Taboo Online

The pursuit team lost the fleeing operator near the river.

He had entered a drainage channel beneath the spillway and triggered a collapse behind him. By the time the responders cleared the obstruction, he had reached a service road beyond the station perimeter.

Luke was seated inside the armored command vehicle when Red Hound returned.

"The runner escaped," Luke said.

"He did."

"I might have reached the stairs."

"With Quickstep, after Shaw told you not to use it."

Luke looked down at his sling. "Maybe."

Red Hound closed the vehicle door behind him.

"We captured two people, recovered the receiver component, and kept the purge from destroying the station. Mason is alive because you stayed."

Luke said nothing.

Red Hound rested one hand on the back of the empty seat across from him.

"We already had two responders behind the runner, and he still got away. Mason had one person on site who could clear that corruption." His gaze stayed on Luke. "You chose the job nobody else could do."

He delivered the words like a correction to Luke’s version of the after-action report, which made them harder to dismiss as praise.

Lauren sat beside Luke and placed her uncovered fingers over his left hand. The weak pulse of partner resonance carried her agreement.

Rhea entered a moment later and lowered herself onto the bench opposite them. The bright scar across her surviving panel had widened again before she dismissed it.

"You all right?" Luke asked.

"My shoulder will complain tomorrow. The panel still answered when I released it, so I’ll take that."

Lauren turned toward her. "And you stopped before it failed."

Rhea nodded. "I’m learning."

A knock sounded against the rear door.

A Bureau analyst entered with the sealed receiver component and a tablet. She sat at the narrow worktable and plugged the suppression case into a passive reader without opening it.

"We found route data inside the calibration core," she said. "Most of it is encrypted, but the purge interrupted the wipe. One shipment code remained active."

The screen showed a string of letters and numbers beside a single word.

ASHLINE.

Red Hound looked toward the captured operator seated in the adjoining restraint compartment.

The man from the pump hall had stopped claiming to be a contractor. A ceramic collar surrounded his neck, and both wrists were locked inside a suppression frame. The first suspect taken in the loading bay had already been transferred to a separate Bureau vehicle, leaving the false contractor alone behind the transparent divider.

He studied the shipment code without speaking.

Red Hound moved closer to the divider.

"They tried to kill you with the rest of the station," he said. "Whatever loyalty you think you owe them, the woman in the mask did not return it."

The operator kept his eyes on the tablet.

"You don’t know her."

"I know she triggered a purge while you were still inside."

"That doesn’t mean she knew where I was."

Red Hound did not answer immediately.

The silence lasted long enough for the operator to look up.

Then Red Hound said, "She had a live relay in the ceiling and a recording waiting for the moment we touched the receiver. She knew exactly what was happening in that building."

The operator’s jaw tightened. His breathing changed, and his attention kept drifting toward the windows.

"If you put me in a public holding facility, she’ll find me," he said.

"Give me a reason to move you somewhere she can’t."

The man glanced toward the loading bay through the rear window. Bureau responders were still carrying out evidence while technicians marked the black scars left by the purge.

"What happens if I talk?"

"That depends on whether what you give us is useful."

"You’re not promising protection."

"I’m not promising anything I can’t guarantee."

The answer seemed to bother him more than a lie would have.

Luke watched the exchange and thought of the way Red Hound had spoken to Aelira. He rarely offered comfort first. He gave people the exact limit of what he controlled and expected them to decide what to do with it.

The operator looked back at ASHLINE.

"Ashline is the resonance shipment," he said at last. "The pumping station calibrated the receiver, but the heavy units were never meant to stay here."

The analyst leaned forward. "What kind of units?"

"Industrial resonance frames. Dampers. Impact storage. Things you can’t move quietly unless you have a freight route."

Luke looked toward Red Hound. "Impact storage."

The same thought had already reached him.

"The hammer wielder," Lauren said.

The operator’s eyes flicked toward her, then away.

Red Hound noticed. "Where is the shipment going?"

"I don’t know the final site."

The operator’s hands tightened inside the restraint frame.

Red Hound waited.

"North River freight spur," the man said. "Route Nine. They move after dark."

The analyst pulled up a transit map. "Route Nine still connects to three industrial yards and an inactive steel depot."

"Which stop?" Red Hound asked.

"I told you, I don’t know."

Luke’s skill gave him nothing while the man sat still, so Red Hound changed the question.

"Who collects the shipment?"

The operator stared at the ruined receiver outside for several seconds.

"The big one."

Red Hound said nothing.

The man swallowed. "The one with the hammer."

That was the first direct confirmation that one of the four elites had a separate Earth-side assignment.

The analyst immediately began cross-checking Route Nine against traffic cameras, freight schedules, and properties linked to the same shell companies used at the safehouse.

Luke glanced at the clock on the wall of the command vehicle.

They had spent the entire morning reacting to sites the Ruinborn had prepared in advance.

For the first time, they had a place and a time before the enemy arrived.

Red Hound checked the same clock.

"North River freight spur," he said. "We have six hours."

He turned toward the analyst.

"Send everything to North Basin and Shaw. I want the route mapped before we move anyone."

Then his gaze shifted to Luke, Lauren, and Rhea.

"No improvising on this one. We know who we’re expecting, and we already know what feeds his weapon. We use that."

Luke remembered the hammer wielder standing inside Lethariel while sound and impact disappeared into the massive weapon.

For once, the next fight would not begin with them learning the enemy from scratch.

They had six hours to make sure it ended differently.

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