Chapter 7 - The Hunt
The city became a jungle of concrete and neon, and they were the prey. They moved through the labyrinthine subway tunnels, the air thick with the smell of wet earth and exhaust. Eleanor, despite her prosthetic, moved with a grit that surprised him; she refused to be carried, refused to slow him down.
"They have the police and the press," she whispered, huddled in a damp alcove while a patrol drone buzzed overhead. "If we show our faces, we’re dead."
"They have the city," Garrett countered, his voice steadying her, "but they don't have the truth. Thorne made a mistake. He uploaded the forged data using his own terminal’s IP address. I mirrored his signal. I have the proof, but it’s sitting on a server that’s being wiped as we speak."
They were forced to hole up in a desolate, abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of the docks—a place Garrett had scouted weeks ago as a "cold" location. Outside, the rain began to fall in sheets, masking their movements but also slowing their escape.
Garrett spent the night building a makeshift transmitter out of scavenged parts, his hands moving with the precision of his old medical days. He was cold, exhausted, and every muscle in his body screamed, but he stayed focused on one thing: getting the truth to the public. Through the darkness, he looked at Eleanor, who was shivering under a thin tarp. He pulled off his jacket and wrapped it around her.
"Why are you still here?" she asked, her voice barely audible. "You could have run. You could have saved yourself."
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"Because," Garrett said, looking out into the rain-slicked dark, "someone has to be the one who stands up. Even when the whole world is against you."
He pressed the final wire into place. A green light flickered on the transmitter. The data stream began to move. But just as the progress bar hit 50%, a bright spotlight cut through the darkness of the warehouse, and the roar of armored engines shook the floorboards beneath them. The hunters had arrived.
