Private The G.H.O.S.T of Red Spayde

[Andrew Lonek]

It had been a while since developmental defense contracts crossed my desk. Mostly... I have C.E.R.A. take care of that kind of stuff. Only prioritized code "red" alerts are worthy of my attention. Hanging out in my cliffside home, reminicing on the past. It's some type of life for sure. Then Suddenly... Seemingly out of nowhere, an encrypted message was transmitted to my com link. Using the ear piece, I answered as the hologram display window appeared before me while I sat on the white satin couch. The firewood cackled as the flames assured me that leaving the doors open to the loft wasn't the worst idea.

"What do we have here? Encrypted.... Level 3 security override .... C.E.R.A. ... Activate scrambled breakfast... Oh, and see if Aren D'Shade Would like to take a look at this. Either someone wants to wish me an early happy birthday or this could be a black market business opportunity."​

 

[Aren D'Shade]

Aren recognized the signature almost immediately.

Not the encryption itself—that was solid, layered, deliberately impersonal—but the shape of it—the cadence. The way the packet is routed through C.E.R.A. is like someone knocking on the door instead of forcing it open.

She exhaled once, slowly, and leaned back against the couch again, the tension easing out of her shoulders even as her focus sharpened.

"Andrew," she said quietly, more confirmation than question.

Her gaze lifted to the hologram, expression unreadable but far from cold.

"So," she continued, voice steady and precise, "you went through C.E.R.A. instead of calling me directly. That tells me you don't want this logged as casual, and you don't want an audience."

A beat.

"Where do you want to meet?"

Andrew Lonek

 

[Andrew Lonek]

Andrew's smile lingered, lazy at the edges, but his eyes never left the hovering glyphs of the encrypted packet. The fire popped again, a soft punctuation, as if the room itself was listening.

"Hedway Park," he said at last, voice smooth, conversational, like he was suggesting a change of scenery rather than stepping onto a board full of nails. "Open air. Lots of foot traffic. Families, vendors, street performers who think they're philosophers." A pause, then a shrug you could hear through the comm. "Hard to assassinate a man when there's a kite festival happening ten meters away."

C.E.R.A.'s voice chimed faintly from somewhere unseen, already running probability trees Andrew hadn't asked for yet. He ignored it.

"I'll bring brunch," he added, lighter now. "Real food. None of that protein foam nonsense you pretend to tolerate. There's a stall near the eastern fountains. Old Ithorian couple. They cook like they're feeding ghosts."

The hologram flickered, the message still unresolved, still patient.

"And Aren," he said, tone shifting just a hair, gravity slipping under the silk, "this isn't me being coy. If someone wanted me dead, they'd have come louder. This feels… curated. Like someone wants me alert. Watching. Wondering."

He leaned back deeper into the couch, white satin creasing beneath him, the open loft doors letting in salt air and the distant hush of waves smashing themselves into stone.

 

[Aren D'Shade]

Aren didn't answer immediately.

She let the silence breathe on the line, not because she was hesitating, but because she was already mapping Hedway Park in her head—sightlines, exits, crowd density at different hours, where security drones usually pretended not to exist. Open air meant variables. Foot traffic meant noise. Noise meant cover. It was a choice that told her more about Andrew's instincts than anything he'd said outright.

When she did speak, her voice was level, precise, stripped of ornament.

"Hedway Park makes sense," she said. "Crowds complicate intent. Anyone trying to make a statement would choose somewhere cleaner." A faint pause, just long enough to acknowledge what he hadn't said. "And you're right," she continued. "This doesn't read like an execution attempt. No urgency. No escalation. Whoever flagged you wants you aware, not removed."

Her fingers tapped once against the arm of her chair as she processed the rest—kite festival, vendors, Ithorian couple. "Brunch is acceptable," she added dryly. "Especially if it involves food that doesn't come out of a tube or a ration press."

Then, quieter—not warmer, but more deliberate: "I'll meet you by the eastern fountains. I'll arrive early. If anything changes on your end, you ping me through C.E.R.A., not public channels." A beat. "And Andrew?" Her tone sharpened just a fraction, the way it did when she shifted from analysis to intent. "If this is curated, and someone's watching for how you react, don't improvise. Let them think they're seeing exactly what they expect." She didn't explain what that meant. She didn't need to.

