[Time Skip 2 Days]
[Third Person POV]
The night draped itself over Hell's Kitchen like a weighted cloak. A thin mist rolled through the streets, curling around street lamps and neon signs, blurring the world into something soft and silent. Music thumped faintly in the distance, the muffled bass of a nightclub that roared to life every Friday. But above the chaos, where the city lights barely reached, a dark figure stood still as stone.
High above the alleyways, at the edge of a tall brick building, a silhouette loomed against the night sky. If one looked closely, they might have noticed the shape of a man cloaked in black and gray, a hood drawn low over his head, a large sack slung across his shoulder.
He was wrapped in shadows, his body almost blending with the environment. The red glow of his eyes pierced the darkness. Beneath the hood, he wore a full-face mask to eliminate any chance of identification. Over his suit, he had layered the dark, tattered hoodie.
It was David.
He scanned the building across from him. Attached to the nightclub, it looked like nothing more than an administrative annex or a maintenance facility. But David knew better. He had studied this place for two nights, tracking the guards, noting their shift changes, observing the routines. The building was heavily guarded, but there were cracks. There were ways in, and David had learned to move like smoke.
He leapt from the rooftop without hesitation, landing silently on a balcony two stories down. The Vibranium-lined sneakers absorbed the shock and silenced the impact. With a quiet breath, he slipped inside through an open maintenance window.
Inside, the corridors were narrow and poorly lit. The air smelled of mildew and industrial solvents. David pressed his back against the wall and moved forward, each step calculated, each breath controlled.
Thanks to the full assimilation of Snake Eyes and on going assimilation of Ezio Auditore, his movements were ghostlike. He navigated the maze of corridors without a sound, bypassing guards with ease, slipping past security cameras with perfectly timed counter-frequency pulses from his transmitter, which was attached to the Darkwear he was now wearing.
Minutes passed like water trickling through cracks. Eventually, he reached a locked steel door at the far end of the hall. It led to a staircase spiraling downward into the building's basement. This was his destination. The air grew colder as he descended, the sound of the nightclub above dimming into a vague rumble.
At the base of the stairs, a faint fluorescent glow lit the basement entryway. Four men sat outside, rifles slung loosely beside them, talking in low voices. They were not ordinary thugs. Their posture, gear, and coordination suggested military experience. Mercenaries, perhaps.
David quietly set the sack down behind him.
In one fluid motion, he pulled out four throwing knives from his utility pouch. The blades were weighted, sharpened, and coated to cut without resistance. He calculated angles and trajectories in a second, then launched them with precision.
The knives struck cleanly.
Two caught the men in the throat. One sank deep into an eye socket. The fourth buried itself just beneath a jawline. Not one of them made a sound. Their bodies slumped to the ground as silently as leaves falling in winter.
David retrieved the sack and stepped over the corpses without looking down.
The door behind them was locked with a digital panel. From another pouch, he produced a small square device and pressed it to the interface. A soft beep echoed in the corridor. Seconds later, the light turned green. The door clicked open.
He stepped inside and froze.
The room smelled of iron, sweat, and despair. It was large, windowless, and filled with metal cages. Inside them were people. Dozens of them. Men. Women. Children. All from different parts of the world. Many of them had bruises. Some were wrapped in dirty blankets. A few turned their heads at the sound of the door opening, their eyes wide with fear.
Most of the cages held women and teenage girls, their expressions hollow, their bodies trembling. One cage, tucked into the far corner, held children. Young, barely older than ten. They were chained at the ankles, huddled together, their small bodies pressed tightly against one another.
David's jaw clenched beneath the mask.
A slow, burning rage bubbled within him. He had seen many things since starting his war against the Iron Serpents. Drugs. Guns. Corruption. But this? This was something else. This was slavery. Flesh traded like currency. Innocents kept in filth and silence, waiting for the next horror to arrive.
His knuckles turned white around the strap of the sack.
He exhaled slowly, forcing his emotions back under control. Not here. Not yet. There would be time for vengeance. For now, he had a job to do.
He moved quickly between the cages, examining the locks, noting the security systems. Most were simple padlocks, others were magnetic. A few had biometric scanners, but nothing beyond his capacity. He would need to disable them all. Freeing the victims was not just a mission. It was a promise.
The far end of the room held a second door, this one newer, reinforced with bolts and steel plating. It led to a service corridor that opened into a narrow alleyway. He had mapped it during his earlier surveillance runs. It was the only exit that would not bring him back through the nightclub.
He turned back toward the cages.
Most of the captives recoiled in fear, their eyes fixated on the dark figure with the glowing red eyes and the sack on his shoulder. Some of them had dared to hope when they heard the door open. Now, seeing this strange masked man dragging a body-sized bundle, that flicker of hope began to wither.
David did not speak. He walked past the cages toward one in the back, where several men had been locked in chains. He dropped the sack with a dull thud and unzipped it. A man tumbled out, groaning as he hit the ground. Malnourished, bruised, and barely conscious, it was Detective Alan Sloane.
Gasps filled the basement.
The captives looked at one another in shock. Some faces turned pale, others stared in dread. A few stepped back from the bars, pressing themselves against the walls of their cages. They did not know who this masked man was, and dumping a broken man into a cage did not seem like the actions of a rescuer.
But then David locked the cage and stepped back.
He began moving around the room again, slowly circling the cages. It looked like he was surveying them, scanning their contents, judging them. And in truth, he was. He had activated facial recognition through his HUD lenses and asked Gideon to scan every face, cross-check them with national and international missing persons databases.
At the same time, he issued a silent command.
"Gideon broadcast Alan Sloane's location to every local law enforcement terminal, to FBI servers, and to major media outlets."
A quiet moment passed.
Then David returned to the center of the room and faced the captives.
"I do not know how many of you can understand the language I am speaking," he said, his voice deepened and masked. "The man I put in that cage was kidnapped and tortured by the same people who took you. He is a detective. His disappearance has been public. And now that he is found, help will come. Do not give up."
The silence held for a heartbeat.
Then soft whispers began to ripple through the room. People looked at the cage where Alan now lay. Some began to cry. Others stared at David with a flicker of renewed hope.
He turned away from them without another word.
Inside, he was boiling. He had seen enough. The Iron Serpents would not walk away from this. He would make sure every single one of them involved in this operation paid for what they had done. But first, he needed answers. He needed to know if other victims had already been moved, if there were other holding sites like this one.
He stepped through the side door and vanished into the dark corridors of the building.
To Be Continued...