The night bled neon across the city as the team tailed Dr. Simon Moore through the maze of Apex Prime. The rain slicked the streets, turning them into a mirror of fractured colors—glitching billboards, speeding hovercars, and the omnipresent corporate logos flickering overhead.

Inspector Lance stayed on comms but kept his distance. "Stay close. Keep your feeds running."

Maya, Cursor, and Sarge moved through the rain-soaked crowd, their eyes locked on the psychiatrist, who walked with deliberate precision. The man wasn't in a hurry, but he wasn't wandering either. He had a destination—and that alone made him suspicious.

As he reached a deserted intersection, his wrist-device blinked. A private message. He barely glanced at it before continuing.

Cursor, walking just a few meters behind, grinned as he adjusted the AR glasses perched on his nose. "Got it," he whispered.

Lance's voice crackled in their earpieces. "Talk to me."

Cursor's fingers danced over his wrist comp. "Intercepted a partial message. He's using corporate-grade encryption, but I got the last fragment before it went dark."

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He read it aloud.

"Still on schedule. No deviations."

A moment of silence.

Maya frowned. "Schedule for what?"

Lance muttered through the comms. "We need to find out."

Sarge muttered under his breath. "Creepy bastard."

Moore continued down the sidewalk, seemingly oblivious. He passed a street vendor selling imitation cybernetic implants, ignored a pair of augmented junkies huddled in an alley, and finally stopped at the mouth of a darkened side street.

Out of the shadows, another man appeared.

He was tall, wrapped in a long black coat, his face obscured by the hood. The way he moved was swift and deliberate, with the confidence of someone who knew how to avoid surveillance set off every alarm in Lance's mind.

Maya caught her breath. "Who the hell is that?"

"Record everything," Lance ordered.

Cursor already had his lens focused, streaming footage to the Department's servers.

The two men exchanged no words. Moore simply reached into his coat and produced a compact black package. It was wrapped in reflective foil, obscuring its contents from quick scans.

The hooded man accepted it with a slow nod, then turned to leave.

Maya tensed. "Are we grabbing them?"

Lance's firm voice sounded from their comm devices. "No. We follow. You and Cursor take the package guy. Sarge—stay on Moore."

Sarge grinned in anticipation. "Oh, I like that plan."

The team split.