Three Lines of Fire

The underground tunnels beneath Gare du Nord smelled of damp concrete and stale air. Jessica led the way, her pulse still pounding from the chaos above. Leanna followed closely, glancing over her shoulder every few steps. Olivia had already disappeared into the station’s labyrinthine corridors, working her own exit strategy.

"We need to split up," Leanna said, her voice low but urgent. "They’re going to be looking for three people traveling together."

Jessica nodded, skidding to a halt at a fork in the tunnels. "Agreed. Olivia, rendezvous at the fallback point in two hours. Stay low. Leanna, you take the western line. I’ll go east."

"Copy that," Olivia’s voice crackled in their earpieces before going silent.

Leanna hesitated, her eyes flickering with concern. "Be careful."

"You too," Jessica replied, squeezing her shoulder before darting down her chosen path.

---

Jessica emerged from the tunnels into the back alley of a dimly lit Parisian street. Rain had begun to drizzle, misting her face as she pulled her hood up. A few blocks away, police sirens blared, no doubt responding to the chaos at the train station. She needed to move fast.

A sleek black car idled at the curb, and a man inside watched her through the half-lowered window. Jessica’s instincts screamed trap, but she was out of options. As she approached, the door opened enough to reveal a familiar face.

Jean-Luc.

"Get in," he said, his accent clipped, his expression unreadable.

Jessica slid into the passenger seat, her fingers brushing the door handle, noting the distance to the gearshift, the angle of the rearview mirror—mental tallies of every way out if this turned bad. "You better have a good reason for being here."

He smirked, shifting into gear as the car pulled into the traffic. "You’re not the only one interested in Vanguard. I have something you might want to see."

---

Meanwhile, Leanna moved swiftly through the metro tunnels, blending with the late-night travelers. She kept her hood low, eyes scanning for tails. But something felt... wrong. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up, and she caught the reflection of a shadowed figure in the glass doors of the train car.

Someone was following her.

She turned slowly, pretending to check her phone. The man was tall, wearing a nondescript trench coat, but the way he carried himself—calm, deliberate—set off every alarm in her head.

She swallowed hard. Vanguard.

Leanna exited at the next stop, weaving through the crowd. She needed to lose him before reaching the rendezvous.

---

Olivia had slipped into a cramped internet café, her fingers flying over the keyboard as she worked to decrypt the data from their dead informant’s flash drive. Every file she opened made her stomach twist tighter.

The facility wasn’t only a lab—it was an erasure site. Vanguard had been wiping people, resetting them. Experiments beyond what they had feared. She sucked in a breath and typed furiously, sending an encrypted message to Jessica and Leanna.

“They know we’ve got the coordinates. And surprise—they’re already setting the table for us.”