The mere thought of Ethan still lurking in the dark really creeps Neville. If anyone could slip through his defenses to strike at Grayson, it would be him.

Lunch break arrived faster than expected, and Neville found himself wandering through one of the open gardens adjacent to the Maxwell Corporation. The path had carefully maintained flower beds and arrangements of greens and trees. The area had no people around, perfect for privacy without interruption.

Neville opened his light brain and pretended to browse through his work documents. It was to create an excuse if someone approached him all of a sudden. In reality, the holographic display served as a cover for the system interface that showed him the hacked surveillance footage.

[Initiating live feeds,] Shelly announced. [First subject: George Hewitt.]

The image materialized in front of him. It was in a jail cell, sterile and gray, with George hunched on a metal bench. He looked considerably worse than before; his face was haggard and unshaven.

"I had nothing to do with this!" George’s voice came through tinny and distorted, filtered through the surveillance camera. "Whatever evidence they think they have—it’s fabricated! I’m being framed!"

Neville watched and thought, technically, George wasn’t wrong. He might not be the mastermind behind it, but he had been the one who enabled them to be this bold in his own company. He turned a blind eye while his own son built a whole drug distribution center under his name.

Keaton, who rose to be the new CEO and chairman, was too busy with the cleanup. He heard that he was consolidating his power and dealing with the fallout of the scandals. He didn’t have time to deal with George right now.

[Next subject: Killian Sergie.]

The feed changed to show a location that was clearly not the military base. It seemed that Killian was moved to another place.

Killian was there, but he seemed to be unconscious. He was strapped in what looked like military restraints. But he wasn’t in the military prison? His face bore a few marks that seemed to be from interrogation, nothing serious that would leave permanent damage.

It seemed that he wasn’t the immediate threat. Killian wouldn’t be able to go anywhere based on his current condition.

[Next subject: Mick Hewitt.]

The moment the feed appeared, Neville’s blood ran cold.

The feed came from the prison corridors. Mick was on his knees, arms raised in surrender. His face was twisted in genuine terror, stripped of all the arrogance that Neville had seen on him. His eyes were wide and pleading.

There was an officer in front of him. His uniform wasn’t quite right, and the insignia was completely wrong. The officer was standing over him with a weapon drawn.

Behind the officer was an incoming figure in an adaptive camouflage suit, face obscured by a featureless mask.

This feed had no audio, but Neville didn’t need it to understand what was happening.

The office fired, and the sonic round struck Mick directly on the forehead. The man crumpled like a puppet with severed strings. His body hit the ground, which seemed to echo through the silent feed.

Neville’s hands trembled. He did want Mick to be punished, but he wanted him to be punished according to the law. That way, he could savor the pain he had felt and the pain of all the people he had inflicted pain on in prison over his entire lifetime.

But this wasn’t... justice. It was a clean, efficient, and deeply troubling execution.

The masked figure in the background stepped back and understood what had just happened. Neville didn’t know if they had the same purpose or another purpose entirely.

Who were they? Why were they at the prison?

But Neville didn’t have time to process any of these because Shelly’s voice shouted in a panic.

[Host! Something’s wrong with Director Cox’s feed!]

The feed changed again, but this time, Shelly had to show him multiple surveillance cameras at the same time.

One of them showed a transport convoy. It looked sturdy, almost like the armored vehicles on Earth in a forested area. Then there was a feed that showed Director Cox being moved. His wrists were bound, and he had a calm and resigned expression on his face as if he already expected this.

But he wasn’t alone.

There was a second group that intercepted the convoy; masked figures swarmed around the vehicles with coordinated movements.

Whoever these people were, they looked like professionals.

And then, there was the same masked figure from Mick’s feed who was sprinting from the tree line towards the chaos.

Neville was on his feet to move before he could think twice.

’Shelly, track down that convoy. Give me the coordinates.’

[Already on it! (☆▽☆)]

He went to the rental hover car he booked through his light brain, ignoring the exorbitant delivery fee for fast delivery.

He knew that if Director Cox were taken away or escaped somehow, he would be the most likely candidate to go after Grayson’s head. After all, Director Cox had nothing to lose.

The hover car arrived within minutes, and Neville threw himself into the driver’s seat with zero regard for proper safety protocols. The vehicle lurched skyward, the navigation system already locked onto the coordinates Shelly was feeding him.

"This is insane," he muttered to himself as the city blurred past beneath him in auto navigation.

The coordinates led him to an industrial district on the outskirts of the city. Rusted infrastructure and crumbling buildings created a maze of shadows and hiding spots.

Neville set the hover car down behind a crumbling wall, his heart hammering against his ribs as he crept toward the source of the commotion.

What he found made his stomach churn, prompting him to puke a little.

The convoy vehicles were scattered across the clearing. Bodies lay where they had fallen, and in the center of it all was the mysterious figure in adaptive camouflage. He was locked in combat with the remaining assailants.

Director Cox was on the ground, still bound, his face pressed into the dirt. But even from this distance, Neville could see him doing something.

What the heck is he doing?