“Mission complete. Targets neutralized. Assets secured.

  Civilian casualties: Within acceptable parameters.

  Contractor: Expendable.”

  — PMC operations report (leaked)

  The alarm shrieked through my skull like a drill bit finding a stud.

  Move.

  The thought cut through the panic before conscious reasoning could catch up. I was standing next to a door I’d just broken into, in a room full of military hardware I definitely wasn’t supposed to have seen, with security about to sweep the floor looking for whoever had triggered their systems.

  I activated MIRAGE.

  The hoodie’s micro-cameras whirred to life, the shimmer settling over me as I stepped away from the office door and into the chaos of the VIP floor. Red emergency lights strobed across booths full of confused guests, joygirls clutching their clients, everyone frozen in a stillness of people who didn’t know if they should run or hide.

  I moved fast, weaving between tables, heading for—

  “Hey!”

  A bouncer, the one from the stairs, had spotted the distortion. His eyes tracked the shimmer of bent light where I’d been a moment ago, his hand already going to the comm unit on his shoulder.

  I changed direction, cutting behind a booth, putting bodies and furniture between us.

  “Edgerunner!” The bouncer’s voice cracked with something between fear and fury. “We’ve got an edgerunner on the second floor! Visual distortion, heading toward the east wall!”

  Shit.

  The word echoed through my head as I heard boots thundering up the stairs. Multiple. With response times that meant this club’s security was better trained than I’d assumed, or they’d been expecting trouble tonight.

  I spotted an empty booth, its occupants apparently having fled at the first sign of the alarm, and threw myself into it, killing the MIRAGE system as I hit the plush seating.

  The power cell was already warm against my chest. From downstairs, I could hear shouting. Orders being barked. And then—

  CRACK.

  Gunfire. Screaming followed, not confusion, and the bass from the speakers cut out entirely as someone killed the music.

  “Everyone down!” A guard on this floor yelled. “Heads down, tags visible! Anyone without identification will be detained!”

  I pressed myself into the booth’s corner, my heart hammering against my ribs, and fumbled for the waitstaff badge around my neck. The photo. The woman’s face, which looked nothing like mine. I gripped the laminated card with my thumb pressed firmly over the image, leaving only the text visible.

  Boots approached. Red light strobed across the booth’s entrance, painting everything in arterial crimson.

  A guard appeared, rifle up, eyes scanning. His gaze landed on me, traveled to the badge I was holding up like a shield, and lingered for a moment.

  He nodded and moved to the next booth.

  I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.

  Okay. Okay. Just need to get downstairs, blend with the crowd, walk out the front—

  Another gunshot, this one on the second floor, close enough that I felt the pressure change in my ears.

  I risked a look over the booth’s edge.

  They weren’t guards.

  The figures moving through the VIP area wore tactical gear, real tactical gear that cost more than Erika's car and was designed to stop rifle rounds. Helmets with opaque visors. Weapons I didn’t recognize but could tell were expensive.

  PMC. Private military contractors.

  One of them gestured toward the office I’d just left, and two others peeled off to secure the door. They weren’t panicking or even hurrying. They moved like people who’d planned this, who’d known exactly what they’d find and where to find it.

  The datajack.

  The realization hit me like a punch to the stomach.

  I hadn’t just plugged in a data collection device; I’d opened a door. Confirmed the cargo. Maybe disabled the security systems. Maybe done something else entirely, something I’d never know because TFN didn’t bother explaining jobs to disposable contractors.

  The fighting intensified near the stairs. Club security had realized what was happening, were trying to hold the bottleneck, but the PMC team had better training, better equipment, and the advantage of not caring about collateral damage.

  A joygirl screamed somewhere to my left. Glass shattered. Someone was crying, the sound desperate under the alarms continued shrieking.

  If I stayed here, I was dead.

  The PMC would sweep the floor when they were done with the crates, and they’d find a guy in a yellow hoodie with a stolen badge and a sword who’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  They wouldn’t ask questions.

  They wouldn’t leave witnesses.

  The stairs were suicide. The PMC had that locked down, bodies already visible at the top where security had tried to make a stand.

  But there was a door. Ten feet away, partially hidden behind a decorative pillar, not in the direct line of fire. Private room, probably one of the spaces where guests could take their purchased companions for more intimate entertainment.

  I didn’t think; I moved.

  Low, fast, using the booths as cover, the strobing red light turning my path into a series of frozen snapshots. Three feet. Six. Eight.

