The Locke Street water tower was a forgotten husk, rusted and flaking against the bruised skyline. Pigeons scattered when Elias stepped into its shadow, pistol holstered, transmitter active, eyes scanning. The morning air was thick with dew and the kind of tension only the truly paranoid could smell.
Lysa Marrow arrived ten minutes late, like she meant to remind him who had control of the meeting.
She wore a patchy bomber jacket and low-tinted shades, her platinum hair shaved on one side, cyberpunk tattoos curling behind her ear like creeping wires. She moved like someone who'd made friends and enemies in the same breath — and forgot which was which.
"You're Elias Kane," she said, voice flat.
"You're Lysa Marrow," he replied. "I need information. You sell it."
"Straight to business. Cute."
She pulled a burner tab from her coat and tapped it to the back of her phone. A blue hologram flickered to life between them — a crude 3D grid of Blackridge with blinking red pulses near Sector 8F, northeast quadrant.
"FALX has been ghosting Syndicate surveillance nodes and jacking encrypted feeds," she said. "They're organized. Former spec-ops types. Maybe military washouts. Funded like they've got a corporate backer."
"You selling rumors or facts?"
She tossed him a data chip. "Hard recordings. Movement logs. One confirmed execution video of a Scavenger lieutenant. Clean, tactical."
Elias didn't flinch. "What's your price?"
"Three things," Lysa said, grinning. "One: a favor, no questions asked, redeemable any time. Two: 20 CP worth of equipment from your Crime Shop. You buy it — I pick it."
"And the third?"
She stepped closer, her voice lowering.
"You stop expanding into Sector 8F. You go anywhere near it, deal's off and I drop your location to FALX myself."
Elias didn't answer. His mind ran the angles. The deal was steep — especially the favor. But the data could prevent a massacre.
And he had a different plan for 8F anyway.
"Deal," he said.
******
[System Alert: Conditional Favor Accepted – Lysa Marrow]
Favor Redeemable: Anytime | Irreversible
–20 CP Spent
Reward: High-Value Intelligence Unlocked
+6 Crime Points
******
His CP dropped to 26. But what he gained was worth much more.
The files revealed FALX was planning something bigger — not just raids. They were setting up a staging ground under an abandoned metro station. Hidden tunnels. Weapons caches. Possibly even a black market AI unit to track territory fluctuation in real time.
Elias shared the intel with Dizzy and restructured the watch rotation that same night. He assigned the stronger crew to the southeast edge and diverted patrols away from Sector 8F to avoid provoking FALX too early.
He wasn't scared. He was patient.
And patience, in Blackridge, was a weapon.
Later, while reviewing the data logs, one entry caught his eye: a name buried in a voice clip, low-quality but unmistakable.
"…bring it to Kamar. He's waiting."
Kamar.
A ghost from Blackridge's bloody past. A name whispered in prison corners and interrogation rooms — a man who'd vanished years ago after blowing up half a block during a failed Syndicate coup.
If he was involved, FALX wasn't just some merc group.
They were building something.
Elias leaned back, tapping the edge of the chip against his knee.
War was coming. But this time, he'd know where to strike first.
He wouldn't just defend territory anymore.
He'd start taking it.