Found it, Allen thought, his eyes narrowing as he adjusted his high-resolution binoculars from his high-angle vantage point.
"What...?" he murmured under his breath.
The layout finally makes sense. While tracking Ethan and Liam's signal, he realized the massive commercial high-rise housing the Loop's operations wasn't underneath the museum at all—it was situated directly behind the Canadian Museum of Nature, connected to each other.
"Damn, what the hell are these Loop fellas actually made of?" Allen muttered, throwing his binoculars into his pack. He tapped his earpiece. "Liam, I'm moving to intercept. What's your status?"
"Yeah, hurry it up," Liam's voice crackled back over the heavy static of a firefight. "I'm currently in the middle of a brawl. Get down here fast. There could be more people."
"I'm on my way," Allen said. He vaulted over the low rooftop ledge, sliding down the maintenance ladders with fluid, practiced agility before sprinting across the dark alleyways toward the building.
He stopped at the base, looking up at the sheer scale of the architecture. The tower was immense, its sleek glass-and-steel framework stretching nearly a kilometer into the dark Ottawa sky.
A massive digital logo on the exterior labeled it as a global networking office.
I'm just glad it's past midnight, Allen calculated, checking his wrist-comms. The normal employees should have cleared out.
Allen marched straight up to the reinforced glass main entrance and knocked sharply. No answer. He rapped his knuckles against the frame a few more times until a security lock hissed, and a man in a tailored corporate suit cracked the door open.
"Yes? How can I—" the man began.
He never got to finish the sentence. Allen exploded forward, driving a devastating front kick straight into the man's chest, launching him backward into the polished lobby. Allen stepped inside, casually kicking the heavy security door shut behind him.
"Third Branch. I'm in," Allen announced, cracking his neck.
"You..." The man groaned, coughing as he pushed himself up from the marble floor. He stared at the teenager, his tone shifting into something chillingly controlled and normal. "...You're one of the rogues raiding our areas?"
Allen simply flashed a confident thumbs-up.
The man slowly stood to his full height, dusting off his suit jacket as he walked toward Allen. "Kid, you should turn around and walk out of here while your legs are still physically attached to your torso."
"Tell me exactly what kind of evil you're hiding here, and I might consider letting you go," Allen countered.
"We aren't hiding anything," the man said flatly.
Allen frowned, his eyes scanning the corporate décor.
"Look around you. This is a licensed networking office," the man explained, gesturing to the glowing servers behind the reception desk. "We provide commercial Wi-Fi. High-speed internet. Fiber optics. That's the extent of our company."
A perfect front, Allen thought, his jaw clenching. But could they be hiding?
The man closed the distance, opening his mouth to issue another warning, but Allen didn't wait for the lecture. He snapped a lightning-fast left jab directly at the man's face.
The corporate executive reacted with terrifying speed, raising his hand at the absolute last microsecond to catch Allen's fist dead-center in his palm.
"Kid, you really need to start thinking before you act," the man whispered, his grip tightening like a steel vice.
Allen wrenched his hand free, stepping back to crack his knuckles as a wild, competitive grin split his face. "Looks like I'm just going to have to beat the secrets out of you."
The man let out a low, mocking laugh. "You think you have what it takes, to take me down? I am the Chairman of this branch—and Number 10 of the Loop, Mike."
"Number 10, huh?" Allen smiled, shifting into a low, predatory striking stance. "Well, that's funny. Because the last guy I fought was Number 9."
Mike's eyes widened in genuine surprise for a fraction of a second. Then, his face twisted into a dark, ecstatic grin. "Is that so? Outstanding. That makes me want to paint this lobby with your blood even more."
"Damn, that's a banger line." Allen said.
Without another word, Mike blurred forward, launching a lethal opening combination.
Up on the penthouse executive floor, a small patrol of the Loop's standard security operatives—vanguard assets ranking from Number 52 to 48—were walking down the carpeted hallway toward the central elevators.
They were casually chatting and laughing, completely unaware of the chaos on the lower decks.
Suddenly, the point man paused, noticing a faint amber light coming out from beneath the double doors of the main office.
"Hey, look at the Chairman's suite..." he muttered, pointing toward the threshold.
"Maybe the boss is just working overtime.," another operator replied, shrugging his shoulders.
"No way," the third asset countered, his hand dropping to his sidearm. "I literally watched the Chairman take the express elevator down to the lobby twenty minutes ago. The office should be completely dark."
The men exchanged a sharp, knowing look. "You think we've got a breach?"
"Let's sweep it. If someone is trying to extract the encrypted ledger files, we're dead anyway."
Nodding in unison, the four guards drew their suppressed firearms, stacked up against the frame, and kicked the heavy oak doors open.
They expected to find a rogue agent or a corporate spy. Instead, they froze.
A young woman was sitting casually in the Chairman's leather executive chair, her legs crossed. Her hair caught the ambient glow of the monitors, but it was her eyes that made the guards' blood run cold—two piercing, predatory orbs of absolute crimson.
"Who the hell are you?!" the lead guard yelled, raising his weapon.
Akira Shinomiya didn't look up immediately. She slowly scrolled through the flashing data streams on the Chairman's terminal before shifting her icy, crimson gaze over to the armed group.
The sheer, unadulterated killing intent radiating from her stare made every single veteran operator instinctively flinch, their fingers tightening nervously against their triggers.
She stood up from the leather chair, her movements fluid and completely devoid of panic. Reaching down, her hand wrapped securely around the long, black-cloth-wrapped weapon resting against the desk. She took a slow, disciplined step toward them.
"Your organization is an absolute disappointment," Akira said, her voice smooth and lethal. "I've spent the last hour running a deep diagnostic on your central mainframe, and you people have absolutely nothing of value registered in your database."
"You breached the Chairman's personal encryption layers?!" the guard yelled, his face contorting in rage. "Kill her!"
The four operators rushed forward, closing the distance to execute her. Akira's lips curled into a cold, beautiful smile.
"Why are you all in such an immense rush to meet your deaths?" she murmured.
With a single, blinding motion, her hand gripped the hilt, and she began to unwrap the long, lethal silhouette of her hidden weapon.