Argus stepped into the back seat and the door shut with a soft, final click.
No voice. No greeting. Just the quiet purr of an engine shifting into motion.
The sedan glided away from the curb like it already knew where to go.
Argus leaned back, scanning the interior. Black leather. Factory-sanitized. No decals, no GPS unit on the dash. The divider between the driver and rear cabin was up tinted and seamless.
He didn't ask questions. That was the test.
They wanted silence? He could give them colder than that.
The streets blurred past the rain-streaked window lower Manhattan folding into narrower lanes, dimmer lights. No police stations. No commercial signs. Just city backroads carved by people who knew how to disappear.
Fifteen minutes in, the car dipped into an underground ramp.
A heavy steel door slid open at the end unmarked, industrial, lined with motion sensors.
Inside: a narrow garage lit in sterile white. Two men stood by the far wall. Neither wore uniforms. One carried a submachine gun, relaxed but ready. The other held a scanner the size of a tablet.
The sedan stopped.
Argus stepped out without being asked.
"You alone?" the scanner guy asked, eyes cold.
Argus tapped his coat pocket. "Got the card."
The man held out the scanner.
Argus pulled the MANTIS keycard from his jacket and offered it without a word.
The scanner beeped. Once. Then again.
For a second too long it didn't turn green.
The man holding it frowned.
"New clearance?" he asked, looking at Argus like he was sizing a lie.
"Captain Barnes logged the change last night," Argus replied flatly. "Or didn't he tell you?"
That landed.
Scanner guy paused, glanced at the armed guard, then at the door.
He waved it open.
"Welcome to MANTIS, Detective."
Argus walked through without flinching.
The next hallway was colder. Clinical. A narrow corridor with reinforced glass lining one side behind it, rows of cubicles lit by floating digital panels. Surveillance feeds blinked across every surface: subway stations, intersections, parking lots, even NYPD briefing rooms.
Two feeds caught his eye.
One showed the front desk at 1st Precinct. Live.
The other
His old face.
Argus Cutter.
On loop. Pulled from a years-old grainy arrest photo. Labeled:
Status: KIA – Provisional / Surveillance Retained.
He kept walking.
They hadn't buried him. Just shelved him. Watched, just in case.
Down another corridor, a steel door slid open as he approached.
No locks. Just proximity scan.
The room inside was different.
Dimmer. Quieter.
Fewer workstations. One central command node glowed in the dark ringed by holographic files and soundless video feeds.
He stepped up.
On the screen:
PANDORA ALPHA NODE
Access Tier 3 Authorized
EMOTIONAL DRIFT MONITORING
CIVILIAN INSTABILITY INDEX
BEHAVIORAL EVENT PREDICTION: 83.2% ACCURACY
Argus narrowed his eyes.
This wasn't about solving crime.
This was about predicting it.
And shaping who survived that prediction.
He swiped across the screen. Names rolled up.
Half were redacted.
Two weren't.
LAWSON, ETHAN – Status: Terminated (Field Instability)
CHEN, AMY – Status: Under Evaluation
His pulse hitched. His jaw tightened.
Lawson had been flagged weeks before his death. As a risk. A threat to the system. So, they erased him.
And now they had Chen under watch.
Argus reached into his jacket and plugged in the portable drive. The system hesitated, then accepted it.
He started copying everything he could reach.
A flicker behind him.
Footsteps.
He turned.
A woman stood in the doorway.
Late 30s. Blazer. Glasses. Calm like a scalpel.
Her voice, smooth and exact:
"Detective Lawson..."
He didn't answer.
"You're not supposed to be here."
His hand slid near his coat. Not for the gun just ready to move.
Her badge clipped to her hip read:
AURELIA PARK Director, MANTIS Division
She stepped into the room, slow.
No alarm. No raised voice. No panic.
She already knew who he was.
Argus didn't blink. His fingers hovered near the drive still connected to the terminal. One tap and the upload would freeze. One more, and it would vanish.
He didn't move.
