The resistance's new rhythm was quiet, pulsing just below the skin of the city.
Kirion moved through the streets with practiced ease, disguised as a sanitation worker. His daughter, a block away, walked with a schoolbag and the calm expression of a student heading home. On the surface, they were invisible.
But beneath the calm, every second was coordinated chaos.
"Checkpoint Alpha clear," his daughter whispered into the encrypted comm piece hidden in her sleeve.
Kirion responded with a single click. He didn't need words—they had developed their own shorthand over the past few weeks, a mixture of clicks, gestures, and slight inflections that meant everything in the field.
Inside a decaying warehouse near the heart of District 4, they regrouped.
"Two minutes ahead of patrol shift," she said, pulling up a digital map on her modified tablet. "That gives us eight minutes to breach the power node before it comes back online."
Kirion nodded, assembling a small EMP charge from his pack. "No alarms. We cut their comms, get the files, and disappear."
"You remember what to do if I get caught?" she asked.
"You remember what to do if I do?" he shot back.
They exchanged the kind of smile only warriors could share—a tight, brief flicker of shared madness and trust.
They moved.
Inside the facility, her fingers danced across a terminal, overriding protocols, disabling surveillance loops. Kirion made silent sweeps, clearing the route with fluid precision. One disabled guard. One bypassed lock. One downloaded data core.
Seven minutes, fifty-two seconds.
They were gone before the lights flickered back on.
Back at the safehouse, Kirion sat on the floor, breathing hard. She tossed him a ration bar, grinning.
"You're getting slow, old man."
"And you're getting reckless," he said. But there was no bite in it—only admiration.
Together, they reviewed the data. Tactical maps. Orders. Deployment rosters.
Everything they needed.
Father and daughter. A medic turned insurgent. A hacker turned operator.
Two warriors, fighting side by side, bound by blood and battle.
And the war was only just warming up.