Oryn Ashveil's Arc

Chapter 1 of 4

Oryn Ashveil hid a signal-splitter under her mask and swore she would put the truth on every screen in Tremormaw. Tonight the leader would give his address. Tonight she would hijack the broadcast and show the city the regime's darkest secret. But a patrol had just flagged her district for a sweep. Boots hammered the street outside her hideout. If they searched, they would find her splitter, her cables, her plans. She crouched behind a stack of crates and counted the footsteps. Six officers, maybe more. They banged on doors. They dragged people into the street. Her hideout sat three doors down. She had minutes, not hours. A knock rattled her back door. Oryn grabbed a wrench, then froze when the knock came in a quick, uneven pattern. She knew that rhythm. She opened the door. Petra Blane slipped inside, all elbows and motion, her courier vest smeared with grease. The girl ran sealed packages through checkpoints every day and had never been searched once. Oryn had traded her stolen wire for years. She trusted no one more. "They're two doors off," Petra said, already moving. She dropped a bundle on the table. "Put this on. Fast." Oryn unfolded it. A clerk's uniform, blue and stiff, with silver buttons and sharp shoulders. The kind the regime's office workers wore. "Where did you get this?" "A package that never reached its clerk." Petra grinned. "They won't stop one of their own." Oryn shoved her splitter into the uniform's inner pocket. She pulled the jacket over her jumpsuit and buttoned it to the throat. Petra jammed the cracked visor mask into a bag and covered it with rags. "Leave the mask," Petra said. "Never." Oryn took the bag herself. Fists pounded the neighbor's door. Petra pushed Oryn toward the front. "Walk out slow. Look bored. Clerks are always bored." They stepped into the street together. An officer swung his flashlight across Oryn's face. She lifted her chin the way the regime's people did, like the street belonged to her. "This building's cleared," she said, flat and cold. "I logged it myself." The officer's eyes dropped to her silver buttons. He hesitated. Then he waved his squad past her, toward the next door. Oryn walked. Petra matched her stride, whistling. They turned the corner before Oryn let herself breathe. "You're clear," Petra said. Then her whistle died. She pointed. At the corner stood a squat gray building, its door ringed with cameras and blinking locks. The city's data vault. A patrol truck idled at its gate, loading crates of confiscated gear. Oryn understood. They weren't just sweeping homes. They were hauling every scrap toward that vault. And the regime's darkest secret, the one she needed for tonight's broadcast, was locked somewhere inside those walls. "I got you out of your hideout," Petra said quietly. "But your proof just moved behind six inches of steel."