"I'll see you at Hedway Park," Aren finished. "Try not to get philosophical with the street performers before I get there."

The channel closed cleanly, without flourish—already moving, already preparing, already there in her head.

Andrew Lonek

 

[Andrew Lonek]

"Thanks, hun." Andrew's reply came out half-grin, half-gravity, the sort of breezy line he used to defuse a room and simultaneously mark his territory. He let the comm click off and stood, the satin couch sighing as he moved. The loft smelled of sea air and burned cedar; the holographic glyphs faded but their impression lingered, bright and angular like a bruise.
He dressed with economy — well-worn dark jeans, a soft charcoal shirt, a leather jacket that had seen better and worse politics — the kind of casual that read as effortless until you noticed the seams. As he tugged on the jacket sleeves he flicked a command to C.E.R.A.

"Keep the private channel open for Aren and me. All other chatter, quarantine. Priority override: Aren D'Shade." C.E.R.A.'s soft affirmative shivered through the speakers; she already had the private thread threaded into the secure loop and a dozen silent monitors itching in the background. She also popped a small reminder: probability matrix for crowd anomalies at Hedway Park. Andrew dismissed it with a grin for himself and a nod to the machine — let her be nervous.

He wandered over to his comm-table and scrolled through past pickup logs, the little history of favs and guilty pleasures. The Bum Bum's entry blinked up—a greasy, glorious line item tagged 'late-night salvation.' He tapped the screen, fingers moving like a pianist with a taste for nostalgia, and placed an order: two cinnamon-glazed breakfast pockets, a smoky egg sandwich, and a side of whatever the Ithorian couple would call a proper cup of java. He added an encrypted note to the delivery: "Hold near eastern fountains if possible."
While the order was being processed, he drafted a second, far less savory message. Valah Hagen . Female, mando, hard eyes and a harder right hook — and the kind of friend who took reconnaissance seriously. He encoded the ping, wrapped it through three dead drops and a throwaway sig. short and clinical: Meet at Lonek Tech — recon & prep. Bring armor diagnostics, weapons check, and coffee. If busy, send ETA. He routed it through a burner route and flagged it urgent. Then he exhaled. It was that small, necessary tightening before the rope was thrown.

Practicalities done, he reached for the phone that controlled the L.T.I. fleet. His hover limo accepted the summons with a polite chime and glided to the loading pad. He paused only long enough to tap the trunk lock twice — a gesture so ordinary it would have meant nothing to anyone watching — and the compartment hummed a private, sealed tone. Inside: his armor, modular plates nested like an exoskeletal second skin, a concealed department lined against prying hands. Just-in-case technology sat quietly and obediently.

The limo lifted, haloed by the loft's open railing and the gray morning light. Andrew watched the coastline slip small beneath them and let the neighborhood shrink away; the city was awake and unaware and, for now, the only thing that knew about Hedway Park was him, Aren D'Shade, Valah, and whoever had curated that encrypted knock. He let his smile linger — irreverent, ready — and tapped C.E.R.A. one more time.

"Route: Hedway Park. Keep the channel clean. And C.E.R.A.?" he added, voice softer for the machine. "If someone's watching, let them watch a man who brought cinnamon rolls to a potential execution."

Aren D'Shade

 

[Aren D'Shade]

The reply came in while Andrew was already in motion, threaded cleanly through the private channel C.E.R.A. had quarantined just for them. Aren did not comment on the things clearly meant for the machine, nor did she acknowledge the armor, the contingencies, or the quiet tightening of plans he had set in motion. She never set foot on territory that was not hers.

"Copy," she said. "Private channel only. I'll keep my end quiet."

There was a brief pause, the kind that meant she was choosing which details mattered.

"I'm glad you ordered ahead," she continued. "Crowds slow lines, and I don't intend to stand around making myself memorable. Eastern fountains give us cover and movement. If the delivery stalls, don't linger. We can adjust."

Another pause, slightly longer this time.

"I clocked the Valah ping," she added, not asking, not accusing, just acknowledging the vector. "That's fine. Keep her off-site unless you see a reason to change that. Too many known quantities in one place draws patterns."