  My hand found the handle. The door wasn’t locked.

  I pushed through and pulled it shut behind me, pressing my back against the surface as if I could hold it closed through sheer will.

  The room was small. Intimate lighting that had switched to emergency mode, casting everything in that same bloody red. A bed that took up most of the space. Champagne bucket on a side table, the ice long since melted.

  And in the corner, pressed against the far wall: a joygirl and her client.

  The client was a middle-aged man; his expensive shirt untucked, his face the color of old paper. He’d positioned himself behind the joygirl like she was a shield, which told me everything I needed to know about his character. She was trembling, her composure completely shattered, tears cutting tracks through her makeup.

  They stared at me.

  I stared past them.

  Window.

  It was small, barely large enough for a person to squeeze through, but it was there. Normal glass, not reinforced, looking out over the alley where I’d done my reconnaissance earlier.

  I crossed the room in three steps, ignoring the client’s strangled noise of protest, ignoring the joygirl’s flinch as I passed too close. The window’s latch was simple, mechanical, and it swung open with a creak that was swallowed by the chaos still audible from the main floor.

  I looked down.

  One van. The first delivery van, the one whose driver had started the argument that let me slip inside in the first place. It was still there with its scratch, abandoned, its anti-grav humming on standby.

  The drop was maybe twelve feet. Onto the van’s roof, then another six to the ground. Survivable. Probably.

  I climbed onto the windowsill, my tactical pants catching on the frame, and didn’t let myself think about what I was doing.

  I jumped.

  For a moment, I was weightless; the rain hitting my face, the alley spinning around me, and then—

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  My boots hit the van’s roof and kept going, the wet metal offering no traction at all. I slipped, arms windmilling, and went off the edge in a tumble that was more controlled fall than deliberate descent.

  The ground came up fast.

  I landed hard, my shoulder taking most of the impact, the breath exploding out of my lungs as I rolled across wet concrete and fetched up against a pile of discarded crates. Hoodie and pants absorbed most of the force, but a pain shot through my side, my arm, probably everywhere, but I was down, I was alive! I was—

  Move.

  I forced myself up, staggering, one hand pressed against the wall for support. The alley was empty. No guards, no PMC, nobody. Just me and the rain.

  I ran.

  Not fast, not gracefully, just the desperate forward motion of someone who needed to be somewhere else. Through the alley, around the corner, into the flow of Friday night crowds who hadn’t yet realized something terrible was happening a block away.

  I slowed when I hit the main street, forcing my breathing under control, forcing my legs to walk instead of sprint. Just another guy in a yellow hoodie, a little wet, a little disheveled, nothing interesting, nothing worth noticing.

  Just as I tucked the ID into my pocket, I heard the gunshot. It was muffled, but present.

  People around me were looking toward the sound, conversations pausing, heads turning, the collective attention of the crowd shifting toward whatever emergency was unfolding at Cassette.

  I kept walking.

  One block. Two. Three.

  The train station appeared ahead, its entrance glowing with the promise of escape, of distance, of putting this entire nightmare behind me. I stopped under an awning, out of the rain, and leaned against the wall as my legs finally decided they’d had enough.

  “What the fuck,” I whispered to no one.

  My hands were shaking. My shoulder was screaming. The datajack sat in my pocket like a confession, proof that I’d helped something terrible happen without even knowing what I was doing.

  Three hundred fifty credits.

  That’s what I’d sold my ignorance for.

  I pulled up my holoband, staring at the screen without really seeing it, my brain still trying to process everything that had just happened. The Guild. The contract. The crates marked with Midorikawa’s logo. The PMC team moving while I hid in a booth and prayed.

  The Guildmaster had given me this contract.

  Had he known?

  Had TFN known?

  Was this just how the gray market worked? Disposable kids running errands for operations they didn’t understand, expendable if things went wrong?

  I didn’t have answers; I just had questions, a train to catch, and the growing certainty that whatever I’d gotten myself into was much bigger than a simple infiltration test.

  Was I okay?

  I looked down at my hands, still trembling slightly, rain dripping from my sleeves onto the concrete. My shoulder throbbed, but I wasn’t injured; my gear held. Somewhere behind me, people were probably dead, and I’d helped make it happen.

  Then I pushed off the wall, squared my shoulders, and walked into the train station.

  The train ride back felt longer than it should have.

