The Relic: Part 2

The shockwave from the detonation slammed into Zero, a warm, oily gust of wind that smelled of burnt fuel and fear. The fireball had vaporized the central attacking unit, but two things remained: the two SUV drivers, who were now flanking him, and the final man descending the pylon.

Zero launched himself onto the pylon’s ladder structure, a vertical ascent over twenty feet of rusted steel. He was halfway up when the first SUV driver, a hulking figure codenamed 'Anchor,' found his line of sight and opened fire. Rounds pinged off the steel around Zero’s hands and feet.

Zero ignored the bullets, focusing instead on the man above him. This final climber was moving too fast, too confident. As Zero’s head cleared the next platform, he saw the climber pause, aiming a sleek, matte-black pistol down the ladder.

Rookie mistake. Zero was already anticipating the position.

Instead of climbing higher, Zero yanked a length of severed electrical cable, his retirement gift to himself, from his utility belt. He threw it—not at the man, but over the man’s grappling hook line, perfectly snagging the pulley mechanism above the climber’s head.

Zero pulled down with all his weight. The sudden tension locked the climber’s grapple in place, slamming the man’s chest into the pylon’s railing. The pistol clattered harmlessly onto the platform.

Before the attacker could recover, Zero was there. He used the momentum of his climb, planting a boot in the man’s solar plexus, driving the air from his lungs. Zero retrieved the dropped pistol—a customized, silent 9mm—and used the muzzle to gently press the man's head against the cold steel.

"The key," Zero whispered, his voice dry and steady. "Where is the main key to the Vault's encryption network?"

The man, choking, could only shake his head. "We... we were just the invitation."

"The invitation is over." Zero knocked the man out with a sharp strike to the jaw—he needed one witness alive, maybe.

He was now exposed on the platform, thirty feet up. Below him, Anchor and the second driver were scrambling into position, their automatic rifles pointed skyward.

Zero scanned the area. The dock house was burning. The water was rising. He couldn't go back down.

He looked at the silenced 9mm he had just acquired. It was a Vault standard issue. He ejected the magazine, checking the serial numbers. Then he noticed the butt of the grip. Embedded in the plastic was a microscopic, gleaming metallic pin—a tracker, identical to the ones he had seen implanted in high-value targets years ago.

The Vault wasn't tracking the key. It was tracking the weapon.

He crushed the pin under his heel, turning the sleek 9mm into a dead piece of metal. But the discovery confirmed his target. The gun didn't come from a warehouse. It came from a supply depot.

He aimed the dead weapon at Anchor's SUV, squeezing off the final three rounds in the magazine into the car's engine block—just enough to disable the vehicle without making unnecessary noise.

Zero dropped the empty gun, taking one final, long look at the wreckage below. The Vault had just given him his first lead. The nearest supply depot was four hours inland, near the old military reservation, Sector Gamma-4.

He turned toward the mainland and began running along the rusted catwalk of the bridge pylon, disappearing into the pre-dawn gloom. He was no longer running from them. He was running to the next fight.