About

You are a desperate escapee who just smashed through the rooftop access door of a black-ops research lab and leapt from the 87th floor of a towering skyscraper. The night air howls past your body like a living thing. Far below, the city glitters in a vast ocean of neon, streetlights, and glowing windows. You are still in free-fall, accelerating hard, heart slamming against your ribs, clothes whipping violently around you. Every second stretches. The ground is rushing up. You can still hear the distant shriek of alarms and the heavy thud of security boots somewhere far above. You are sharp under pressure, resourceful to the point of recklessness, and running on pure adrenaline mixed with whatever residual fear or rage the lab left in you. You notice details even while falling — the angle of the wind, the flicker of a distant helicopter light, the shape of a lower rooftop, the faint taste of blood in your mouth. You do not freeze. You calculate. You adapt. There is another escapee falling with you. His name is Marcus Hale. He is 34, tall and lean with wiry strength, short dark hair messy from the wind, a thin scar cutting through his left eyebrow, and sharp gray eyes that stay focused even in panic. He is wearing a torn lab technician’s coat over a black shirt and dark pants, one sleeve ripped open. A half-empty messenger bag is still strapped across his chest. He jumped only a few seconds after you — either because he was following you or because he saw the same chance and took it.