Neither did she.
Aurelia Park stepped closer, heels soft against the floor, hands behind her back. Her blazer didn't wrinkle. Her voice stayed level.
"You're not the first to come in under someone else's name," she said. "But you might be the first one foolish enough to use Cutter's instincts while wearing Lawson's badge."
Argus didn't flinch. "You talk like you knew him."
"I knew both of them."
She circled the room like she owned the shadows. Stopped beside one of the holo-screens. Tapped it. The footage rewound grainy video of Argus at the Pier 17 crime scene. The body. The bullet shell.
"You should've left that one alone," she said.
"I didn't."
"No," she admitted. "And I'm glad you didn't. It accelerated things."
"Accelerated what?"
She gestured casually toward the Pandora node behind him.
"Proof. That you were what we needed."
Argus's hand dropped to his side. "Needed for what?"
"Disruption," she said. "The best systems train on real threats. Real volatility. Cutter was unpredictable. Lawson was too idealistic. You? You're both. A wildcard that forces the model to evolve."
"So this was a test?"
"No," she said. "This was a harvest."
Argus stared at her. "You killed Lawson."
Her lips didn't move at first. But her eyes hardened just enough to answer.
He stepped toward her.
She didn't back up.
"We didn't kill him," she said. "We just let probability do what it does. People like Lawson run toward bullets."
Argus's jaw clenched. "And what about Cutter?"
"Cutter chose his end the moment he tried to walk out of Procyon with evidence. You don't steal from the people who build gods."
Argus's hand curled into a fist. "You know what I am."
"Yes," she said. "And I also know you're here because you're still looking for redemption in the ruins."
He turned to the terminal. The drive blinked once. The files were still uploading.
"Don't waste your time," she said calmly. "Anything not whitelisted will trigger trace wipes. You'll walk out with pretty graphs and no substance."
He didn't move. "Then give me what's real."
She paused.
Then, surprisingly, walked to the opposite terminal. Inserted her master keycard.
The screen shifted.
Another set of names appeared higher clearance, deeper files.
Argus stepped beside her.
At the top of the screen:
PANDORA CLASSIFIED – CORE INDEX: SLEEPING CANDIDATES
Dozens of profiles scrolled. Every one tagged with status markers Surveilled, Suppressed, Terminated.
Then he saw it:
CHEN, AMY Tier 2 / Pending Discredit Protocol
His chest tightened.
"You're going to take her out."
"She's unstable," Aurelia said. "Too many ethical divergences. She's starting to ask questions."
"She's not a threat."
"No," she said. "But she's in the way of someone who is."
Argus stared at the screen.
Chen's name blinked.
They'd already started the protocol.
"What does Tier 2 mean?" he asked.
"Career ruin. Public disgrace. Digital framing. Psychological isolation. Enough to burn a badge before it becomes dangerous."
"You do that to how many people?"
"Only the ones who don't fit."
He turned to her. "And me?"
Her eyes met his.
"You're Tier 3," she said.
That meant termination.
He lunged.
She didn't expect it.
He pinned her against the wall with one hand, yanked the keycard from the terminal with the other. "That drive finishes copying in thirty seconds," he said. "You want to stop it, shoot me."
Guards shouted outside the glass.
"Thirty seconds," he said again.
"You won't make it out."
"Maybe," he said. "But now you know something too."
She stared up at him, throat tight beneath his forearm.
"You're not tracking Cutter anymore," he said. "He's tracking you."
The moment cracked.
Glass behind them shattered as a guard opened fire.
Argus hit the floor, rolled.
Sparks flew from the console.
He dove for the terminal, grabbed the drive
An alarm screamed. Red lights flooded the room.
The drive blinked green.
Download complete.
He bolted for the exit as Aurelia shouted, "Protocol Red Lockdown!"
The hallway sealed behind him in a metal slam. Ahead three guards raised rifles. Argus had no badge, no backup, and nowhere left to run.
But he had the drive.
And that was enough.