  I sat in a corner seat, my shoulder pressed against the window, watching the city blur past in streaks of neon and rain.

  Nobody looked at me twice.

  Just another tired kid in a yellow hoodie, probably coming back from a club, nothing interesting, nothing worth remembering.

  My hands had stopped shaking somewhere around the second station. My breathing had normalized by the third. By the time I stepped off, I almost felt human again; the adrenaline crash leaving me hollow and exhausted but no longer vibrating with barely contained panic.

  [Paid: ￠1]

  The rain had softened to a drizzle, and the streets were quieter now, the Friday night crowds thinning as the hour pushed toward true darkness. I walked without hurrying, letting each step carry me further from Cassette, further from the gunshots and the strobing red lights and the PMC team moving through chaos like predators through a herd.

  The Guild’s door appeared between a ramen shop and a tattoo parlor, exactly where I’d left it.

  I knocked.

  The wood swung open, and I stepped through—

  —and the world shifted.

  My yellow hoodie melted away, replaced by hide armor and leather straps. My tactical pants became rough-spun trousers tucked into worn boots. The sword at my hip remained unchanged, the one constant between realities.

  The tavern noise washed over me like a warm blanket.

  Conversations, laughter, and the clink of tankards, the crackle of the fireplace, the general rumble of people existing in a space designed for exactly that.

  The dwarf was gone from the bar, but his seat had been claimed by a woman in plate armor who was nursing something that glowed faintly green. The elves in the corner had been replaced by a group of humans drinking.

  Life continuing as normal.

  I walked straight to the bar and sat down heavily on an empty stool, my elbows finding the worn wooden surface as if they belonged there.

  Sera appeared from somewhere behind the taps, her pointed ears catching the firelight as she turned to face me. “Back so soon?” She set down the glass she’d been polishing. “What can I get you?”

  “Something non-alcoholic,” I said. “But with a kick.”

  She raised an eyebrow, a smile tugging at her lips. “You know we’re in a pocket dimension, right? Extraterritorial law applies here. The drinking age is sixteen for most substances.”

  I shrugged. “Non-alcoholic.”

  The smile broke through fully. “I like you already.”

  She turned to the shelves behind her, bypassing the various bottles of ale and things that glowed colors alcohol shouldn’t glow, and retrieved a dark bottle from a lower shelf. The liquid she poured was black, absorbing light like a tiny void in a glass.

  “Jeup Premium Soda,” she said, sliding it across the bar. “Special recipe. Jeup brought back some herbs from an expedition through a portal a few decades ago, and they’ve been making this ever since. It’s... an acquired taste.”

  [Paid: ￠7]

  I picked up the glass, studying the way the liquid seemed to pull at the edges of my vision. “I actually kind of like Jeup Paste,” I admitted.

  Sera laughed as if she were surprised. “Then you might be the first person in years to actually enjoy this.” She leaned against the bar, watching me with obvious curiosity. “Most people try it once and never ask again.”

  I took a sip.

  It was... strange. Bitter and sweet with an aftertaste that reminded me of the energy bars I’d eaten during mining runs, that particular Jeup flavor that most people found off-putting but I’d grown addicted to. Familiar in a way I hadn’t expected.

  “Not bad,” I said, and meant it.

  Sera’s grin widened. “Miracle.” She reached under the bar and pulled out a leather-bound book, flipping it open to a page marked with a ribbon. “So. Did you finish the job?”

  I blinked, surprised. “How did you—”

  She turned the book toward me, and I saw my name written in that same flowing script from my registration. Below it, a single entry:

  [Infiltration: Cassette Night Club]

  [Status: ACTIVE]

  “We track all active contracts,” Sera explained, tapping the page. “Client updates when the job completes, fails, or expires. Yours is still showing active, which means either you didn’t finish, or the client hasn’t registered completion yet.”

  “I finished,” I mumbled. “The datajack is... it did whatever it was supposed to do.”

  Something in my tone made her look up, her expression darkening. “But?”

  I took another sip of the black soda, letting the strange flavor ground me, and then told her everything.

  The PMC team. The Midorikawa crates. The gunfire and the chaos and my desperate scramble through a window while people died in the room behind me. The growing certainty that I’d helped something happen without understanding what I was actually doing.

  Sera listened without interrupting, her face growing more serious with each detail. When I finally ran out of words, she let out a long sigh. “TFN,” she said, the acronym carrying the weight of old frustration. “This is the problem with their gigs. Always has been.”

