Taboo Online

A service door opened beneath the observation alcove.

A man in dark coveralls stepped into the pump hall with both hands raised.

"Don’t shoot," he called. "I’m a contractor. They locked me down there when the Bureau arrived."

Red Hound kept his weapon lowered. "Stop where you are."

The man obeyed. His shoulders sagged, and he glanced at the responders surrounding him.

"I don’t know anything about this. They paid me to move cases."

Truth Behind Motion caught the intention hidden beneath the act.

His lowered shoulders were false. His weight was already set to twist left while his right hand slipped beneath his sleeve toward something strapped against his wrist.

Luke spoke before the movement began.

"His right sleeve."

The man’s arm snapped inward.

Rhea raised one hand.

Her damaged panel appeared between his wrist and his chest. It was smaller than the shields she had once commanded, and a bright scar crossed one corner, but she did not try to stop his arm head-on.

She tilted the panel.

His wrist struck the surface and slid upward. A black pulse discharged from beneath his sleeve, missing the receiver apparatus and burning a branching mark across the ceiling.

Two responders drove him onto the floor.

Red Hound removed a narrow trigger from beneath the man’s cuff and sealed it inside a suppression pouch. Then he glanced up toward Luke.

"Good read."

Luke lowered himself against the ceramic barrier when weakness spread through his knees. The nurse checked his monitor but did not order him back to the vehicle.

The captured operator laughed once into the floor. "You already lost."

No one answered him.

The black needle above the apparatus activated.

A pale mask appeared on a maintenance screen near the loading bay. The recording showed the thread wielder standing in darkness. Her lips moved, but the station speakers produced only a thin burst of static.

Then black threads snapped across the ceiling.

"Purge!" Lauren shouted.

The strands sliced through cables, support brackets, and the remaining receiver frame. Metal sections collapsed toward the floor while black fluid burst from a storage cylinder beneath the central pump.

Rhea moved her panel.

A falling steel brace struck the shield above Luke and Lauren. The impact widened the scar across its surface, but Rhea turned the panel instead of trying to hold the full weight. The brace slid away from the alcove and crashed across an empty walkway.

The damaged shield flickered violently afterward.

Rhea pulled it closer rather than dismissing it. Her breathing had changed, and Luke could see the effort in the set of her shoulders, but she kept the panel between the observation alcove and the collapsing rig.

Below them, the evidence specialist carried the sealed component toward the exit while Red Hound’s team dragged the captured operator behind cover.

A second man ran from the lower service corridor with a small data module clutched against his chest. He headed toward the west loading doors, then shifted his weight as though he planned to turn right around the central pump.

Truth Behind Motion caught the lie.

"He’s cutting left," Luke called. "Spillway stairs."

Red Hound sent two responders after him, and the runner vanished through the service door.

Luke stepped away from the barrier.

The nurse caught his left arm. "You stay here."

He could still see the spillway stairs through the open doorway. One Quickstep might carry him far enough to block the operator before the man reached the river path.

Mana stirred in Luke’s legs before he consciously called it.

For a moment, the old answer felt obvious. Go now. Catch him before someone else failed. Deal with whatever the skill cost afterward.

Then a strangled breath came from the pump hall.

One of the Bureau responders had fallen beside the ruptured cylinder. A black filament protruded from the gap beneath his shoulder armor, and dark veins spread from the puncture toward his neck while his hands clawed uselessly at the grated floor.

"Mason’s hit!" someone shouted.

Luke looked toward the spillway door. The fleeing operator was already halfway down the stairs.

Mason’s body jerked, and his next breath stopped before it reached his lungs.

Luke let the mana drain from his legs.

"Let him go," he said. "Get Mason behind the barriers and bring me the living-thorn case."

Red Hound heard him over the open channel.

"Pursuit team stays on the runner. Medical team moves Mason to the alcove. Nobody leaves the secure route."

Luke felt the nurse’s grip ease from his arm.

Two responders reached Mason. One caught him beneath the shoulders while the other kept the black filament from snagging against the grated floor. They did not try to pull it free.

"Do not touch the filament," Lauren warned. "If it is tied to the corruption, pulling it now may drag the mana damage with it."

The responders adjusted their hold.

Mason’s boots scraped across the floor as they carried him toward the protected access stairs. His head rolled once against the responder’s arm, and another dark vein appeared beneath his jaw.

Luke’s stomach tightened.

He had chosen Mason, but choosing did not guarantee he knew how to save him.

That uncertainty used to be the part he hated most.

This time, he stayed where the medics could reach him.

Rhea shifted her unstable panel away from the stairs and angled it over the team carrying Mason. A loose metal bracket fell from the damaged walkway and struck the shield hard enough to make it flash, but the impact changed direction and skidded harmlessly across the floor.

Rhea’s knees bent.

Lauren caught her forearm.

"Let it go."

"Not until they’re through."

The responders crossed the final steps and entered the observation alcove.

Only then did Rhea dismiss the panel. Blue light collapsed inward, leaving her hand shaking at her side.

The medic dropped beside Mason and began cutting the straps beneath his shoulder plate.

Luke lowered himself on Mason’s right side while Lauren moved around to the left. The glass case of living thorns arrived a second later in the nurse’s hands.

Below them, the purge continued destroying the receiver frame, but the suppression case holding the silver-black component was already outside the hall.

They had kept the evidence.

Now Luke had to keep Mason alive.

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