Her tone shifted just a fraction, quieter but no less firm.

"And Andrew, for what it's worth, don't play the martyr. Cinnamon rolls read as disarming, not reckless. Let whoever's watching underestimate the logistics behind it."

The faintest hint of dry humor slipped through at the end.

"I'll be there before you. Same rules as always. If anything deviates, you don't improvise alone."

The channel stayed open when she finished. No flourish, no sign-off.

She was already on her way.

Andrew Lonek

 

[Andrew Lonek]

Andrew stepped off the limo onto sun-warmed paving and let the city settle into its usual Sunday hum. Hedway Park smelled of kettle steam, fried dough, and grass — the kind of mixed perfume that hid conversations and motives in equal measure.

He found the eastern fountains almost immediately: low stone bowls, water flicking in lazy arcs, benches arranged like sentries. He chose one that gave a clean view of the main walkways and the vendor rows without putting his back to any of the exits. Practical. Unshowy. The kind of seat that said he expected nothing and prepared for everything.

He set the Bum Bum bag on his knee, the paper crinkling like a small, guilty secret. Two cinnamon-glazed breakfast pockets, one smoky egg sandwich, and a steaming cup from the Ithorian couple — steam that smelled like forgiveness. He left the bag unzipped but tilted so a whiff of sugar and spice escaped; an invitation to be ordinary.

C.E.R.A.'s private channel pulsed at his wrist, a soft confirmation the feed was live. He didn't need the readout to know she was already painting the scene in lines and probabilities, but he appreciated the formality. He took the first pocket, bit into it with exaggerated calm, and let the crowd do what crowds do best — be a crowd.

He watched the way a man watches waves: patient, practiced.

Kite strings spooled above the playground, bright ragged shapes that made quick shadows on faces. Street performers juggled, their hands all show and no secret. The Ithorian stall did a brisk trade nearby; the couple shouted over utensils and bartered in a language Andrew only half remembered. Families took pictures; two teenagers argued over a holo game; a courier in a reflective jacket darted through, balanced like a hummingbird.

His notes filled themselves, quiet as a ledger.

Good: high pedestrian density along the north-south path. Vendors create natural chokepoints. Eastern fountains act as visual clutter — perfect for a staged sighting. Sun was high enough to blind optics if they tried to angle a scope. Multiple exits within ten meters. A service ladder behind the bandstand could be used for an uphill approach.

Questionable: a man near the artisan stalls with gloves too clean for the weather, hands folded so precisely he looked like he was trying not to touch the world. He checked his comm twice in short succession, more furtive than bored. A woman in a light-gray hood had a scanner tucked into the fold of her sleeve; she kept her gaze just long enough on the fountain to be a habit. A kid with a camera-lens that was far too long for tourist selfies kept adjusting focus toward the eastern bench, then toward the trees.

Subtle oddities: a small maintenance drone bobbed near a lamppost, its coating scuffed, flight pattern jittering in short bursts — malfunction or deliberate interference. A courier skirted the crowd with a package stamped with Lonek Tech return codes, but his route looped twice before he cut away. Not necessarily coordination, but the pattern made him lift an eyebrow.

He chewed, eyes sweeping, tasting strategy with cinnamon. He let the bites draw time out, show no hurry. If someone wanted to watch how he ate, they would see a man who had brought pastry to an argument and smiled while doing it.

He sipped the Ithorian coffee and made a note to tell C.E.R.A. to ping him if the maintenance drone left its post or if the courier rerouted near the fountain again. He also sent a compressed ping to Valah: hold position off-site. No reply came yet, which was fine — reconnaissance had its own rhythms.

A child dashed past, kite string trailing like a comet tail, and the breeze picked up, scattering confetti from a vendor's stall into the fountain. Andrew let the small chaos blot out his outline for a moment and folded his hands on his knees, posture easy. The bench felt ordinary. His eyes did not.

 

[Aren D'Shade]

Aren didn't announce herself.

She never did.

