"Cheers!"

  The clank of metal mugs rang out, barely audible over the roar of the Slag Heap, but the sentiment hit every corner of the cavernous hauler. Kai, Damian, and Jess raised their mugs across from Cole, faces smeared with grime and the faint phosphorescent glow of synth-alcohol. The celebration was about survival, about witnessing someone claw their way through impossible odds, and come out alive.

  The Slag Heap looked exactly like it sounded, a massive industrial hauler that someone had given up on moving years ago. Its wheels were sunk so deep in permacrete they'd become part of the foundation. Rust bleeding through chrome like old wounds

  Inside was all exposed metal and decay trying to look pretty under neon. Pipes ran everywhere, hissing steam at random intervals. The vapor caught the colored lights, making brief rainbows that disappeared before your eyes could track them.

  Cole picked up the sweet rot of alcohol that had soaked into the floor plates over the years. Probably decades of spilled drinks and bad decisions.

  It felt right for a celebration.

  Holographic 'wanted' posters flickered on the walls between salvaged street signs, requests to track rogue AIs, the occasional missing tech-prince finders’ request, and trophy monster parts. A Blighted Horror's crystallized claw hung above the bar, still faintly pulsing with corrupted light. The bartender, a mountain of a man with more chrome than flesh, used the maw to tap the kegs when someone ordered the good stuff.

  "I knew you had it in you!" Kai shouted over the grinding metal that passed for music, slamming a tray of viscous, glowing shots onto their table. The shots looked like someone had liquified a traffic cone and added spite for flavor. "Never doubted for a second."

  "Bullshit!" Cole laughed, downing his shot. It burned like molten copper all the way down. "I saw your hand on your weapon when I came out of the ritual. You thought I'd gone mad."

  Kai shrugged, unrepentant. "A lot of Lucent Paths come out scrambled, their first time. They see too many versions of themselves and can't figure out which one's real. The last guy I chaperoned spent four hours trying to fight his own reflection in a puddle."

  "What happened to him?" Damian asked, leaning forward with morbid curiosity. His mechanical eye whirred as it focused, the cheap model clicking audibly with each adjustment.

  "Drowned," Kai said flatly. "In five inches of water. The reflection won."

  The table went quiet. Then Cole caught Kai's mouth twitching, trying not to laugh.

  Jess snorted. "You're such an asshole, Kai."

  "He's fine," Kai admitted, actually grinning now. "Landed a corporate security gig at Nexus. Spends his days watching some door that probably has world-ending tech behind it. Boring as hell, but the pay's stupid good."

  Cole knocked back his drink. The burn was good—reminded him he'd made it out alive. His mom had worked herself to death pulling four jobs, scraping together credits for his basic augments. Thought they'd be his ticket into corporate security.

  She'd died before watching him wash out of the program. Another disappointment to add to the pile.

  Now here he was, doing shit that would've given her a heart attack. Hunting monsters in the Wastes instead of standing guard at some corporate tower. He wondered what she'd think. Proud? Horrified?

  Probably both.

  "So, how terrified were you, really?" Damian pressed, turning back to Cole. "Scale of one to 'I need new pants'?"

  Cole considered lying, then figured his friends had earned the truth. "When that thing's claws went through my armor? When I felt them scraping against my ribs?" He shook his head. "I thought I was done. My whole left side went cold, and I could feel my lung filling with blood."

  "But you kept fighting," Jess said softly, her hand finding his under the table.

  "Didn't have a choice. It was either die trying, or die giving up." Cole flexed his hand, watching the silver-blue rune pulse with his heartbeat. "Besides, all I could hear was Kai’s training replaying in my head, telling me all the ways I was fucking up. Very motivating."

  "My coaching is worth every credit," Kai said, raising his glass. "To paying off debts, and making new ones."

  They drank, and Cole felt the alcohol start to blur the edges of his new perception.

  Thank God.