  “The Guildmaster mentioned he doesn’t like working with them.”

  “Nobody who’s been in this business long enough likes working with them.” She closed the book, her fingers lingering on the cover. “They’re useful. They have reach, connections, jobs that wouldn’t exist otherwise. But they don’t vet. They don’t ask questions. And the people posting contracts through their network...” She shook her head. “Sometimes it’s legitimate work. Sometimes it’s exactly what you experienced tonight.”

  “Hit or miss,” I said flatly.

  “Hit or miss,” she agreed. “The Guildmaster tries to filter the worst of it, but even he can’t catch everything. Low-value contracts especially—they’re not worth the effort to investigate properly.”

  I stared into my glass, watching the black liquid settle. “So I just... live with it? With not knowing what I actually helped do?”

  Sera’s expression softened. “You learn from it. You get better at reading contracts, at asking the right questions before you accept. And you accept that in this line of work, sometimes you’re a tool being used by people who don’t care if you understand the job.” She paused. “It’s not fair. It’s just how it is.”

  I nodded slowly. “On a more positive note,” Sera continued, her tone lightening, “you completed your first contract one way or another. Which means I can allow you to connect with our keystone.”

  I looked up, confusion cutting through the lingering heaviness. “Keystone?”

  Sera’s eyes widened slightly. “You’ve never used one?”

  “I...” I felt heat rising to my cheeks, that familiar embarrassment of not knowing something everyone else seemed to take for granted. “No?”

  This should’ve been covered in academy, I thought bitterly. Another thing I missed by not manifesting properly.

  Sera’s surprise melted into a gentle smile, and she motioned for me to follow. “Come on. Bring your drink.”

  I grabbed the glass of Jeup Premium Soda? and slid off the stool, following her toward a door at the back of the tavern I hadn’t noticed before. It was set into the wall between two bookshelves.

  She pushed it open, and I stopped dead.

  The room beyond was massive.

  Not the cozy tavern atmosphere I’d grown accustomed to, but an actual hall, an enormous space that belonged in a castle or a cathedral. Vaulted ceilings disappeared into shadow overhead. Massive chandeliers hung from chains, their crystals catching light from sources I couldn’t identify.

  And tables.

  Easily fifty of them, scattered across the stone floor in no particular pattern, surrounded by chairs and benches occupied by people who looked like they’d walked out of a dozen different stories.

  A woman in robes that shimmered with actual starlight sat across from a man whose skin appeared to be made of bark. A group of warriors in mismatched armor argued over a map spread across their table, pointing at locations and shouting over each other. Someone who might’ve been a ghost, translucent and flickering, played cards with a dwarf who had gems embedded in his beard.

  Tens of people. Maybe more.

  I had no idea this was even here.

  “The main hall,” Sera said, amusement coloring her voice as she watched my reaction. “The tavern is for socializing, relaxing, and getting a drink. This is where the actual work happens.”

  A massive board was at the far end of the hall. Papers covered every inch, pinned and overlapping, different colors and sizes creating a mosaic of opportunities. Two people stood before it, studying the postings, occasionally reaching up to pull one free and examine it more closely.

  “Usually you can pick any gig from there,” Sera explained, guiding me to the right. “We keep it offline like this. Well, magic-offline.”

  We passed tables where conversations paused momentarily as people glanced at me, the new face, before returning to their own business. The scale of it was overwhelming. The Guildmaster had made this sound like a small operation, a refuge for people who wanted to escape corporate politics, but this was... this was like a corpo.

  Sera led me to the right corner of the hall, where a stone pedestal rose from the floor as if it had grown there naturally.

  Atop it sat a globe, maybe a foot in diameter, made of something that wasn’t quite crystal and wasn’t quite metal. Colors swirled beneath its surface, blues and golds and greens that moved with a liquid slowness that made my eyes ache if I looked too long.

  “This is the keystone of our Guild,” Sera said, stopping a few feet away. “Touch it, and as long as you stay within this room, you can open the catalogue of plugins and skills.”

  I stared at the globe, trying to figure out how it worked, what mechanisms lay beneath that swirling surface, what kind of interface it used to connect with the System.

  “Just... touch it?”

  “Just touch it.” Sera smiled. “Welcome to the Guild, Dash. Properly this time.”

  TODAY’S CHAPTER IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY The Keystone

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