Andrew would register her first as a shift in the space beside him—the bench settling, the faint change in airflow, the way the noise around them adjusted as someone with intent entered the same frame. She sat without hurry, close enough to be deliberate but not conspicuous, posture mirroring his in a way that would pass as a coincidence to anyone watching. Her eyes stayed forward, following the lazy arcs of water as the fountains caught the sunlight and broke it into fragments.

She let the moment breathe before speaking.

"This was a good choice," she said quietly, her voice low enough to disappear into the hum of the park without requiring him to lean in. It wasn't praise. It wasn't reassurance. Just assessment. "Too many variables. Too much motion. No clean angles. Anyone looking for certainty came to the wrong place."

She reached into the bag between them without asking, broke off a piece of one of the cinnamon-glazed pockets, and took a measured bite. She chewed once, twice, then added, deadpan:

"And you didn't lie. That's actually edible."

That was the humor, dry, understated, meant for him alone.

Her attention shifted as she ate, not snapping from point to point but moving in a slow, deliberate sweep. She wasn't watching people so much as the spaces they occupied, the rhythms that didn't quite align. When she shifted, her shoulder brushed his—casual to an observer, intentional in reality.

"At least three people are pretending not to watch you," she continued, conversational, as if they were commenting on kite colors or the weather. "Different tells. Different pacing. No shared timing. Which means this isn't coordinated." A brief pause. "It's curiosity," she said. "Or a test." She finally turned her head just enough to glance at him from the corner of her eye. "And you're passing."

Her gaze returned to the park as the small maintenance drone bobbed near a lamppost, its flight pattern jittering in short, irregular bursts. She didn't react outwardly, but something subtle shifted beneath her calm. Not Force pressure in the way most people understood it—no push, no pull—but a quiet extension of awareness, her Mechu-deru reaching out like a held breath.

She felt the machine rather than seizing it. The cadence of its signals. The way its routines were being nudged, not overridden. Masking traffic. Creating interference. Noise instead of data.

"Drone's running cover," she said softly. "Not scanning. Not armed. Someone wants static, not answers."

She didn't act on it. Not yet. But the connection lingered, light and ready, the option there if she needed to nudge it, blind it, or quietly make it forget why it was hovering in the first place.

She took another bite, unbothered.

"You look exactly like what they expect," she added, her tone easing just a fraction. "Relaxed. Social. A man who brought breakfast instead of backup."

Then, almost as an aside, with the faintest trace of amusement: "I would've brought napkins."

She leaned back against the bench, presence fully settled now. Not guarding him. Not looming. Just aligned—two people occupying the same calm center while the world moved around them.

"And for the record," she said, eyes still forward, voice low and even, "if this stops being curiosity…"

She glanced at him once. Only once.

"I won't announce it. We'll already be leaving."

That was Aren's reassurance. Not loud. Not dramatic. Just certain.

Andrew Lonek

 

[Andrew Lonek]

Andrew let her words settle the way sediment does in clear water, slow and inevitable. He didn't turn his head when she sat. He didn't need to. The bench had told him everything before she spoke.

"Good," he murmured, eyes still on the fountains, fingers brushing the edge of the paper bag as if it were nothing more than breakfast and not an alibi. "I was aiming for 'harmlessly prepared.' It's a narrow lane."

He took another sip of coffee, then nodded almost imperceptibly at her assessment, the way one professional acknowledges another without turning it into ceremony.

"I clocked the same three," he added quietly. "No shared rhythm. Different reasons for being curious. One of them's bored. One of them's hoping. One of them's lying to themselves." A faint corner-smile. "I prefer it uncoordinated. Feels honest."

At her note about the drone, his gaze drifted just enough to catch the lamppost in his periphery. He didn't frown. Didn't stiffen. Just logged it.

"Static over data," he said. "That tracks. Someone's muddying the water so they can see how I swim."

He was about to make a crack about napkins when it happened.

A faint tremor.

So light it could've been dismissed as a passing heavy transport in the upper lanes, or the echo of construction two districts over. The coffee cup shivered against the bag, barely enough to ripple the surface.

Andrew froze mid-breath.

Three seconds passed.

Then another tremor rolled through the bench, this one more deliberate. Not stronger. Deeper. The kind of vibration that travels through a structure rather than air.

His eyes sharpened, losing their lazy curve.

