Alex crouched behind the dumpster, heart pounding like a drum in his ears. The cold metal bit into his palms as he clutched the backpack tighter, the hard drive inside seeming heavier with every second. The city streets were unusually quiet — too quiet. Shadows twisted in the flickering glow of broken street lamps, and the distant sirens sounded more like warnings than calls for help.
He glanced around nervously. Somewhere in the distance, footsteps echoed — sharp, deliberate, closing in fast.
They're coming for us.
Fumbling with his phone, Alex sent a message to Lyra:
"Got the hard drive. Moving to safe house."
His thumbs trembled as he typed. Seconds felt like hours before her reply popped up:
"Good. Brad and Gaurav are covering you. Watch your back."
Alex took a deep breath and sprinted across the street, ducking into an alley that smelled of burnt rubber and rust. The safe house wasn't far — an old warehouse abandoned for years but still standing like a forgotten sentinel on the city's edge.
—
Inside the warehouse, the atmosphere was tense. Brad paced restlessly, a fresh bruise blooming on his cheek. Gaurav sat at a makeshift table, his fingers flying across a battered laptop, hacking into layers of encrypted files stolen from the Syndicate's servers.
Lyra stood nearby, eyes scanning satellite images and data streams, her violet-streaked hair catching the weak light like a halo.
"It's worse than we imagined," she said quietly, not looking up. "Minister Verma isn't just trying to hide the meteor's true trajectory. The Syndicate plans to weaponize the impact — use the disaster to tighten their grip on global power."
Brad stopped pacing, his jaw clenched. "So Verma's been playing us all along. Using the meteor as a distraction while he moves his pieces."
Gaurav shook his head slowly. "And OMNI… it's just their front. The real power lies with the Syndicate."
Lyra finally looked up, her eyes sharp. "We're running out of time. The Syndicate has eyes everywhere. They know we have this data, and they'll come after us harder."
Alex leaned against the wall, exhaustion creeping into his limbs. "We need allies. More than just us four."
Lyra nodded. "There's one person — someone who's inside the Syndicate's network. If we can reach her, she might help us break their hold."
"Who?" Brad demanded.
"A woman named Raven. She's… complicated. But she hates Verma as much as we do."
Before anyone could respond, Gaurav's laptop pinged — an incoming message.
He opened it slowly.
FROM: [email protected]: Stay away from the Mars Project.MESSAGE: You've been warned once.
Gaurav's fist slammed onto the table, shaking the scattered papers. "He's watching us. This isn't just politics anymore. It's war."
Silence filled the room. Outside, the city howled in the dark, the weight of unseen eyes pressing in.
Alex looked around at his team, feeling the heavy burden settle over them all.
"We either stop them now, or we let everything burn."
Lyra's lips pressed into a thin line. "Then let's get to work."
—
The first light of dawn filtered through cracked windows, casting long shadows over the room.
The fight had only just begun.