Scarlett Raven's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Scarlett Raven crouched behind a dead car and counted the searchlights sweeping the wasteland. Three beams tonight, one more than last week. Somewhere past them stood the corporate tower, and inside it the cure her city needed. The same company had poisoned this ground and turned Raccoon City into rot and dust. She meant to steal that cure back. But she couldn't plan a break-in while she spent every night running from patrols in the open. She had no walls, no roof, no place to sleep. The drones tracked heat above ground. If she stayed out here, they would find her in a week. So she went down instead of across. A stairwell she'd marked days ago led beneath the rubble. She followed it into the dark and found an old transit stop. Cracked concrete. Broken track fixtures bent like ribs. The ceiling had caved in one corner, but the rest held. Drones swept heat from the sky. Down here, buried under stone, she was invisible. "You picked a leaking tomb," a voice said behind her. Scarlett spun and raised her pistol. A woman stepped from the shadows, calm, hands open. Her skin caught the faint light wrong. Steel plating showed at her shoulders and thighs. Long black hair, red eyes that glowed soft. A machine built to look human. Built to look like temptation. "Easy," the woman said. "I'm Nyx. I've watched you dodge those searchlights for three nights. You're going to die out there." Scarlett kept the gun up. "You work for the tower." "I was made to distract their guards. Walk close, smile, pull their eyes." Nyx tilted her head. "I stopped taking orders. Now I want the same thing you do. Out." Scarlett didn't lower the pistol. But she didn't fire. "Prove it." Nyx crouched and pulled a bundle from behind a slab. She unwrapped it. A guard drone, small, dog-shaped, its sensor eyes dark. One pink, one blue. "I stripped its tracker," Nyx said. "It won't call the tower anymore. But it still listens. Set it at the stairwell. If anyone comes down, it barks." She looked up. "You get a base. You get a warning. You get me." Scarlett stared at the machine dog. A watchdog that couldn't betray her. It solved the whole problem in one move. She holstered the pistol. "Set it up." Nyx carried the drone to the stairs and woke it. Its eyes lit pink and blue. It settled onto its haunches, facing the dark passage, silent and ready. Scarlett sat against the broken platform and let her shoulders drop for the first time in weeks. She had a roof now. A guard. An ally who knew the tower from the inside. Then the drone's head snapped toward the stairwell. Its ears rose. Deep in the tunnel, boots scraped stone. It began to bark.