"Did you feel that?" he asked quietly, not alarmed but suddenly very present. His gaze lifted, not to the sky, but outward—toward the tree line, the paved paths, the underground access points most people forgot existed. "That's not traffic."

He shifted his weight subtly, casual to anyone watching, but the muscles in his shoulders coiled like cable under insulation.

 

[Aren D'Shade]

Aren didn't answer right away.

She had felt it the moment it reached the bench, not through sound or sight but through structure, through the way mass spoke to mass when something heavy moved where it was not supposed to. Her hand rested loosely against her thigh, fingers still, posture unchanged, as if nothing at all had disturbed the afternoon.

"Yes," she said quietly, after a beat. Her voice carried no alarm, only confirmation. "I felt it."

Her gaze didn't follow his at first. It stayed on the fountain, on the spray catching light, on the way people continued to move without any awareness that the ground itself had spoken. Only when the second tremor finished threading its way through the stone did she shift her attention outward, slow and deliberate.

"That's subsurface," Aren continued. "Not municipal transit. Too slow for a freight line, too deep for maintenance routing. Whatever it is, it's heavy, shielded, and intentionally announced." She paused, listening with more than her ears. "If they wanted it hidden, you wouldn't have felt it at all."

Her focus slid, almost lazily, toward the lamppost and the jittering drone nearby. The Mechu-Deru answered without ceremony, extending just enough for her to taste the signal environment around it. Static thickened in her awareness, layered noise over clean telemetry, interference meant to blur edges rather than cut them.

"The drone didn't cause it," she said. "But it's compensating for it. Masking secondary readings. Someone is smoothing the ripple so the only people who notice are the ones already paying attention."

She finally turned her head toward him then, just enough to catch his expression in her peripheral vision.

"This isn't escalation," Aren added. "It's calibration. They're seeing how quickly you register the anomaly, not whether you react to it." A pause. "So far, you're doing exactly what you should."

Her shoulder brushed his again, light, grounding, intentional.

"If it moves again," she said, softer now, "I can tell you what corridor it's using and how far below us it is. You decide what that information is worth."

She leaned back against the bench, posture open, unremarkable, and let the noise of the park fold back around them.

"For now," Aren finished calmly, "we stay ordinary."

Andrew Lonek

 

[Andrew Lonek]

Andrew nodded once, slow and subtle, agreement shaped like restraint.

"Ordinary," he echoed under his breath, eyes forward, posture loose. "I can do ordinary."

The word had barely finished settling when the ground answered instead.

It began as a sound more than a sight. A dry, tearing groan beneath the grass, like stone clearing its throat. The fountain's spray shuddered mid-arc, droplets losing their symmetry as the basin cracked with a sharp, brittle snap. A thin fissure split the concrete of the nearby field, no wider than a finger at first, jagged and pale against the darker paving.

Andrew's jaw tightened.

The fissure crawled.

Not fast. Not slow. It decided to grow.

The crack widened, spidering outward in branching lines as the earth beneath Hedway Park gave way with a grinding protest. Benches rattled. A vendor's cart tipped, spilling bright scarves that fluttered like startled birds. Screams bloomed in pockets as people finally noticed the lie beneath their feet.

Then the ground dropped.

A section of the field collapsed inward, concrete shearing away as a sinkhole yawned open, swallowing turf, debris, and a spray of dust. The tremors escalated from murmurs to fists, hammering up through bone and stone alike. The fountains went dark as power lines snapped, water cascading uselessly into the widening void.

Andrew was already on his feet, movement smooth, controlled, one hand catching the edge of the bench to steady himself as another tremor slammed through the park.

"So much for ordinary," he muttered, eyes locked on the growing sinkhole as it chewed its way outward. He flicked a thought toward C.E.R.A. through the open channel, tight and clipped. Emergency protocols. Crowd safety. Quietly.

He leaned slightly toward Aren, voice pitched low despite the rising chaos.

"That's not a collapse," he said, certainty hardening his tone. "That's more like an entrance."

The ground split again, wider now, deeper, the darkness below swallowing sound as if the earth itself were holding its breath. Whatever was moving beneath them was no longer calibrating.

It was arriving.

Andrew shifted his stance, casual burned away, readiness snapping into place like a lock seating home.

