Chapter 25: what’s our move?

Gio couldn’t keep his mouth shut.

The weight of it was crushing him. The Sector Cities were farms. The expeditions were harvests. Darwin was using them as bait. And he was the only one who knew.

He glanced around the truck. Melody was curled against Reuben’s shoulder, breathing deeply. Lloyd sat across from them, head tilted back. Tabitha had gone fully invisible—probably more comfortable that way. Even Blaze was snoring softly near the front.

Kojiro looked the worst. Slumped in the corner, breathing shallow and wet, the purple veins on his neck still bruised and angry.

’Fuck it,’ Gio thought. ’They deserve to know.’

He leaned forward and shook Melody’s shoulder gently. "Mel. Wake up."

Her cat ears twitched. She blinked awake, pupils dilating in the dim light. "Huh? What—?"

"Quiet," Gio hissed. "Wake Lloyd. And Kojiro. Now."

Melody’s expression sharpened instantly. She didn’t ask questions. She just nodded and shook Lloyd awake while Gio moved to Kojiro.

"Kojiro. Hey. Wake up."

The older man groaned, his eyes fluttering open. "Kid... what time is it?"

"Don’t matter. Listen to me." Gio kept his voice low, barely above a whisper. "I saw what Darwin was doing with that drive. The logs."

Kojiro’s eyes widened slightly. "And?"

Gio leaned in closer. "The Sector Cities aren’t shelters. They’re incubators. Controlled environments to keep the human gene pool stable while the outside world mutates. The expeditions? They’re not searches for a cure. They’re harvests. The city sends us out to see how far we can evolve, then sends the data back to whatever’s waiting at the Pacific Impact Site."

Silence.

Melody’s mouth opened slightly. Lloyd’s face went pale.

"That’s... that’s insane," Lloyd whispered. "You’re sure?"

"I read it myself. Phase Two. Phase Three. All of it." Gio’s voice was tight. "And Darwin? He knew. He’s known the whole time."

Kojiro let out a slow breath. "So we’re not explorers. We’re lab rats."

"Worse," Gio said. "We’re bait. He activated a beacon on that drive. It’s broadcasting our location right now. The cloaked figure, the hounds—they’re tracking us."

Melody’s claws extended slightly, digging into her palms. "Then we confront him. Right now."

"No," Gio said immediately. "If we start a fight in this truck, we all die. We need to think."

"Think?!" Lloyd’s voice rose slightly before he caught himself, dropping it back to a harsh whisper. "He’s leading us into a trap and you want to think?!"

"I want us to survive," Gio shot back. "If we panic, we die. If we plan, we might—"

The truck lurched violently.

The engine died with a sickening whine. The headlights flickered and went dark. Every bracelet on every wrist flashed red simultaneously, then went black.

ERROR: SYSTEM FAILURE.

"What the—?" Blaze shouted from the front, his hands igniting instinctively.

Then the fog outside parted.

Standing in the middle of the road, flanked by a dozen bioengineered hounds, was the cloaked figure.

It hadn’t moved. It had simply been waiting.

The figure raised one hand and tapped on the truck’s windshield.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Darwin turned slowly in his seat, his mechanical pupil whirring as it locked onto the figure outside. His expression didn’t change. Not surprise. Not fear. Just cold, clinical calculation.

He looked back at the awake recruits—Gio, Melody, Lloyd, Kojiro.

"Looks like your friends are awake," Darwin said, his voice flat. "Good. We’ll need them."

The cloaked figure’s voice cut through the metal hull, clear and unbroken, speaking in perfect English.

"Sector city people... You have something that belongs to my master. Return it, and I will let you live."

Gio’s blood ran cold.

The hounds began to circle the truck, their artificial yellow eyes glowing in the fog.

Darwin didn’t move. He just stared at the cloaked figure through the windshield, his mechanical pupil dilating and contracting.

Then he turned to Gio.

"Well, recruit," Darwin said quietly. "What’s our move?"