"A secret doesn't stay buried—it just waits for the right silence."
The alarms wailed like a dying beast.
Pale red lights blinked through the arcological dome, painting the concrete walls with pulses of dread. Rentarō, Karasuma, and Hotaru ducked low behind server racks as the hum of automated drones echoed through the central shaft.
"Movement north hall," Enju's voice crackled in the earpiece. "Four bipedals. Elite drones. I'll try to draw them off."
"No," Rentarō hissed. "Stick to extraction plan. Rendezvous at south sublevel in five minutes."
"But—"
"That's an order."
Silence.
Then: "Understood."
Karasuma yanked the drive from the terminal, its cable sizzling with heat. "We got what we came for. Let's go."
Hotaru peered around the server rack, eyes narrowing. "Two seconds before they spot us."
"Too late," Rentarō muttered.
A drone rounded the corner—sleek, bipedal, its mask-like face glowing with target acquisition lenses. It opened fire instantly.
Rentarō shoved Karasuma aside and returned fire with his pistol, bullets sparking off the drone's reinforced chassis. Hotaru darted forward, blade flickering in the crimson emergency lights. She cut low—one leg off—then pivoted and sliced upward through the drone's midsection.
Sparks.
Collapse.
But not fast enough.
The firefight had triggered another alarm.
From the far hall, three more drones emerged, flanking with machine precision.
"They're not trying to kill us," Karasuma grunted. "They're trying to box us in."
"No," Rentarō said, eyes narrowing. "They're trying to keep him in."
He glanced at the now-blank screen behind them. The image of the boy—Subject 117—still haunted the edges of his mind like a whisper half-remembered.
The face was familiar.
Painfully so.
But there was no time to dwell.
"Down that shaft!" Rentarō pointed.
They dropped through a maintenance tunnel, falling two stories into ankle-deep coolant sludge. The smell hit them instantly—burnt circuits and mold. Old tech graveyard.
They ran.
Above, Enju moved like a ribbon of fire and fury.
She'd led one of the drones into a dead-end office wing, collapsing part of the ceiling behind her with a planted charge. Her small chest heaved with breath. Her eyes glowed faintly in the dark.
She leaned against the wall, listening to the drone's scanner sweep the hall.
Then it paused.
And said, in a mechanical voice:
"Target status: ambiguous. Confirm: Cursed Child, model unknown.
Command override: defer capture. Await Subject Prime."
Enju froze.
What did it mean?
Subject Prime?
But the drone turned and walked away.
Not retreating.
Obeying something.
In the underground loading bay, Rentarō and the others burst through the south gate doors—straight into a team of armored Council enforcers.
Ten soldiers. Shock batons, stun shields, gas masks.
The kind used for riots.
"Hands up!" one shouted. "You're in violation of Executive Code—"
Rentarō didn't wait.
He surged forward with cybernetic speed, ducking the nearest baton and disarming its wielder in a blur. He kneed the man into the wall, snatched the shock rod, and spun into the next.
Karasuma opened fire, clearing a path with short bursts.
Hotaru danced between them like a scalpel, disabling two soldiers in under five seconds with the blunt ends of her knives.
But it wasn't enough.
One enforcer reached for his radio.
"We have Satomi! Repeat, we have—"
A bullet took him cleanly through the wrist.
Enju dropped from the upper duct.
Bloodied, grinning, eyes burning.
"You guys started the party without me?"
Rentarō smiled grimly.
"Thought you'd like the quiet entrance."
Together, they surged through the remaining guards, a spiral of precision, violence, and desperation.
Minutes later, they reached the rendezvous point—a rusted freight tunnel that connected the Arcological Archive to the underground rail line. An armored truck waited, stolen Council markings barely covered by black spray paint.
The team piled in.
Doors slammed.
Enju collapsed into the seat next to Rentarō, head leaning against his arm.
"I don't like this," she mumbled.
"The archive?"
"The feeling."
He didn't answer.
Because he felt it too.
Not just danger.
Design.
As if this entire mission—every encounter, every drone, every path—had been predicted.
Or worse…
Permitted.
Thirty kilometers away, in a Council blacksite surrounded by electromagnetic jamming towers, a boy opened his eyes.
No cuffs. No sedation.
Just stillness.
A heart monitor beeped once. Then again.
His pupils adjusted to the light slowly.
A voice from the intercom echoed.
"Subject Prime. You sensed them, didn't you?"
The boy turned his head slightly.
"He's alive, isn't he?"
A pause.
Then the boy smiled.
Not cruelly.
Not kindly.
Just knowingly.
"He doesn't know yet.
But he will."