Six teams tracked him.
Two mbers each, spaced across Helior Pri's nightlife grid, rotating angles and data sources so no single failure would matter. One pair followed him through street-level caras. Another rode public transit feeds. Two more stayed mobile in unmarked ground cars. The last pair worked from rented rooms with optics pointed outward, logging tistamps and behavior instead of faces.
They didn't coordinate in real ti. They didn't share sightlines. Every team reported directly to Velkhar, the way Iron Mandate liked it.
Xavier walked as if he knew that. He hadn't spent the six days planning and fucking Arlen all the ti, he was watching everything. He knew exactly how many people were after him and their routines when he went out in the guise of shopping or chilling.
He didn't hurry or hide. He crossed streets at normal intervals, paused at storefronts long enough to look indecisive, took a detour through a side passage that slled like spilled alcohol and old coolant. His route looked casual on every feed, a man drifting toward entertainnt with money to burn and nowhere urgent to be.
The first team died without realizing they'd been selected.
They were posted in a service corridor that intersected with a pedestrian artery, one watching the crowd while the other pretended to check a handheld. Xavier stepped into the corridor like he'd missed a turn, bumped the first man shoulder to shoulder, and apologized without breaking stride.
The apology carried a pulse of force through the man's chest that ruptured organs without marking skin. The second reached for his weapon and felt the corridor wall close around his throat, pressure snapping cartilage before sound could form.
Xavier adjusted their positions, leaned them together like drunk coworkers who'd overdone it, and walked out while the cara continued to stream.
Their channel stayed live. The feed kept reporting idle status.
The second team tried to be clever.
They stayed distant, switching vantage points every few minutes, feeding Velkhar movent patterns and probability curves. Xavier let them track him across three blocks, then stepped into a ride-hail pod and took it straight down a maintenance ramp marked as closed. The pod stopped, the doors opened, and Xavier stepped out.
The team followed on foot and lost him in the dark.
They found him a minute later standing beside their car, hands relaxed at his sides. One tried to raise a weapon. The other tried to shout. Both motions froze mid-attempt when the air around them locked into place, pressure folding muscle and bone inward until the vehicle rocked on its suspension.
Xavier wiped a sar from the hood, slid their bodies into the backseat, and reset the car's internal sensors to broadcast normal teletry. The team's status light stayed green.
The third pair never saw him.
They worked from a room overlooking a plaza, lenses calibrated, mics tuned, logs filling steadily. Xavier crossed the plaza twice, exactly as predicted, then entered the building across from them. He took the stairs.
The door ca apart when he hit it.
The first operator went down before his chair finished rolling. The second tried to reach the panic switch and lost the arm at the shoulder when Xavier closed the distance. The feeds kept running because Xavier left them running. He adjusted the operator's posture, propped the headset back in place, and keyed a status update with the man's own fingers.
Velkhar received it without comnt.
The fourth team died in motion.
They shadowed him through a market strip, blending with foot traffic, passing information through subvocal comms. Xavier bought a drink, stepped aside, and spilled it across one operative's chest like an accident. When the man cursed and grabbed him, Xavier pulled him in close and drove a reinforced knuckle through the base of his skull. The second reached for backup and felt his spine shear when Xavier turned and struck without winding up.
The bodies dropped into a service pit hidden beneath a loose panel. The pit's sensors registered weight and sealed automatically. The channel reported temporary signal interference and recovered.
Now it was ti for the fifth team.
They had watched four teams go quiet without triggering alarms. They told Velkhar they were maintaining distance and switched to passive observation. Xavier let them watch him stop under a lighted awning, let them see him check a ssage that never existed, let them decide he was stationary and safe.
He stepped backward into their blind spot and ended it in seconds. One died from impact against concrete. The other suffocated with his lungs crushed inward while his mic transmitted breathing that sounded normal enough to pass.
The sixth team realized sothing was wrong.
They broke protocol and asked for confirmation. Velkhar told them to hold position and keep eyes on 'Zyrex', which they did. Xavier felt the optics sweep him and turned toward the building they occupied without changing pace.
He entered through the lobby and left through the ceiling.
By the ti the team understood what that ant, the room was already breached. Xavier disabled them without spectacle, placed them where their caras could still see his last known position through the window, and closed the channel himself.
Six teams. Twelve bodies.
Every report clean. Every feed active, and every status green.
Velkhar watched Zyrex's final update arrive and leaned back, satisfied that his asset was still under control.
Xavier stepped out onto the street, adjusted his coat, and continued toward the Aurex Club with nothing left behind him that could raise suspicion.
He let out a sigh as he kept walking.
"This is getting stupid," he muttered. "Too slow."
He glanced at the ti without pulling anything up, already calculating how long this would take on foot, how long before Arlen started noticing the silence, how long before waiting turned into worry. He didn't like inefficiency, and he liked unnecessary waiting even less.
He had to finish everything and return to the hotel as soon as possible.
He looked right and found his solution parked ten ters away.
"Ah shit, here we go again."
User Comments
0 comments from readers