Sector D-6 was a anomaly in District 9.
If the rest of the underground city was a rotting carcass of neon and rust, D-6 was a sterilized operating room. The walls here were scrubbed white, the streets were free of sewage, and the air... the air smelled of Bleach.
It was a scent that made Vance's nose twitch in irritation. To his synesthesia, bleach didn't smell clean; it smelled of concealment. It was the smell of a crime scene scrubbed too perfectly, hiding the blood beneath.
The black hovercar parked silently in the shadow of a derelict ventilation tower on the sector's edge. This was the safe house marked on Old Ghost's map.
Vance stepped out, pulling his collar up against the biting wind. He looked toward the center of the sector.
There, piercing the gloom, stood a massive, needle-like tower. It was covered in thousands of hexagonal glass panels, each reflecting the cold lights of the district. It looked like a giant compound eye of a fly, staring unblinkingly at the ants crawling below.
The All-Seeing Surveillance Center. The lair of [Envy].
"Too quiet," Cerberus whispered, standing beside Vance. The boy in black tactical gear looked uncomfortable. His instincts, honed in the chaotic Arena, were screaming at the unnatural silence of this place.
"It's not quiet. It's just... holding its breath." Vance adjusted his sunglasses, his eyes scanning the distant tower.
Through the data chip Old Ghost had given him, a stream of code was scrolling rapidly across his retinal display. He wasn't just looking at a building; he was looking at a fortress of data.
"Envy controls 80% of the cameras in District 9," Vance said, his voice low. "He knows who sleeps with whom, who steals rations, who whispers rebellion in the dark. He hoards these secrets like a dragon hoards gold."
"But dragons always have a weakness."
Vance turned and walked into the safe house. "Come on. We have work to do before the curtain rises."
The safe house was dusty but functional. Vance swept a pile of junk off a table and deployed the holographic projector. He loaded the blueprint Old Ghost had provided.
The blue light illuminated Vance's face, making him look pale and sharp.
"Listen, Cerberus." Vance pointed to the perimeter of the red zone on the map. "Tonight, we are not soldiers. We are ghosts."
"Envy's security system is run by a localized AI called 'Argus'. It processes visual data from three thousand cameras simultaneously."
Vance's finger traced a line through the dense web of red dots.
"Argus claims to have no blind spots. It rotates its eyes in a random algorithm, scanning every cubic inch of the facility every three seconds. To a normal person, it's an impenetrable wall."
"But to me..." Vance tapped his temple, a crazy smile touching his lips. "...it's a musical score."
He pulled a vial of the high-concentration aerosol spray from the crate Old Ghost had prepared.
"This is our cloak." Vance tossed the can to Cerberus. "And you, my little monster, are the key."
"Me?" Cerberus blinked.
"Yes." Vance looked at the boy's chest. "Argus is programmed to identify 'Humans.' It looks for human heart rates, human body heat, human gait. But you..."
Vance's smile deepened.
"Your heart beats at 40 beats per minute. Your body temperature is five degrees lower than average. To Argus, you aren't a person. You're a piece of moving furniture, a glitch, a shadow."
"I will guide you." Vance put on a tactical earpiece. "I have calculated the rhythm of the algorithm. There is a 0.5-second delay between the camera's focus shift and the AI's processing cycle."
"We will dance in that 0.5 seconds."
Vance grabbed a bag of sugar from the table and poured a mouthful into his mouth. The glucose rushed to his brain, fueling the overclocked engine inside his skull.
The nosebleed had stopped, but the phantom pain in his neural port was throbbing, a constant reminder of the price he paid for his power.
"Let's go," Vance said, checking the time. "The shift change is in ten minutes. That's when the eyes blink."