The outer wall of the Surveillance Center loomed like a cliff face of smooth, grey concrete. Three meters up, a humming electromagnetic grid promised instant death to anyone who touched it.
Vance and Cerberus crouched in the shadow of a drainage pipe.
"Equipment check," Vance whispered.
Cerberus tapped the device on his belt—the Low-Frequency Vibration Generator. It was humming silently, creating a localized bubble that neutralized the sonar sensors in the air.
"Good." Vance looked up.
His eyes were no longer seeing the physical wall. In his vision, overlaid by the data from his neural port, he saw cones of vision sweeping across the ground like searchlights. They were chaotic, overlapping, seemingly inescapable.
But Vance smelled it.
Amidst the scent of ozone and concrete, there was a rhythmic, ticking scent. Clockwork.
The AI's randomness was a lie. It was repeating a pattern every 4,192 cycles.
"Three... two... one... Mark."
Vance moved.
He didn't run. He slid forward, his body pressing flat against the wall. A camera directly above him whirred, its lens rotating toward his position.
To anyone watching, he was about to be spotted.
But just as the lens locked onto his location, Vance took one step to the left.
Whir.
The camera stopped exactly where he had been a fraction of a second ago. It paused for 0.1 seconds, processed the empty space, and moved on.
"Follow my footsteps," Vance commanded through the comms. "Don't think. Just step."
Cerberus followed. The boy moved with unnatural grace, stepping exactly where Vance's foot had just lifted.
They breached the outer perimeter. Now came the Courtyard.
It was a wide, open space of white tiles, lit by floodlights. There was no cover. None.
"Boss?" Cerberus's voice was tense.
"Walk," Vance said calmly. "Don't run. Walk like you belong here."
Vance stepped onto the white tiles.
A camera on the left tower swung toward him. Vance didn't stop. He turned his body 45 degrees, matching the blind angle of the lens's rotation.
Another camera from the right swept across. Vance crouched, tying his shoelace. The beam passed inches above his head.
It was a dance with invisible partners.
To an outside observer, it would look insane. A man in a trench coat and a boy in tactical gear were twisting, pausing, and accelerating in the middle of an empty plaza, moving in a jagged, bizarre path.
But on the screens inside the security room?
Nothing.
On the screens, the plaza was empty. Vance was moving in the exact 0.5-second gap between the frame refresh and the AI's object recognition protocol. He was editing himself out of reality in real-time.
Suddenly, Vance stopped. He held up a hand.
Cerberus froze mid-step, balancing on one leg like a statue.
Ten meters ahead, a heavy blast door was opening. A patrol drone, hovering on silent fans, drifted out. Its scanner bathed the courtyard in a grid of red lasers.
There was no blind spot for this. The drone's scan was continuous.
"Bio-scan initiated," a mechanical voice chirped from the drone.
The red lasers swept over Vance.
Beep.[Error. Target Unidentified.]
Vance held his breath. He had coated his coat in anti-infrared paint, but the drone was close. Too close.
The laser moved to Cerberus.
The boy stood there, his heart beating so slowly it was almost comatose. His body temperature blended perfectly with the cold night air.
The drone hovered in front of Cerberus for a terrifying second. Its lens dilated, focusing on the boy's face.
Vance's hand drifted toward his scalpel. If the alarm sounded, they would have to fight their way out against the entire facility.
Sniff.
Vance smelled... Confusion.
Not from a person, but from the machine. The AI behind the drone was confused. It saw a shape, but the data said "rock" or "shadow." It couldn't reconcile the visual input with the biometric data.
Beep.[Scavenger fauna detected. Threat level: Null.]
The drone spun around and drifted away, dismissing the deadliest weapon in District 9 as a stray animal.
Vance let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. A sharp, metallic taste of blood filled his mouth—his nose was bleeding again. The calculation load was burning his nerves.
"Move," Vance whispered, wiping his nose. "We're at the door."
They reached the service entrance. Vance pulled out the electronic key he had cloned using Old Ghost's data.
Click. Green light.
The heavy door hissed open.
They stepped inside. The air changed instantly. The smell of the outside world—rust, rain, acid—vanished.
It was replaced by the sterile, recycled air of the facility. And underneath that...
Vance grimaced.
Under the bleach and ozone, there was a smell that made his stomach churn. It was the smell of Rotting Orchids.
It was the scent of a mind that had been twisted, fermented, and broken a thousand times.
"We're close," Vance muttered, looking down the pristine white hallway. "I can smell him. Nyar is down there."
"And so is Envy."
Vance adjusted his sunglasses, hiding his bloodshot eyes.
"Stage two, Cerberus. No more hiding."
"Now... we hunt."