The air in the canyon was thick with the scent of ozone, blood, and psychic residue. Operation "Hive-Tap" had gone to hell in the span of ninety seconds.
The plan had been clean in theory. Using a captured, screeching lesser mutant as bait, amplified by one of Thorne's sonic emitters, they would lure the target—a towering, four-armed "Psionic Dominator" variant with a head like a crystalline spider—into the narrow canyon.
Magnus's Ironblood, positioned on the high ridges with heavy, chemically-propelled harpoons and nets, would pin it. Seth's Free Folk, hidden in camouflaged blinds, would sever its primary neural tendrils with monofilament wires. Then, Thorne's Tech-Savants would move in with sedation and containment.
The bait worked too well.