Aren D'Shade

 

[Aren D'Shade]

Aren was already moving when the ground finished deciding what it wanted to be.

Not away. Not forward. Sideways—one clean step that put her closer to Andrew without crowding him, close enough that their shoulders nearly aligned, close enough to share information without raising her voice. Her eyes weren't on the sinkhole at first. They were on the failure patterns around it: the way the concrete had split, the angle of the collapse, the timing between tremors.

"Agreed," she said quietly, calm threading through the noise. "Natural collapses don't make room on purpose."

The second fissure opened and she felt it—not through her feet, but through the Force. Pressure. Movement with intent. Something below them was displacing mass, not reacting to it.

Aren exhaled slowly and extended her awareness downward, not probing yet, just listening.

"There's structure to it," she continued, voice steady even as people ran past them. "Rhythm. Deliberate pauses between movements." Her brow knit a fraction. "That suggests guidance. Or control."

She lifted one hand slightly, fingers relaxed, palm angled toward the ground—not a gesture of attack, but of readiness.

"If it's mechanical," Aren went on, already adjusting her thinking, "I can shut it down. Hard stop. Power routing, command loop, failsafe—something this big has to obey rules." A beat. "If it doesn't…then someone designed it to ignore them."

Another tremor rolled through the park, stronger now. The darkness below shifted, and for the first time, she felt resistance pushing back against her awareness.

Organic.

Her jaw tightened, just barely.

"…If it's alive," she said, quieter now, "I can't stop it. Not cleanly. But I might be able to slow it. Anchor it long enough for evacuation." She glanced at Andrew, just once. "That would take focus. And time."

A scream cut through the air as the sinkhole widened again.

Aren closed her eyes for half a second and reached deeper, the Force answering not like a weapon, but like pressure against pressure—her will pressing down, testing the edges of whatever was rising. She didn't try to dominate it. She tried to hold it, the way one braces a door against a storm.

Her shoulders tensed as she felt something vast shift beneath her grip.

"…It's big," she said, breath controlled. "And it's not panicking. That worries me."

Her eyes opened again, sharp and clear.

"Andrew," Aren said evenly, grounding herself as much as him, "you're in charge of people and space. I'll handle the unknown until we know what rules it follows."

Another tremor answered her words.

Aren planted her feet.

"Just tell me," she added, quiet but absolute, "when you need me to let go."

Andrew Lonek

 

[Andrew Lonek]

"C.E.R.A., emergency deploy—now." Andrew's voice cuts through the private channel, flat and urgent. The limo responds with a polite chime; an external hatch unlatches with mechanical efficiency and a courier pod detaches, riding the vehicle's wake like an obedient gull.


He moves before the pod finishes its glide, not running so much as uncoiling: a sprint that keeps him under observers' noses as much as possible. People part automatically around the growing chaos; his path threads the gaps the way a knife finds the seam. He dives behind a clump of ornamental bushes near the eastern fountain just as the little pod thunks into the foliage with a muted metallic breath.


The pod is no bigger than a travel case. Andrew rips it open with one practiced motion. Inside, foam nests a compact, modular suit — blue and white panels, familiar lines like a friend in armor — and two compact jetpack modules shaped like clenched fists of hardware. He slaps the packs into their mounts with a sound of happy, efficient clicks. C.E.R.A.'s voice, calm and exact, overlays his HUD: Suit diagnostics nominal. Jetpacks online. Local airspace: hazardous. Civilian density map populating.


He slides into the shell in seconds — practiced gestures made clean by adrenaline and muscle memory. Servos whisper to life. The helmet seals with a soft kiss of pressure; his view blooms with telemetry and a pedestrian-heat overlay painted in hot and cool washes. The bench, the fountain, the vendors — all little blobs on the map, jittering as people surge away from the sinkhole.


"Valah status?" he asks the HUD without breaking stride.


No response yet, C.E.R.A. replies. Last known: off-site. ETA: unknown.


He punches the jetpack thrusters; they answer with a low, eager whine. The suit lifts him out of the bush and clears the fountain line in a single, bright arc. As he climbs, Hedway Park fans out below — a grid of chaos made legible by tech: toddlers clustered near the playground, a vendor encampment forming an accidental barrier, elderly citizens folding into emergency gestures that betray confusion more than fear.


