Taboo Online

The lead analyst replaced the model with a detailed plan of the steel depot.

Three connected buildings stood beside an inactive freight line. Most of the upper floors had been stripped years ago, but the old furnace level extended two stories underground. The Ruinborn had converted the lowest chamber into the receiving frame and linked it to the city through a buried hard line.

"Thermal scans show sixteen people," the analyst said. "One remains inside the central chamber. Seven move freely through the depot, and eight are confined together on the lower service floor."

"Workers?" Luke asked.

"Most likely. The archive includes maintenance schedules, but every listed name appears to be false. Several supply orders suggest the confined group has been there for at least four days."

Red Hound enlarged the lower level. The eight heat signatures occupied a room overlooking the furnace floor, while the seven moving figures covered the loading level, service stairs, and control stations.

"We treat all eight as captives until we confirm otherwise," he said. "The first teams secure the upper floor and service tunnels. Rescue units clear the confined group before engineering touches the central feed. Nobody severs the anchor while another person remains connected to its machinery."

The analyst marked three possible approaches. Two followed existing entrances, both of which had been reinforced from within. The third crossed an outer wall beside the freight elevator.

Red Hound chose the wall.

"They prepared the doors," he said. "We make our own."

Thalen stood beside Aelira with the ceramic guard still covering the arm damaged at Southbank. He studied the route assigned to his team, then checked the matching commands on his wrist display.

The Queen’s next instruction traveled through the Heartroot.

The last of them will try to make his death useful. Do not allow it.

Thalen pressed one fist against his chest.

Red Hound turned toward Shaw. "What can they do?"

Dr. Shaw’s expression made it clear he disliked every available answer.

"Luke remains in the field chair and does not leave the protected route. Reinforce, Quickstep, Arcane Thrust, and Lifeblade are prohibited. His right hand is still unreliable, and the residue was stressed less than two hours ago."

Luke flexed his smallest finger. The movement had improved, although the others still refused to close.

"I wasn’t planning to fight."

Shaw looked at him over the monitor. "You planned to use Quickstep at the pumping station after I prohibited it."

"I didn’t use it."

"Because Mason was dying."

Luke had no useful response to that.

Shaw continued. "Truth Behind Motion is permitted only from a secured position with direct sight of the target. If the cold spreads beyond your wrist, your fingers lose sensation, or the neurological trace changes, you leave immediately."

"All right."

"Lauren gets one short use of Unveiled Weakness after the outer floor is secure. No Oracle’s Glimpse. If her headache increases or numbness returns to her hands, she is finished."

Lauren nodded. "Understood."

"Rhea may accompany the main team, but the panel remains unavailable unless the field medic confirms an immediate threat to someone’s life."

Rhea glanced toward the operation map. "If part of the building is about to fall on someone, I can use it long enough to get them clear."

"Yes," Shaw said. "You dismiss it as soon as the danger passes."

"That’s enough."

Shaw turned toward Thalen. The language barrier made a spoken warning useless, so Red Hound loaded a new set of medical pictograms onto the Rootkeeper’s wrist display: injured ally, protect, do not move, and medic.

Thalen studied each one and repeated the matching field signals.

Around them, the operation began moving toward the waiting vehicles. Assault teams checked their ceramic equipment while rescue medics loaded stretchers and power-isolation crews prepared fracture charges for the furnace level.

Luke watched them leave the shelter one group at a time.

His left hand had tightened around the armrest before Lauren covered it with hers.

"You keep looking at the entry teams," she said.

"I know where I’m assigned."

"That wasn’t what I said."

Luke stared toward the vehicles. "I hate that where I’m assigned is behind all of them."

Lauren remained quiet for a moment. She had spent most of the last several operations behind a barrier too, limited to a few seconds of sight while other people acted on what she found.

"So do I," she said at last. "But we have already helped people from behind the line. Sitting farther back doesn’t erase that."

Their weakened partner resonance stirred beneath her fingers, carrying the same frustration from her side. She was not trying to reassure him with something she did not believe. She hated the restrictions too, but she intended to follow them.

Luke let his hand relax beneath hers. "I keep thinking I should be better by now."

"You held an interworld bridge open with one arm while a kingdom collapsed around you. Shaw has been telling you for hours that recovery doesn’t happen because you’re impatient."

"That sounds like something he would say."

"It is almost exactly what he said to me."

Luke turned toward her. "You didn’t mention that."

"You were busy arguing with your monitor."

For a moment, he almost smiled. Then the model above the table pulsed, and the thought vanished.

An alert sounded from the analyst’s station.

The hardwired telemetry changed without warning. A camera feed opened from inside the central chamber through the same isolated line that had carried the anchor updates.

The branded leader stood inside the frame with his shirt open and black lines crossing his chest. Thick cables connected the machinery to braces around his marked arm, ribs, and spine. Blood had dried beneath several contact points, though he remained upright.

He looked directly toward the camera.

"You took the equipment meant to stabilize the passage," he said. His voice remained calm despite the strain around his mouth. "You forced me to answer a useful question sooner than I planned."

Red Hound stepped closer to the display but did not answer.

The leader placed his marked palm against the frame.

"I needed to know whether the anchor could reach the other side alone."

Silver-gray light split the air behind him.

The opening widened several inches. Pale stone towers rose beyond it beneath a dark sky, blurred by distance and unstable light. Motionless lightning spread between the clouds.

Something moved between the towers.

At first, Luke saw only a narrow shadow crossing the pale ground. Then the shape stopped and turned toward the passage.

The analyst’s hands moved over the controls. "The aperture is wider than the previous test."

"How long?" Red Hound asked.

"Five seconds. Six."

The branded leader’s jaw tightened as blood ran from one of the braces at his ribs. He kept his palm against the frame.

The distant shape took a step.

The opening began folding inward around the edges.

The leader smiled through the pain.

"Now I know."

The feed went black.

For half a second, nobody in the shelter spoke.

Then Red Hound picked up his radio. "Perimeter teams move now. Eastern breach becomes the primary entry. Rescue units take the lower workers first, and nobody waits for another test."

Luke felt Lauren’s fingers tighten around his.

Outside, engines started across North Basin as the operation moved toward Route Nine.

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