Adventure of Dallas Fontaine 2

The relay console is dead black, but Jackson has the casing open and his hands are flying. The dead man’s switch is the only thing between Dallas and the logs.

The side door shudders again. Splinters spit from the frame. Elena plants her feet, weapon steady, eyes locked on the weakening wood.

A hard crack runs through the latch. Cold air and boot noise seep through the seam. Jackson yanks a cable free, and the printer inside the console coughs out a strip of paper with a file tag and routing code.

Dallas gets the evidence as the door bows inward. Elena pivots toward the breach, ready to fire, while Jackson reaches for the back exit and the last clean route out.

Dallas and Jackson wrench the back exit together, shoulder to steel, until the latch screams and gives way. The door swings outward into wet harbor dark, and cold air floods the room.

Elena snaps off a pair of shots at the side door. The wood jumps, the assault slows, and the boots outside stumble back from the frame.

Jackson shoves the printing strip and the routing log toward Dallas, then plants himself in the opening with his weapon up. The dead console spits one last page onto the floor behind him.

Dallas gets the evidence clear of the console as the back exit opens fully onto the walkway. Rain hisses on rusted metal outside, and the harbor wind claws at the paperwork.

From the side door, a fresh crack splits the frame. The response team is still pushing, but now they have two openings to watch and not enough room to breathe.

Dallas clears the threshold and boots onto the wet walkway, the printout pinned tight against his coat as rain needles the paper. The relay office door stays behind him, but the fight is still inside, all splintering wood and gunfire.

Jackson holds the rear opening, squared against the frame, while the dead console keeps coughing out the last pages onto the floor. Elena pivots from the side door and fires again, forcing the response team to duck back into the hall.

Dallas gets fully clear of the office and onto the slick exterior landing. The harbor wind slaps the evidence in his hand, but he keeps it steady and moving.

Behind him, the side door cracks wider, then catches under its own splinters. The paper trail is in Dallas's hands, and the office is one breath away from being overrun.

Dallas plants his feet on the slick landing and opens up with controlled fire, not at the room, but at the doorway line. The response team flinches back from the breach, and Jackson gets the breathing room he needs.

Shells snap past the frame and hammer the hall. Elena ducks, then leans back in to keep pressure on the side door as the splintering slows.

Dallas tracks the movement in the hall and shifts his aim with it, pinning the nearest shape to cover. The evidence stays dry against his coat.

The side door gives another violent crack, but the pressure at Jackson’s doorway eases under Dallas’s fire. Through the churn of rain and gun smoke, the path behind the team starts to open.

For one clear moment, the relay office is split and exposed, with the logs secure in Dallas’s hands and the attackers forced to choose which breach to die for.

Dallas cuts his fire and backs the team off the room, angling them toward the rear exit. The relay office is no longer the place to hold, it is the place to leave behind.

Jackson snaps his shoulder around, covering the retreat while Dallas moves the evidence with him. Elena breaks from the side door and falls in, still pistol-ready, eyes hard on the splintering frame.

Dallas reaches the rear threshold first and holds it open long enough for the others to stack up inside the narrow lane. Rain hits the landing in sheets, and the gun smoke thins behind them.

The office side gives a final burst of splintering wood, but the team is already consolidated at the rear. The pursuit inside the relay breaks its shape, forced to chase a position Dallas has already abandoned.

Dallas gives ground in one clean motion, pulling the logs tight and leading the retreat down the wet walkway. Jackson stays between the team and the relay office, and Elena falls in step without breaking cover.

The side door finally cracks wide behind them, but only into empty air and failing light. The response team spills into the office too late to catch the evidence or the route Dallas already owns.

Dallas reaches the next bend in the walkway, where the rain turns the concrete slick and black. The printed logs stay dry under his coat, and the live feed hunt breaks behind him.

The relay office shudders under the breach, then settles into a hollow, ruined silence. On the doorframe behind them, the tracking stamp is plain in the rain, but the team is already past it.

