Rage In Blood

Chapter 3 – Part 5A: "Rage in the Blood – The Call"

I. Blood in the Salt

Salt stung Kael's lips as they emerged from the hidden caverns beneath Haven Point. His boots scraped the shale and barnacled concrete of the dead reef tunnels, muscles trembling from fatigue and adrenaline. He turned to see Vireya stumble behind him, one hand gripping the jagged wall, golden hair matted to her temple with blood and seawater.

"Careful," Kael said, his voice barely carrying over the crash of distant surf. He reached out, and she took his arm silently, leaning her weight into him for a breath, two, before she found her balance again.

Behind them, Marion emerged from the crumbling mouth of the tunnel, dragging Dax—bleeding from a shallow thigh wound—who waved them off with a grimace.

"We're clear for now," Marion said. "But that's temporary. Protocol's net's already tightening. They'll try to erase what we broadcast."

Kael nodded. "Then we move before they do."

II. The Fracture

An hour later, they sat in a ruinous shelter atop a collapsed surveillance outpost, rigged with leftover insulation and a solar repeater feeding into a flickering console. Vireya sat cross-legged, peeling dried blood from her hands in slow, compulsive strips. Kael stared out across the Sprawl skyline—neon veins pulsing between the veins of night.

He could feel the glyph now like a pressure on his ribs. Not pain. Not heat. Just presence. A reminder.

"You good?" he asked without turning.

Vireya's voice came quiet. "You ever watch your entire bloodline burn, Kael? From the inside?"

He turned to her finally. She wasn't crying. Not like she used to. But her voice trembled like it could break.

"I saw those ruins, V." He took her hand. "But you didn't burn. You walked out. With me."

"Only because of you," she said. "And now… they'll come for you."

"They already have," he replied. "We're still here."

Their fingers laced.

Behind them, Marion's voice came through the dark. "Then it's time to make the call."

III. Signals Sent

The broadcast receiver unit Marion carried was crude—stitched together from an old Astra-Civic drone, a Synapse beacon booster, and a quantum-salt crystal socketed into the back like a tumor. It buzzed when Marion powered it.

They knelt around it on the concrete, Kael and Vireya side by side, Dax cleaning his knife nearby.

Marion adjusted the dial, then tapped the transmitter.

"This is Cipher-Unit Echo. Sanctum is compromised. Bonded pair is intact. Repeat: Vireya Nocturne and Kael Drayce are intact. Engage phase one protocol: converge silent agents. Prepare for citywide spread."

There was a pause. Then static.

Then five coded tones came through. One after another. The final one came with a flare of light.

"They're listening," Marion whispered.

Kael leaned in. "And they're ready?"

"They will be," Marion replied. "But they'll want to see fire."

"Then we show them."

IV. Infiltration Map

Dax laid out a sheet of synth-paper over the stone floor, weighed down with bullets at the corners. It unfurled into a topographic spread of the Sprawl's inner territories. Six key nodes were marked in red: datavaults, Protocol armories, glyph-pulse scanners, and one labeled in tight script—"The Crucible."

"That's our target," Dax said, pointing.

"The Crucible?" Vireya asked, squinting.

Marion nodded. "A training and conversion facility. Protocol's core site for indoctrination. They turn bonded ones there. Strip the glyph. Replace it. Or… reprogram them."

Kael swallowed. "You're saying they take bonded pairs like us and just—overwrite them?"

Dax nodded. "Or worse. Null them. Wipe the mind. Recycle the blood."

Vireya looked sick.

Kael stood. "Then that's where we start."

V. The Plan

Over the next hour, plans formed. Four cells would be activated across the city—Cipher agents loyal to the bond. Whisper-Cells, rogue technomancers, hacked drones programmed for sabotage.

Kael and Vireya would lead the first strike directly into Crucible airspace, using one of the access lines buried under an old water-filtration system. If they could breach it, plant the core jammer, and expose the human toll inside, it would shatter Protocol's lie that all bonds were curses.

"It's dangerous," Marion said. "The Crucible doesn't just guard itself—it feeds off glyph activity. If it senses your bond is active, it'll flood the chambers with suppressant gas."

Kael nodded. "Then we don't get caught."

Vireya pulled the edge of the synth-map toward her and smiled grimly. "We burn it down."