Logan Ramsay spots Henrik Soren at a Denver airport wine bar and arrests him without incident. During transport to the GPA’s Denver field office, Logan reflects on the agency’s mandate, public fear after the Great Starvation, and his mother Miriam’s role in creating Scythe. At the office, Logan and partner Nadine Nettmann pressure Soren—bluffing Chinese extradition—until Soren offers, hypothetically, an address tied to a delivery of “mining bacteria.”

They follow bio-SWAT to a Victorian in Five Points. En route, Logan texts his wife Beth and battles pre-raid anxiety, recalling raids ranging from criminal bioware to the moral wound of arresting the researcher Anthony Romero. A thermal drone shows no occupants. Suited in night-camo hazmat, the team clears a gutted main floor and discovers a locked door to the basement; Nadine breaks the lock, and Logan descends first.

In the basement’s cold, damp darkness, Logan and Nadine notice a camera on a tripod that begins recording. They also spot a black cube splitting open to reveal a bowling-ball-sized sphere resembling ice, venting vapor, with an identical sphere near the stairs. A nearby phone wired beneath the sphere begins buzzing with an incoming call as blue light ignites inside the orbs.

Recognizing a trap, Logan yells for everyone to get out. SWAT reaches the main floor and Nadine follows, but Logan is still in the basement when a blinding flash and crushing pressure hit. His visor cracks; ice shrapnel pierces his suit, which is shredded across unarmored areas. Burning pain floods his body, implying exposure to a weaponized, supercold dispersal device and revealing a calculated ambush tied to Soren’s lead.