Dallas keeps the pace, shoulders low, logs pinned under his coat as the walkway narrows toward the harbor stairs.

Elena matches his stride, pistol down but ready, while the rain needles the concrete and hisses off the railing.

Behind them, the relay office doorframe flashes with the tracking stamp, then vanishes around the bend as they put distance on it.

Murderbone pads in close at Dallas’s knee, calm now, the group’s line tightening as the pursuit falls away.

Dallas keeps the line with them, boots striking wet concrete in an even rhythm as the walkway bends away from the relay office.

Jackson stays tight on the outside shoulder, turning once toward the fading doorway, then facing forward again as the stairs come into view.

Elena angles in beside Dallas, pistol low, eyes working the railing and the dark water beyond it.

Murderbone pads at Dallas’s knee, matching his pace without breaking stride.

The bend swallows the relay office behind them. The pursuit drops out of sight, and the harbor stairs wait ahead.

Dallas keeps his pace and the stairs finally take him. Wet steps rise out of the walkway and the harbor opens below, dark water flashing under the rain.

Jackson slows just enough to cover the rear, then angles in beside him as the first landing comes under their feet.

Elena slips up to Dallas’s other side, her pistol still low, her eyes snapping from the railing to the shadows beyond the stairwell.

Murderbone reaches the landing with a sharp, steady trot and plants himself at Dallas’s heel.

Behind them, the relay bend swallows the last sight of the ruined office. Ahead, the stairs level out, and the route opens onto the harbor path.

Dallas keeps on, taking the next stretch of wet concrete without slowing. The harbor path waits ahead, and the stairs drop their last echo behind him.

Dallas keeps his pace and clears the landing, boots striking the harbor path with steady intent. The wet concrete opens ahead of him, and the relay office drops out of reach behind the bend.

Murderbone pads in tight at his side, matching the line of travel. Rain beads on the printed logs under Dallas’s arm, but the pages stay dry enough to keep the ink sharp.

Jackson stays on the stair edge a moment longer, checking the dark behind them before he falls in. The chase does not follow out, not yet.

Elena angles toward Dallas’s shoulder, pistol low, eyes forward. The harbor path takes the group into a darker stretch of waterfront and away from the door that was giving way.

At the turn, a stamped maintenance notice clings to the office side door in the rain, the same kind of mark that has followed them all night. Dallas reaches the next stretch of path with the evidence still in hand, and the question becomes where the trail points now.

Dallas stops at the stamped notice and peels it free with two fingers. The rain has only softened the glue, not the mark, and a route code shows through the paper fiber like a bruise.

He follows the code down the harbor path to a recessed service gate half-hidden in a concrete cutout. The gate is already unlatched, its chain hanging loose as if someone expected him.

Dallas slips the log under one arm and crosses to the gate. Beyond it, a narrow service spur runs inland toward stacked crates and a lit dock office, the kind of place routing papers disappear into.

At the threshold, Dallas finds a second stamp on the inner frame, fresher than the first, with a clerk code that matches the printed logs. The trail does not just point inward, it points to a named office inside the Harbor Authority system.

Murderbone pushes past Dallas’s leg and growls at the open spur. The gate stays open, the route stays exposed, and the next decision is whether to go through before whoever set the mark comes back.

Dallas ducks through the service spur and into the dock office. A desk lamp burns low, lighting a stack of routing slips, a half-open ledger tray, and a filing cabinet left ajar in a hurry.

He goes straight to the cabinet, flips through the front ledger, and finds matching clerk codes tucked behind transfer slips. The entries line up with the printout in his hand, same office stamp, same route window, same initials.

Under a blotter pad, Dallas spots a carbon copy memo with a higher authorization line and a live-feed routing note. The name on the sign-off matches the office chain above Covington, not below it.

Murderbone noses the door and lets out one low warning. From outside, the corridor stays quiet, but the office no longer does. Dallas has the records in hand, and the paper trail points cleanly upward.