 to Sector 6 Hub. Discretion Mandatory.Authorization: LEO — C. VIREX
Rook didn't hesitate.
He packed a plain field kit. No uniform. No badge.
The drop point was 200 meters past the edge of Hero District 3, where the repulsor walls grew weaker and the city turned to ash.
District 6 was known by another name:The Gutter.
It was where defectors, failed experiments, and burned agents went to disappear.
Or die.
Even the drones didn't patrol there anymore. The Hero Association marked it "hostile low-priority" — a bureaucratic graveyard.
Rook moved alone through the concrete alleys, boots silent, senses burning.
The meeting point was a collapsed metro station. A cracked sign still blinked weakly above it:
MORROW LINE – OUT OF SERVICE
A man waited inside.
Mid-forties. Scars across his temple. Half a lung from the sound of his breathing. Civilian clothes. Left eye replaced with a janky augment lens.Ex-hero.
He looked up when Rook entered. Didn't speak.
Rook stopped three feet away. "You're the asset?"
The man smirked. "You're younger than I expected."
"And you're alive longer than they planned," Rook said.
The smirk faded.
"They send you to kill me?"
Rook didn't answer.
The man nodded. "Figured. Not yet though, huh? Not until I talk."
Rook watched him carefully.
"You have two minutes."
The man chuckled — a dry, broken sound. "You ever hear of Project Hollowframe?"
Rook didn't blink. "Yes."
"You think it was a myth?"
"I think it was a prototype."
The man leaned forward, voice dropping. "It was a purge machine. A hero-killer designed by the Concord. They wanted to test loyalty by manufacturing internal threats. They needed a way to clean their own."
Rook's hands flexed.
"Solaris was flagged. Not because he betrayed them," the man said, "but because he refused to sign off on it."
The words dropped like stones.
Rook said nothing.
Because this…
This was something worse.
A quiet whistle sounded from above.
The defector stiffened.
"No," he said. "No, they said I had clearance—"
Rook moved fast.
He shoved the man back as the upper wall erupted — a searing bolt of plasma tearing through the station like lightning.
A Zodiac hunter-drone dropped through the roof, sleek and spiderlike, eyes blinking with tactical logic.
It wasn't sent to kill them both.
It was sent to kill him.
Rook didn't hesitate.
He went for the legs first — sliding under the blast radius, planting a shock mine on its undercarriage.
The explosion rocked the tunnel.
Metal limbs thrashed. The air smelled like melted wires and blood.
When it was over, the man was still alive.
So was Rook.
They limped out together.
Rook never offered his arm.
The man didn't ask.
By the time they reached Sector 6's buried hub access, the man had stopped talking.
Not because he was afraid.
Because he knew it didn't matter.
He was never making it out of the system alive.
Back in Tower One, Rook stood before Virex.
He was bruised. Burned. Silent.
Virex smiled.
"Clean extraction?"
"No," Rook said.
Virex chuckled. "Nothing ever is."
"Why him?"
"He had potential once," Virex said, turning toward the window. "But he lost sight of the mission."
Rook's voice was like a knife. "And what's the mission?"
Virex didn't answer.
Just stared at the horizon.
And smiled.
Later that night, Rook sat at his desk, staring at the encrypted audio he'd recorded from the tunnel.
Not the gunfire.
Not the explosion.
Just the part where the man had whispered:
"Your father wasn't the only one. He just said it louder."
Rook pressed play.
And listened again.
And again.
And again.
Until the screen dimmed from inactivity.
And his eyes never left the dark.