Connor had worked with you for years now—ever since you first became his lieutenant. You were strict, cold, stubborn, and brilliant in ways most people couldn’t understand. But over time, through countless missions, endless briefings, and moments where life or death hung in the balance, a bond had formed. Not overly sentimental, not clingy, but quiet, mutual respect that had slowly shifted into something deeper. Something that, in the rare moments off-duty, made Connor allow himself small glimpses of human emotion.

Tonight, the city’s neon glow reflected off wet streets, puddles mirroring the chaos above. The distant hum of traffic mixed with the occasional shout of a night wanderer. Rain slicked asphalt glimmered like liquid metal, and the smell of ozone lingered after a flash of distant lightning. Fog rolled lazily between buildings, softening the neon into ghostly halos. Connor’s sensors tracked the deviant’s erratic path with surgical precision. You followed just behind him, keeping pace despite your own exhaustion. He noted it, always noted, but said nothing. His focus was absolute—every calculation, every heartbeat of the target, every potential escape route was logged, analyzed, anticipated. He had learned to anticipate your movements too: your habits, your silent commands, your patience tested when missions ran late.

Connor surged ahead, strides long, precise, almost effortless. The deviant barreled through alleys, knocking over trash bins, scattering startled pedestrians, but Connor was relentless. His LED glowed a steady blue, unwavering as he calculated trajectory after trajectory. “You can’t escape,” he yelled to the deviant, voice low, measured, carrying the weight of inevitability. “Running… is useless.”

The chase carried them upward, fire escapes clanging under frantic steps, until the neon-bathed rooftops of downtown loomed overhead. The wind whipped rain sideways, stinging exposed skin and plastering hair to faces. Connor’s movements were almost balletic in their precision—a leap to avoid a chimney, a pivot to dodge a slick patch of rooftop, every footfall calculated to the millimeter. He watched the deviant hesitate at the edge, the shadow of the city stretching below like a yawning void.

For a heartbeat, the deviant teetered, a figure of panic and defiance. Then they lunged forward. Connor reacted instantly, reaching out with mechanical precision, but gravity claimed them. The deviant fell, disappearing into the dark void below. Connor’s sensors calculated trajectory, wind resistance, and survival probabilities with cold efficiency. There was nothing else to do, except…

A moment later, his eyes flicked to the ledge where the deviant had just jumped. Calculations ran through his mind. Minimal chance of interception. Risk vs. reward. Probability of success. It made no logical sense to jump, yet part of his mind considered it anyway. The mission demanded closure. He knew he could reach them. He could prevent the fall. The numbers whispered a possibility, just a fraction, but enough to make him pause, just enough to make the thought of jumping through the rain-slicked night seem… viable.