The tunnel swallows the warehouse light. Kaine slows, packet in hand, its Matsuda seal pulsing faintly blue against the wet dark.
His wrist display blooms with a map, then resolves into a route under the Water District. Safe house. Forty-eight hours. Mercer catches the word fail-safes in the static hiss of the air.
Kaine
Coordinates are clean. Instructions too. Matsuda wants this back before the frame cooks your brain.
Zara keeps her weapon up, eyes sweeping the tunnel mouths ahead. Somewhere beyond the concrete, drones hum and water drips like a slow countdown.
Zara
Great. So we cross half the district, dodge anyone who wants him boxed or dead, and walk into a corporate nest.
Kaine tilts the packet toward Mercer, not quite offering it, not quite withholding it. The glow paints his gloves and the tunnel wall in pale corporate light.
Mercer Skye
The packet is the lead. The safe house is the end of it.
Ahead, a side passage opens onto a maintenance ladder and a stained service map, one route highlighted in blinking orange. The next step is obvious, and it is not empty.
✓ Quest Accepted
Reach the Matsuda safe house
✓ Quest Accepted
Secure a tactical advantage in the tunnels
“"You're a handler, Kaine. Why are you tagging along?"”
SUCCESS (Superb Persuasion, rolled +1)
Mercer Skye
You are a handler, Kaine. Why are you tagging along?
Kaine
Because I am the only one here who can read Matsuda's leash marks before they snap shut. And because if this turns ugly, I prefer to see the teeth before they hit you.
Zara
That almost sounds like concern.
Kaine
Call it risk management. Call it keeping my assets alive. I do not care what label helps you sleep.
He thumbs the packet once, then angles the route map toward Mercer and Zara, as if sharing the joke with the corridor itself. The orange path splits at the maintenance ladder, then dives under a marked service gate.
Kaine
There is a back way through the tunnel works. Shorter. Dirtier. Less visible. If Matsuda is watching this line, we do not take the front door.
Zara lowers her gun a fraction, not enough to trust him, only enough to listen. The blue corporate glow shivers on the wet concrete, and the choice of route suddenly feels like the first real move instead of a warning.
Quest Complete
Secure a tactical advantage in the tunnels