They went without signaling it.
They separated on purpose.
Blyke adjusted the wolf mask slightly and tilted his head toward Cagaro. That was enough. They drifted left, following the curve of a pedway that spiraled toward a cluster of supply modules.
Arcee remained where shadow thickened between two suspended walkways. She leaned against a support beam as if she belonged there tracking patterns rather than people.
The reason she didn't went there was because it could create suspicion. Since all the hijackers here are Male.
Henry stepped the opposite direction.
Alone. His pace wasn't cautious. It was casual. He observed as he walked.
All the hijackers are wearing their casual clothes layered under bulletproof vests. No standardized uniform to locate the gaurds. Some in hoodies, some in long coats. The only consistency is the wolf masks and the weapons.
"Disorganized authority." Henry smirked faintly.
Good.
That meant identity was visual, not structural. Mask plus gun equaled ally.
He adjusted the wolf mask he had taken earlier. Let it sit slightly crooked. Perfection draws attention. Imperfection blends things around.
A plasma rifle rested on his shoulder now, battery indicator faintly glowing. He mirrored their posture with slight swagger.
If no one knows everyone, then everyone assumes.
He passed two masked guards near a junction. They barely glanced at him.
Because he did not glance at them.
Henry kept walking deeper into Mercurion's upper core, already mapping exits, cameras, blind angles.
On the other hand,
Blyke didn't look at Cagaro when he spoke.
He walked straight ahead along the pedway, plasma gun resting casually against his shoulder, steps steady and unhurried.
Exactly like the others roaming the arcology.
"Lower floors." he muttered under the mask, voice barely louder than breath. "That is where they are probably keeping the civilians."
Cagaro matched his pace. He tried to copy Blyke's posture loosening his own shoulders.
Above them, glass bridges crossed between towering internal structures. Holographic advertisements flickered dimly, some glitched, some half-shut down.
The hijackers hadn't bothered to turn everything off. They were occupying, not destroying.
"That is pattern behavior." Blyke continued calmly. "If you are controlling a place, you may centralize the assets. People are assets. Fear spreads faster when compressed."
They passed two masked men leaning against a railing. Blyke gave a short nod back.
No words exchanged.
Cagaro felt his heartbeat trying to climb.
Lower floors meant tighter spaces. Less visibility and more control points.
"They will block main stairwells." Blyke added. "So we will not take those. We will look for freight shafts, emergency maintenance ladders, waste chutes if necessary."
"You think they are all infected?" Cagaro asked quietly.
"A few." Blyke replied. "Not all. The dangerous ones will be near the hostages and around the main mastermind. The normal ones guard routes."
They reached a junction where a dim corridor sloped downward, marked Service Access, Authorized Personnel Only.
Blyke turned without hesitation.
"Remember," he said softly as they descended, "we are not here to fight yet. We are here to understand the cage and save everyone alive."
Cagaro nodded.
Find the exits then break the trap.
A distant alarm burst through the arcology, sharp and commanding.
Blyke's head snapped toward the source, eyes narrowing behind the mask. "They have checked the maintenance tunnel… and the bodies."
Cagaro's pulse spiked. Blyke didn't flinch. He lowered the plasma gun slightly, voice calm but firm. "Stay casual. Walk like nothing's happening. Do exactly as I say."
Cagaro nodded forcing his shoulders to relax. Trying to match Blyke's rhythm.
The two of them continued along the pedway but every microsecond was loaded. The horn wasn't just sound. It was a test.
Blyke's instructions were the difference between being prey and becoming a ghost.
Cagaro's hands twitched slightly on the vest.
Arcee crouched in the dim shaft at the elevator's lower compartment, wires splayed across her gloves like a mechanical web. Sparks bloomed where circuits had frayed.
She tapped her smartwatch, sending a brief message to Henry; "I need juice. Can you handle the connection?"
The screen blinked once. She didn't wait for a reply. Carefully testing each with a small voltage pulse.
"Come on…" she muttered under her breath.
Outside on a pedway, somewhere above, Henry received the ping, narrowing his eyes. He didn't need more instruction.
Arcee's focus was absolute.
Now it is was up to Henry.
The situation there was getting worse now. At this they already have the idea about them being inside. But they probably still don't know how many intruders are there.
Henry didn't rush, cause it will leave fingerprints.
He stepped into a maintenance alcove between two structural columns where lighting flickered just enough to discourage lingering guards. A wall panel labeled Environmental Control Subsystem hummed finely.
He knelt and removed the casing with the same lazy efficiency he would use to open a lunchbox.
Inside, the arcology's breathing system pulsed in organized patterns—HVAC grids segmented by floor, staggered to prevent overload.
He synced his smartwatch silently to the local node using the dead guard's credentials.
He queued three dormant HVAC clusters across separate mid-level sectors. Unused units. Safe but power-hungry at startup.
Three.
Two.
One.
He activated them simultaneously. Inside the structure, turbines coughed awake. Air ducts shuddered. The grid absorbed the surge with a measurable but non-critical spike. Lights dimmed half a shade.
Exactly what he wanted.
A minor fluctuation. While the load redistributed, Henry opened a secondary relay channel, one masked inside the environmental subsystem diagnostics.
That was the window.
Within the spike's noise, he bridged the elevator's severed line remotely, feeding it stabilized current drawn from the temporary HVAC surge.
The reconnection happened during the highest data chatter point.
To the system logs, it would read;
Power variance due to concurrent HVAC activation.
The spike normalized as the HVAC units settled into steady operation. Henry then staggered their runtime timers to shut down sequentially, ensuring the recovery curve looked organic.
He resealed the panel, wiped the surface once with his sleeve and stood.
A few floors below, the elevator cables charged up with new life. Henry slipped back into the corridor, plasma gun resting against his shoulder.
The alarm's sound still lingered in Cagaro's ears long after it stopped.
Blyke walked beside him with controlled indifference but the atmosphere had changed.
Guards were no longer leaning lazily against railings. They were moving in coordinated pairs now with sharper weaponry. They have checked two emergency stairwells sealed from inside. Freight lift access was magnetically locked. A side maintenance ladder shaft welded shut recently.
Cagaro's thoughts began weaving faster than his steps.
Among all routes, only the maintenance tunnel had been relatively safe—isolated and neglected. But now that the bodies had been discovered, that same tunnel would become a choke point.
Maybe even trapped. The enemy wouldn't abandon the only confirmed breach. They would convert it into bait.
He felt something heavy pressing behind his ribs. This wasn't about escape anymore. It was about containment. The hijackers weren't panicking; they were reforming.
For the first time since entering Mid Strato, the scale of it truly settled into him. This arcology wasn't just a building. It was a controlled ecosystem. If the exits were sealed and communications jammed, then movement itself became suspicious.
Every corridor narrowed into a funnel. Every shadow could become a closing door.