Vinnie coughed, blood spattering onto the puddle. “You… you’re… you’re the ones who… the city… the steel… it’s all… a lie! They’re watching us! The… the ‘SteelGhost’—they told us to… to make a statement!”
Mack crouched, noting the peculiar angle of the wound—a single, clean bullet hole to the heart, the entry point just above the left shoulder. No obvious gunpowder residue, no shell casings. It was as if the bullet had been fired from a distance, with a silencer that left no trace.
Rye flipped through Jordy’s sketchbooks. One page showed a massive, stylized heart made of overlapping steel beams, the center a glowing ember. In the margins, Jordy scribbled:
Mack’s phone buzzed. A message from —the cyber‑crime specialist—popped up: “Got a hit on the uploader. IP traced to an old ISP in Monroeville. Could be a dead‑end, but there’s a VPN tunnel that leads to a Tor hidden service. The user is called ‘SteelGhost.’”
She turned to Rye. “Grab your coat. We’ve got work to do.”
Vinnie coughed, blood spattering onto the puddle. “You… you’re… you’re the ones who… the city… the steel… it’s all… a lie! They’re watching us! The… the ‘SteelGhost’—they told us to… to make a statement!”
Mack crouched, noting the peculiar angle of the wound—a single, clean bullet hole to the heart, the entry point just above the left shoulder. No obvious gunpowder residue, no shell casings. It was as if the bullet had been fired from a distance, with a silencer that left no trace.
Rye flipped through Jordy’s sketchbooks. One page showed a massive, stylized heart made of overlapping steel beams, the center a glowing ember. In the margins, Jordy scribbled:
Mack’s phone buzzed. A message from —the cyber‑crime specialist—popped up: “Got a hit on the uploader. IP traced to an old ISP in Monroeville. Could be a dead‑end, but there’s a VPN tunnel that leads to a Tor hidden service. The user is called ‘SteelGhost.’”
She turned to Rye. “Grab your coat. We’ve got work to do.”