Butcher’s Hand
ECLIPSE
"Everything under the sun is in tune…"
LEXRUL
Isildor took his time with the perimeter. Twice around, no more; a third pass and he'd become a shape someone remembered. He noted the sensor cluster over the service door, the dead angle beneath the drainage vent, the gap where a camera should have been and wasn't. That last one he circled back to twice.
The lock gave in without much hesitation. His picks did the honest work; something quieter did the rest. He didn't linger on it. Didn't need to.
Inside, the air was wrong before anything else registered. Something about the tidiness snagged at him. His patron expected a criminal syndicate. This is too clean even for the most equipped cartel.
He moved along the wall in a low crouch, weight rolling heel to toe, one hand trailing the furrowed metal like he could read the building through his glove.
A crate line, stacked and strapped. Ration tins, untouched. The disgraced Sael’da crouched beside it a moment, fingers hovering an inch above the blanket without quite touching it, then drew back.
He straightened slowly, shoulders loose, jaw set in a way his face never quite showed, a habit he had fostered from an early age.
He let the silence sit a moment longer, listening past it, knowing deep down that he hasn’t missed the transit; that there’s something hiding beneath the still facade.