From above, the sinkhole is a black mouth widening with the terrible patience of something deliberate. Its rims surge and slump as if whatever is below is testing its teeth against the surface. Dust devils spin at the edges, and the park's soundscape compresses into a low band of panic.


Then the growling starts.


It begins subsurface and climbs like a thing waking. Not an engine. Not a machine's harmonic — a living, resonant sound that vibrates through the air and the bones. The HUD's sensors spike in sympathy: low-frequency oscillations that make metal hum, make C.E.R.A.'s diagnostics stutter with the same small, stunned burr all machines get when faced with something they weren't built to classify.

Andrew lets the suit hold him high, hovering on puffs of controlled combustion, and watches the human pattern below: exits, choke points, who's immobilized and which crowd can be steered. He tastes the scale of the thing beneath: enormous, ancient-feeling, and impatient. He narrows his gaze, folding the tactical overlay tighter.


"C.E.R.A. — priority one: establish safe corridors. Push crowd clusters toward the north plaza. Use nonlethal deterrents. And get me a scan of that growl—frequency match, anything." He keeps his voice steady, a man giving instructions in a kitchen while the house burns down.


The suit's audio picks up the growl and translates it into numbers that spill across his vision. The sound isn't random; it has rhythm, a cadence that suggests intent again — a warning or a call. Below, the sinkhole pulses, the earth rippling in time.


Andrew tightens the thrusters and dips, angling for a lower pass to better shepherd the fleeing people. He knows Aren has the hold below; he knows she's buying time with the Force and with a patience that is both weapon and mercy. He also knows that whatever has decided to come up through Hedway Park wanted an audience — and now it has one.


Aren D'Shade

 

[Aren D'Shade]

Aren did not look up at the sky when the jetpack cut across the park.

She did not need to.

She felt Andrew the way she felt pressure changes before a storm. Displacement. Acceleration. The sudden tightening of the space above her. The sound followed a heartbeat later, a controlled roar layered over panic. Good. He was where he needed to be.

Her attention stayed anchored to the ground.

One knee pressed into the grass at the sinkhole's edge, palm flat against fractured concrete, fingers spread as if she could physically brace the planet through touch alone. The Force was loud here, not screaming, but resonant and saturated with strain. This was not a rupture caused by neglect or accident. Something below was pushing, testing the boundary between containment and exposure with deliberate pressure.

She exhaled slowly and let the Force answer back. Not domination. Not command. Containment.

The ground shuddered again, stronger this time, and Aren leaned into it, shifting her stance to absorb the feedback. Her presence pressed downward and outward, not to seal the opening completely, which would snap something, but to slow the expansion and force the movement to spend energy fighting resistance rather than tearing free all at once.

She spoke into the open channel, voice level despite the strain.

"Whatever it is, it's alive," Aren said. "Organic. Large. It's not trying to surface fast. It's pacing itself. Testing response."

Her fingers curled slightly as she adjusted, redirecting the pressure laterally, encouraging the sinkhole's edge to slump inward rather than split outward toward the crowd.

"I can hold it where it is," she continued, measured. "Not indefinitely. But I can keep it focused here instead of expanding."

A pulse rolled through the ground, the growl deepening, vibrating up her arm and into her ribs. Aren's jaw tightened, but her voice did not waver.

"It's reacting to noise and movement," she added. "Low-frequency stimuli seem to agitate it. High energy signatures, too. Your jetpack is noticeable."

It was not a reprimand. It was information.

She lifted her other hand and closed her eyes briefly, reaching deeper, not into the creature itself, but into the space around it. The Force bent and thickened like water resisting a rising mass. The growl hit a plateau, frustrated rather than accelerating.

"I can dampen its impulse to breach," Aren said quietly. "But if it breaks the surface, I won't be able to stop it alone."

A beat.

"I'll support whatever containment or diversion you choose," she finished. "Just tell me where you want the pressure."

She stayed where she was, grounded and steady, buying him seconds and structure rather than answers. Not leading the response. But holding the line long enough for the person who could.

Andrew Lonek