The next day,
21:59 PM.
Warehouse District, Sector 9.
The industrial sector of Alpha City was a graveyard of rust and concrete.
Massive shipping containers stacked like tal coffins. Abandoned factories with broken windows that stared like empty eye sockets. The skeletal remains of cranes and loading equipnt reaching toward a smog-dimd sky. During the day, a skeleton crew of workers kept the legitimate operations running. But at night, the district belonged to a different kind of workforce.
Smugglers. Black market dealers. Gangs using the abandoned buildings as bases of operation.
People liked the Jackals. A small gang that primarily engaged in gambling and forcefully collecting dues from innocent store owners.
And tonight, they were Jayden’s objective.
Jayden crouched on the roof of a three-story warehouse, his dark clothing making him nearly invisible against the night sky. Below, Building 47—his target—sat squat and ugly, its corrugated tal walls covered in graffiti tags and rust stains.
He’d been watching for the past thirty minutes, counting guards, noting patrol patterns, and identifying entry points.
There were just fifteen n in the warehouse. And according to his Dragon Eye energy signature reading, only one of these n was an evolved human. But the rest were all ard with weapons.
If Jayden went with a careful, tactical approach... this was going to be a walk in the park.
According to Big T’s extra intel, the Jackals had stolen sothing valuable from him—an encrypted data drive containing financial records and compromising information on several high-profile individuals. The kind of information that could topple careers or make fortunes.
Big T wanted it back. Quietly..
And Jayden needed Big T’s information about the Black Cobra Syndicate.
So here he was.
Jayden pulled up the building schematics on his holo-tab, reviewing the layout one more ti.
The main entrance on the south side was too obvious, and definitely guarded. The loading bay on the east was currently occupied by two guards smoking and talking. As for the windows, most were boarded up or barred.
But the roof access on the north side was available... seemingly locked with a single padlock.
That was his ticket in.
Jayden pocketed his holo-tab and stood, rolling his shoulders. He wore all black—tactical pants, compression shirt, gloves, and boots. No identifying marks. No unnecessary equipnt. Just him and his abilities... abilities that were more than enough for the job.
Jayden activated his invisibility, feeling the familiar shimr as light bent around his body. He took three running steps and leaped off the roof, sailing across the twenty-foot gap between buildings.
He landed on Building 47’s roof in complete silence, his leg strength absorbing the impact. The roof access door was locked with a rusted padlock—nothing that could stop him.
Jayden placed his hand on the lock and squeezed.
CRUNCH.
The lock shattered like glass.
He eased the door open, careful to avoid any squeaks, and descended into darkness.
The interior of the warehouse was exactly what Jayden had expected—rows of crates and shipping containers, makeshift offices built from plywood and corrugated tal, harsh fluorescent lights hanging from chains.
And fifteen Jackal gang mbers.
Most were on the ground floor, clustered around a makeshift card table, smoking and joking in the easy way of people who thought they were safe. Three n patrolled the periter with visible weapons—energy rifles that would punch holes through concrete.
And in the back office, visible through a cracked window, sat the evolved human—a man Big T’s intel identified as Ramon "Razor" Diaz.
He was the real threat.
Jayden moved like smoke through the rafters, his invisibility holding steady, his footsteps making no sound. He positioned himself above the main group, studying them.
Eleven n at the card table. Loud, distracted, and focused on their ga.
Perfect.
The three periter guards were more alert, scanning corners with disciplined regularity. Forr military, maybe. Or at least professionally trained.
Jayden’s eyes tracked their patterns. Guard One completed a circuit every two minutes, thirty seconds. Guard Two every three minutes. Guard Three was less consistent—nervous, jumpy, probably newer to this job.
"Guard Three first," Jayden decided. "Then Two. Then One. Then the card table. Then Razor."
A plan had ford in his mind—cold, efficient, and brutal.
He waited until Guard Three passed beneath his position, then dropped.
Guard Three—a skinny man in his twenties never saw him coming.
Jayden materialized out of invisibility directly behind him, one hand clamping over the man’s mouth, the other wrapping around his throat. He squeezed—not enough to kill, but enough to cut off air and consciousness.
Guard Three struggled for five seconds, then went limp.
Jayden lowered him silently to the ground behind a crate, then vanished again.
One down.
Guard Two was trickier, more experienced, his eyes constantly moving.
Jayden tracked him for one full circuit, then positioned himself at the corner Guard Two always checked last. When the man ca around, energy rifle raised, Jayden was waiting.
His fist caught Guard Two in the solar plexus, driving the air from his lungs and cracking ribs. Before the man could gasp or scream, Jayden’s other hand struck a precise nerve cluster in his neck.
Guard Two dropped like a puppet with cut strings.
Two down.
Guard One was the hardest—alert, disciplined, and currently positioned where he could see most of the warehouse floor. Taking him down without being seen would be nearly impossible.
So Jayden didn’t bother with stealth.
He picked up a piece of broken tal and threw it across the warehouse. It clattered loudly against a far container.
Guard One’s head snapped toward the sound, rifle raising. "Who’s there?"
The card players looked up, suddenly alert.
"Probably a rat," one of them called out. "This place is full of ’em."
But Guard One wasn’t convinced. He moved toward the sound, rifle ready, finger on the trigger.
Jayden moved parallel to him, invisible, closing the distance.
When Guard One reached the container and leaned around to check—
Jayden struck.
His telekinesis lashed out, ripping the rifle from Guard One’s hands and sending it skittering across the floor. Guard One spun, reaching for his sidearm—but he was too slow.
Jayden’s fist—already enlarged to twice normal size—slamd into the man’s face. Nose shattered. Orbital bone cracked. Guard One hit the ground unconscious before his brain could process what had happened.
Three down.
"Carlos!" One of the card players jumped up, seeing their guard on the ground. "We’re under attack!"
Jayden was already moving.
He dropped his invisibility—no point in maintaining it now—and charged.
The Jackal mbers barely had ti to react. Chairs scraped. Hands reached for weapons. Mouths opened to shout.
Jayden hit them like a hurricane.
His first target—the man who’d been reaching for his pistol—took a spinning kick to the jaw that lifted him off his feet and sent him crashing through the card table. Chips and cards exploded into the air.
The man beside him swung a crowbar. Jayden caught it mid-swing with his telekinesis, froze it in place, then yanked. The weapon flew from the man’s grip and Jayden caught it, swinging it in the sa motion to crack across another man’s ribs.
Bone snapped. The man went down screaming.
Then he turned back and slamd the crowbar into the first man’s face. The impact was devastating. The man’s neck twisted and he passed out imdiately.
Then two Jackals charged together—coordinated, trying to overwhelm him with numbers.
Jayden’s hands erupted with fire. He thrust forward, sending twin jets of fla that forced both n to dive aside. Then almost instantly, he was on them—one punch sent the first Jackal flying backward into a shipping container with a sound like a car crash.
The second Jackal got a knee to the face for his trouble.
The remaining six at the card table had finally gotten their weapons out—pistols, a shotgun, a wicked-looking knife.
"Light him up!" soone shouted.
Gunfire erupted.
Jayden dove behind a crate as bullets whined past his head. Concrete chips exploded from a support pillar. The shotgun blast tore a fist-sized hole through the tal wall.
But they were panicking. Firing wild. Wasting ammunition.
Jayden activated his Dragon Eye, his vision shifting to analyze energy flows and structural weaknesses. He could see the heat signatures of the six n—bunched together behind overturned furniture, firing blindly at his last position.
"Amateurs." he scoffed.
Then he grabbed a crate with his telekinesis—a massive shipping container easily weighing two hundred pounds—and hurled it.
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