The safe house wasn't actually a house.
It was a hollowed-out boiler inside a derelict smelting plant on the edge of the slag pits.
It was a rusted iron sphere, twenty feet across, half-buried in a mountain of black, glassy waste.
The air inside smelled of sulphur and old ash, but it was dry, warm, and defensible.
Wren kicked open the hidden hatch and dropped her pack on the floor with a heavy thud. She looked around the grim, metal space with a look of genuine comfort.
"Home sweet hellhole," she muttered, lighting a second lantern, and hanging it from a rusted pipe.
Zane climbed in after her, the cold stone of Essence in his gut making his movements heavy and deliberate.
He looked at the curved iron walls and the single, grime-streaked porthole that looked out over the glowing, molten rivers of the active slag pits below.
"It's cozy," Zane said, his voice flat. "If you like living in a bomb casing."
"It keeps the heat in and the sensors out," Wren replied, pulling a stale loaf of bread and a flask of water from her pack. She tore a chunk off the bread and tossed it to him. "Eat. Your battery is full, but your body is still meat. You need fuel."
Zane caught the bread.
He wasn't hungry—the Soul Essence satisfied his deep, supernatural cravings—but his stomach gave a traitorous growl. He sat on a crate and ate.
The bread was hard and tasted of soot, but it was food.
"So," Zane said, chewing slowly. "Rivet."
Wren sat opposite him, sharpening her rebar spear with a whetstone. The rasmp-rasmp sound filled the iron sphere.
"Rivet isn't just a thug, Zane. He is like a whole organization. The Rusted-Nails run the protection rackets, the drug trade, and the scrap yards in the Grinders. He has a hundred men, maybe more. And he has 'Enforcers'."
"Like Gart?"
"Gart was a squad leader. A middle-manager. Enforcers are different. They're like me, or Silas. People with... talents. Rivet pays well, and he doesn't ask questions about where you came from or who you killed to get your powers."
Zane leaned back against the curved wall. "So, we can't just kick in the front door of his HQ."
"No," Wren said. "His main base is the 'Iron-Heart'. It's a fortress built into the central foundry. Guards, traps, and probably a few heavy-duty auto-turrets stolen from the Watch. We go in there now, we die."
"We need to weaken him first," Zane reasoned. "Cut off his resources. Make him angry. Make him sloppy."
"Exactly," Wren grinned, the lamplight dancing in her eyes. "Rivet loves two things which are money and order. He runs the Grinders like a machine. If we break the gears, the machine stops."
She pulled a crumpled, grease-stained map from her boot and spread it out on the floor between them.
It was a hand-drawn schematic of the district.
"Here," she said, stabbing a finger at a large, rectangular building near the canal. "The Processing Plant."
"What do they process?"
"Everything," Wren said grimly. "Stolen cargo, stripped machinery... and the belongings of the dead. When the Nails clear out a plague block or wherever, they strip the bodies. Wedding rings, gold teeth, heirlooms. It all goes here to be melted down and turned into unrecognizable ingots."
Zane felt a flare of cold anger in his chest.
These days, his humanity was missing a bit, but he still had a semblance of his old self and it was demanding justice.
"They rob the dead," Zane said quietly, hypocrisy sobering him up.
"They rob everyone, Stain. But the Processing Plant is vital. It's where the cash flow starts. If we hit it, we hurt his wallet. And more importantly, the foreman there is Rivet's nephew, a little sadist named Kael."
"We grab the nephew," Zane said, nodding. "We get intel on the Iron-Heart."
"And we send a message," Wren added. "We burn the place to the ground."
Zane stood up and walked to the porthole. He looked out at the industrial nightmare of the Grinders.
Smoke belched from a thousand chimneys, blocking out the stars. It was a city designed to crush the spirit.
"Tonight?" Zane asked.
"Tonight," Wren confirmed. "But there's one thing, Zane."
She stopped sharpening her spear and looked at him.
"That mercy shit you pulled in the alley? With those three freelancers?"
Zane turned to face her. "What about it?"
"Don't do it tonight," she said, her voice hard. "The guards at the Plant aren't desperate scavengers. They're killers on a payroll. You hesitate, you die. And if you die, I don't get my money."
"I won't hesitate," Zane said. "But I'm not going to kill the workers. Just the Nails."
Wren rolled her eyes. "Fine. You have your code while I have my payout. Just don't let your 'Saint' complex get us killed."
A Saint? Zane thought if saints were like him, then the world is doomed.
The Processing Plant was a hulking, windowless brick building perched on the edge of the chemical canal.
Thick, black smoke poured from its single chimney, carrying the smell of melting copper and burning cloth.
Zane and Wren crouched on a rooftop overlooking the yard. The acid rain had stopped, leaving the city slick and glistening under the green-hued work lights.
"Four guards at the gate," Wren whispered, peering through a pair of cracked binoculars. "Two on the roof. And probably a dozen inside."
Zane focused on the guards at the gate. They looked bored, leaning on their heavy maces, and smoking acrid cigarettes.
"I can take the gate," Zane said. "I'll use the Shroud. You get to the roof and take out the snipers."
"And then?"
"And then we breach. You find the nephew. I'll... create a distraction."
Wren smirked. "Try not to eat everyone before I get there."
She moved, slipping into the shadows like smoke. Zane watched her scale the drainpipe of the adjacent building with impossible speed. She was a natural predator.
Zane turned his attention back to the gate. He checked his internal UI.
ESSENCE: 98% STATUS: OPTIMAL
He had plenty of fuel.
He activated Umbral Shroud.
The cold stone in his gut pulsed, sending a stream of grey energy into his skin.
The shadows around him seemed to deepen and stretch, wrapping him in a cloak of liquid darkness.
He felt the familiar drain, the 5% per minute cost, but with a full battery, it felt manageable.
He dropped from the roof, landing silently in the alley below.
He moved toward the gate, gliding to mask his movement. The Shroud didn't just hide him visually… it dampened sound and scent.
To the guards, he was just a patch of gloom in a gloomy city.
He got within ten meters.
[...shift's almost over... my back is killing me...] [...Kael's in a mood today... beat the new guy half to death...] [...need a drink... need a drink...]
Their thoughts were mundane, bored, and miserable. Perfect.
Zane dropped the Shroud as he stepped out of the shadows, right in front of them.
The guards jumped, reaching for their weapons.
"Who the fuck—"
Zane didn't let them finish.
He projected a blast of Whispers, not a subtle suggestion, but a psychic shout.
[...TIRED... SO TIRED... WHAT'S THE POINT?... JUST LAY DOWN...]
It hit them like a physical wave.
The guards stumbled, their eyes glazing over. The will to fight, the will to stand, just evaporated.
"Sleep," Zane commanded.