Chapter 3: The Fractured Crew

The Rust Quarter existed in a state of perpetual decay, where abandoned factories and half-collapsed warehouses served as monuments to Delrick's failed industrial ambitions. Deon picked his way through the maze of corrugated metal and jury-rigged shelters that had sprouted like urban fungus in the skeletal remains of the old textile district. The air tasted of copper and ozone, a metallic tang that coated his throat and made his newly awakened Rune-Sight ache behind his eyes.

He found Kaelen's workshop in the basement of what had once been a munitions plant, the entrance hidden behind a wall of salvaged electronics that looked like junk to anyone who didn't know what to look for. Deon did. He'd helped build half of these defenses back when they'd been partners, back when they'd thought they could make a difference in this rotting city.

The biometric scanner disguised as a broken vending machine recognized his handprint but hesitated before cycling through its authentication sequence. Even after three years, Kaelen's paranoia ran deep enough to program reluctance into his security systems.

"I know you're watching," Deon said to the apparently empty alley. "Let me in, Kae. We need to talk."

The scanner beeped twice—their old code for 'alone and unarmed'—and the hidden door clicked open. Deon descended into a maze of workbenches, computer banks, and half-assembled devices that defied easy categorization. The workshop smelled like solder and caffeine, familiar scents that brought back memories he'd spent three years trying to bury.

Kaelen stood with his back turned, hunched over a device that sparked and hummed with barely contained energy. He was thinner than Deon remembered, his auburn hair longer and unkempt, but his hands moved with the same precise confidence that had made him the best tech specialist in the underground. When he finally turned around, his green eyes held no warmth, only the cold calculation of someone evaluating a potential threat.

"Deon Varr," he said, his voice carrying the flat inflection of someone stating an unpleasant fact. "Three years, four months, and eighteen days since you walked out of my life. I'd hoped it would be longer."

"Good to see you too." Deon stepped further into the workshop, noting the defensive positioning of the various gadgets within Kaelen's reach. His former partner had always been paranoid, but this felt different—personal. "Nice setup. Business must be good."

"Business is profitable because I'm selective about my clients." Kaelen set down his tools with deliberate care. "I don't take jobs that get people killed anymore."

The words hit like a physical blow, but Deon had expected this. "Maya wasn't your fault."

"Wasn't it?" Kaelen's composure cracked just enough to let genuine emotion through. "You were the strategist, I was the tech support, but whose gear failed when we needed it most? Whose carefully planned infiltration route led us straight into a trap?"

"The intelligence was bad—"

"The intelligence was your source." Kaelen turned back to his workbench, his movements sharp with barely controlled anger. "Alexei Volkov fed you exactly what you wanted to hear because he knew you'd eat it up. Your noble crusade to 'fix' Delrick made you predictable, and Maya paid the price."

Deon closed his eyes, remembering the weight of Maya's body in his arms as her life bled out through the hole Volkov's sniper had torn in her chest. She'd been their demolitions expert, a former military engineer who'd joined their crew because she believed in their mission to expose the corruption choking the city. She'd also been the closest thing to family either of them had ever known.

"I didn't come here to relitigate the past," Deon said. "I need your help."

"And I need you to leave." Kaelen picked up a device that looked like a cross between a welding torch and a lightning rod. "Before I decide that three years isn't long enough to cool down."

Deon reached into his jacket and pulled out Leo Vasquez's student ID, placing it on the nearest workbench. "Sixteen-year-old kid. Disappeared four days ago from the University District. Trail led me into the Drowned Tunnels, where I found things that shouldn't exist feeding on people who've been twisted into something barely human."

Kaelen glanced at the ID but didn't pick it up. "Kids disappear all the time in this city. That's what happens when you build paradise on top of hell."

"This is different." Deon pulled out his phone and showed Kaelen the sketches he'd made of the symbols, careful not to look at them directly for too long. His Rune-Sight made the drawings pulse with residual energy that gave him splitting headaches. "These markings were at every disappearance site. They're some kind of control mechanism, and they're connected to a network that spans the entire city."

Despite himself, Kaelen leaned forward to examine the sketches. His expression shifted from dismissive to concerned as he studied the geometric patterns. "Where did you see these?"

"Tin Alley was the first. But they're everywhere once you know how to look." Deon tapped his temple. "I can see them now, Kae. The energy flows, the connections. There's something underneath Delrick that's been harvesting people for god knows how long, and it's getting bolder."

Kaelen set down his improvised weapon and picked up the student ID, turning it over in his hands. "You always were good at finding the one case that could get us all killed. Remember the organ trafficking ring? The ghost data scandal? Each time you'd walk in here with that same look in your eyes, convinced you'd found the conspiracy that would finally bring down the system."

"This isn't paranoia talking." Deon moved closer, noting how Kaelen's hand drifted toward a panic button hidden beneath his workbench. "I know how this sounds, but I've seen the processing chambers. Whatever's behind this has been operating for years, maybe decades. The missing persons reports the peacekeepers ignore, the homeless who vanish without a trace, the tunnel rats who just stop showing up—they're all connected."

