Taz: Unleashed

Blue market light spills across crowded aisles beneath Black Iron District. Vendors, smugglers, and repair crews compress around Taz as generators thrum and hidden cameras pivot.

Nyx remains remote in the comm channel, while Taz is physically alone. No ally follows him into the market, and the sealed evidence stays under his coat.

A tall middle-aged man enters through the eastern security gate, broad-shouldered in a graphite field coat with close-cropped gray hair, weathered brown skin, and a pale scar crossing his left cheek. A Specter clearance sigil glows at his collar.

The nearest vendors fall quiet without fully turning. Security shutters hesitate, recognizing the operative's authority while concealed optics narrow onto Taz and the evidence beneath his coat.

The denial lands softly, but the credentialed operative studies Taz's face, then the evidence-shaped weight beneath his coat. Around them, vendors keep their hands visible as shutters pause halfway closed.

The credentialed operative raises two fingers. Concealed optics settle fully on Taz, and the nearest security shutters seal the eastern gate, removing the easy route behind him.

Taz launches across the counter. His cybernetic fist smashes into the operative's face, folding him backward into the security console and dropping him unconscious. The impact wrenches Taz's shoulder actuator and leaves a sharp scrape across his knuckles.

Before the operative can slump fully, Taz catches his collar and drives a covert jack into the exposed interface beneath the man's ear. His cybernetic routines force a neural handshake through the stunned clearance implant.

The operative's memory partition opens under the authenticated Specter sigil. Vale's command identity appears in the access chain, linked to a recent encrypted briefing and a biometric confirmation.

The link resolves cleanly: Colonel Marcus Vale authorized the operative's recovery order, and the operative received a live route to Taz through the market security layer. The unconscious man hangs from Taz's grip as concealed optics continue recording.

Taz releases the unconscious operative and drops into the nearest dark alley, boots splashing through runoff between stacked crates and humming coolant lines.

The market merchants have already seen too much. Heads turn, concealed optics track his coat, and a vendor slams a shutter after recognizing the direction he took.

Taz cuts deeper beneath an overhanging service bridge, using darkness and machinery to break the clean sightlines. A red broker mark glows faintly on a maintenance door ahead.

The alley bends toward the marked door, but a narrow drainage passage branches beneath it, offering a concealed route that bypasses the merchant aisles and reaches the broker's rear access.

Behind him, market shutters finish sealing. The visible escape is gone, while the unmarked drainage passage remains open, its darkness leading toward Nyx's broker and a harder choice of entry.

Taz studies the alley through layered optics, tracking camera arcs, heat signatures, airflow, and the maintenance door’s construction without exposing himself.

Above, the service bridge contains a sealed cable trench leading directly over the broker’s rear room. Its access hatch is concealed beneath a removable coolant panel.

Below, runoff disappears into a broad drainage culvert beneath the broker’s foundation. A maintenance grate opens into an unmonitored utility crawlspace under the rear access.

The alley offers cover in stacked coolant drums, a dead service kiosk, and a hanging maintenance cradle. The kiosk’s reflective panel can mask his silhouette from the western optics.

Taz has a clean surveillance map: conceal himself behind the kiosk, climb to the cable trench, or descend through the drainage grate into the broker’s hidden undercroft.

Taz slips behind the reflective kiosk, waiting through the western optics’ sweep. When the blind spot opens, he climbs the service bridge and removes the coolant panel without a sound.

The concealed hatch gives onto a sealed cable trench above the broker’s rear room. Taz lowers himself through the cramped passage, boots finding the maintenance frame precisely.

Taz crosses the trench, drops behind stacked equipment, and opens the secured side access from within. The door seals behind him, cutting off the market optics.

A compact rear room glows beneath green work lamps. A young adult woman with a shaved temple, copper braids, and a reinforced gray vest rises behind a weapons bench, one hand near a compact pistol.

The gun broker’s hand leaves the compact pistol and taps a locked case beneath the weapons bench. Her expression hardens as the room’s inventory display divides the requested gear into individual prices.

A red lock indicator illuminates on the case. The pistol remains within reach, while the rifle, ammunition, and lone flash grenade stay secured behind the broker’s authorization.

Taz exposes the reinforced interface in his wrist. Payment credentials glow across the gun broker’s terminal, while the locked case remains closed beneath her bench.

The gun broker scans his wrist, then separates the order into a nonrefundable transfer and a physical security hold. The displayed total rises with the added risk premium.

The payment terminal waits beneath the gun broker’s sharp gaze. The pistol and grenade are within immediate reach, while the rifle case and ammunition remain sealed behind her authorization.

Taz unshoulders the corporate rifle and sets it beside the gun broker’s terminal, then places the loaded magazines beneath it. His payment credentials remain active on the screen.

The gun broker checks the rifle’s serial history and finds its corporate tag still live. Her authorization panel rejects it as clean collateral, but accepts it as a restricted trade-in.

The locked case remains shut, but its price drops on the terminal by the rifle’s approved credit. The gun broker’s offer turns the rejected collateral into a concrete path toward the immediate weapons.

Taz places the sealed supplies beside the rifle and ammunition. Their military-grade markings remain intact, while the gun broker’s terminal scans their provenance and estimated field value.

The gun broker weighs the package in one hand, then checks its seals against her inventory reader. Her expression stays hard, but the locked case’s valuation updates.

The gun broker unlocks the rifle case and draws the maintained sniper rifle onto the bench, keeping the ammunition secured while a diagnostic arm begins checking the weapon.

The gun broker pauses with one hand above the supply package. She does not break the seals. Instead, she slides the case beneath a scanner and switches its contents to restricted review.

The scan rejects the package as unsecured collateral, but identifies a military-grade thermal regulator inside, compatible with the sniper rifle's maintenance system. The rifle diagnostic flags a failing power cell.

The broker locks the supplies into a clear inspection cradle and turns the rifle's failing diagnostic toward Taz. The ammunition case remains sealed beside the bench.

The gun broker studies Taz, then the sealed supplies, rifle, and active payment terminal. Her suspicion gives way to a careful calculation as market alerts flicker across the rear-room display.

She keys the terms into the terminal. The regulator passes the rifle diagnostic, the supply seals remain intact, and the ammunition case unlocks beside the pistol and flash grenade.

Taz's payment clears. The broker transfers the loadout across the bench, then locks the corporate rifle and supplies into a shielded cabinet as market security pings the rear entrance.