"Connected to what, exactly?" Kaelen's voice carried the tone of someone humoring a mental patient. "Aliens? Government experiments? The illuminati?"

"I don't know what to call it." Deon struggled to find words for what he'd experienced in the chamber beneath the city. "There's something on the other side of reality pressing against our world, trying to break through. The symbols are anchors, letting it influence our dimension. The missing people are either being used as raw material or turned into those... creatures I fought."

Kaelen was quiet for a long moment, studying the sketches with the focused intensity Deon remembered from their partnership. Finally, he set the papers down and walked to a wall-mounted display showing news feeds from across the city.

"Seventeen missing persons reports in the last month," he said without turning around. "The peacekeepers blame gang activity, drug deals gone wrong, the usual excuses. But the pattern..." He highlighted several locations on a digital map. "The disappearances form a rough circle around the old city center, with the highest concentration near the government district."

"You've been tracking this too."

"I track everything that might affect my business." Kaelen turned back to face him, and Deon saw something he hadn't expected: fear. "Three of my regular clients have gone missing in the past two weeks. All of them were hackers, people with skills that would be useful to someone building a surveillance network."

"Then you know I'm not crazy."

"I know you're not lying about seeing something." Kaelen pulled up another display, this one showing energy consumption patterns across Delrick's power grid. "But that doesn't mean I'm going to help you commit suicide by investigation."

The data showed anomalous power draws from seemingly random locations throughout the city—abandoned buildings, closed businesses, sections of the underground that supposedly had no electrical infrastructure. The pattern was subtle, but once Deon knew what to look for, it was obvious. Something was drawing enormous amounts of energy from the city's grid, using it to power whatever process was anchored by those cursed symbols.

"Maya died because we trusted the wrong person," Deon said quietly. "But she also died because we were making a difference. Volkov had us killed because we were getting too close to something he couldn't afford to have exposed."

"And what makes you think this time will be different?"

"Because this time I'm not asking you to trust me." Deon pointed at the energy consumption data. "I'm asking you to trust your own analysis. Look at the pattern, Kae. Really look at it. This isn't some small-time corruption or corporate malfeasance. This is systematic, coordinated, and it's been running long enough to become part of the city's infrastructure."

Kaelen stared at the display for several minutes, his fingers dancing across the keyboard as he pulled up additional data streams. Traffic patterns, waste management logs, even water pressure readings—all of it filtered through algorithms designed to detect hidden connections and anomalous behavior.

"Son of a bitch," he whispered.

"You see it."

"I see... something. A pattern that suggests coordinated activity on a scale that would require significant resources and institutional support." Kaelen's voice carried the reluctant acknowledgment of someone whose worldview was being forcibly expanded. "But even if you're right about the scope, what exactly are you proposing we do about it?"

"Same thing we always did. We investigate, we document, and we expose the truth."

"And if the truth gets us killed this time?"

Deon looked around the workshop, taking in the defensive preparations and isolation protocols that had become Kaelen's life. "What kind of life are you living down here? Hiding from shadows, afraid to take risks because of what happened three years ago? Maya died fighting for something she believed in. What are you living for?"

It was a low blow, and they both knew it. But it was also effective. Kaelen's shoulders sagged as the weight of his self-imposed exile settled on him like a physical burden.

"You're asking me to throw away three years of careful preparation," he said. "Everything I've built since Maya died, all the safety protocols and contingency plans."

"I'm asking you to remember why we started doing this work in the first place." Deon picked up Leo Vasquez's ID and held it between them. "Sixteen years old, Kae. How many more kids like him are going to disappear while we argue about risk management?"

Kaelen closed his eyes and was quiet for so long that Deon began to think he'd overplayed his hand. When he finally spoke, his voice carried the resigned tone of someone accepting an inevitable fate.

"If we do this—and I'm not saying we are—it's not going to be like the old days. No grand gestures, no dramatic confrontations with the powers that be. We gather intelligence, we identify the key players, and we find a way to shut down their operation without getting ourselves killed in the process."

"Agreed."

"And if I say we abort, we abort. No arguments, no 'one more lead' negotiations. When I decide the risk is too high, we walk away."

"Understood."

Kaelen opened his eyes and looked directly at Deon for the first time since he'd arrived. "Then I guess we're back in business, partner."

As they shook hands, Deon felt a familiar mixture of relief and apprehension. Getting Kaelen back was a victory, but it also meant committing to a path that had no guaranteed exit. The symbols beneath the city pulsed with malevolent energy, the missing continued to disappear, and somewhere in the darkness, the Warden waited with chains and burning eyes.

But for the first time in three years, Deon felt like he had a real chance of making a difference. And maybe, just maybe, they could save Leo Vasquez before it was too late.