  Every surface in the bar was a window into another angle, another perspective. He could see himself from nine different directions, just sitting at the table: in Damian's chrome arm, in the puddles of spilled beer, in Jess's synthetic eye implants, in every droplet of condensation running down the pipes.

  "So, let's see some of those new abilities," Jess said, pressing her shoulder against his arm. The warmth was grounding—helped him focus on just one perspective. "Give us a show, mirror boy."

  "Mirror boy?" Cole raised an eyebrow.

  "Would you prefer Shard-Shitter? Glass-Ass?" Damian suggested helpfully.

  "How about you all shut up and watch," Cole said, standing and extending his arms.

  He let the world fracture.

  To his new senses, reality dissolved into a network of connected mirrors. Every reflective surface became a potential doorway. The polished steel beam in the rafters gleamed twenty feet above, well within his range.

  He shattered, his body exploding into a thousand pieces of silent, shimmering glass that vanished instantly, only to reform in the same heartbeat up in the rafters. Emerging directly from the reflective steel beam, he took an elaborate bow.

  The bar erupted in cheers and catcalls. Someone threw a credit chip that passed right through him as he shattered again, returning back down to reform in his metal seat.

  The landing was jarring. Like pieces of himself snapping back together, each one having experienced a slightly different journey. His head spun, and not just from the alcohol.

  "Holy shit," Damian breathed. "That's incredible."

  "Don't let it go to your head," Kai warned, his tone shifting to serious. "That flashy vanishing act is great for impressing drunks, but it won't save you in a real fight. You're Sequence Six, Cole. Bottom of the food chain. Every Sequence advancement is an exponential leap. Sequence Fives don't just do what you do, better, they gain entirely new dimensions to their abilities. You teleport between mirrors? They weaponize the space between. They fight on a level you can't even perceive yet." He gestured with his mug, alcohol sloshing. "In a real fight, a Sequence Five would eat you for breakfast. A Sequence Four won't even notice they've stepped on you. Each advancement multiplies your power, but right now? You're at the bottom, looking up at a cliff that gets steeper with every level."

  The words should have been discouraging. Instead, Cole felt something stubborn kindle in his chest.

  "For now, that’s true," Cole replied, trying to project confidence he didn't feel. "But I'll be advancing soon enough. Next thing you know, I'll be a Sequence Five."

  It was a lie and they all knew it. Sequence Five required two cores to be sacrificed from rare-tier monsters. His bank account, a mocking red ‘zero’ blinking in his neural display, reminded him he couldn't even afford ammunition, let alone fund hunts for rare monsters. Not to mention needing to survive and defeating the two beasts.

  "Another round!" Kai called out, as he so gracefully shared the lifetime of savings Cole had paid him, on getting them all thoroughly drunk.

  Cole couldn't even be bitter. He knew he never would have even attempted the hunt without him. Kai's advice had been invaluable, but more importantly, he was the safety net he needed to take the risk. His reviews online were worth their weight in credits: "Expensive, but alive. Five stars."

  The drinks kept coming. Stories got louder and less accurate with each telling. Damian swore he'd once killed a Void Wraith with nothing but a broken bottle and harsh language. Jess claimed she'd hacked a megacorp database using a microwave and dental floss. Even the quiet regulars were drawn into their orbit, buying rounds for the newest Domain.

  As the night wore on, Cole found himself standing at the bar with Jess, her hand resting on his hip with casual possessiveness. They weren't a couple. His line of work couldn't afford those kinds of complications. But they were something. Two people who understood that tomorrow might not come, so tonight mattered more.

  "Heading to the restroom," she announced, squeezing his shoulder. "Try not to fragment yourself while I'm gone."

  "No promises," he called after her, watching her navigate through the crowd with practiced ease.

  He'd barely touched his drink when someone slid into Jess's spot.

  The woman wasn't just beautiful. She was something else. Something that made his vision stutter trying to process her. Black leather that probably cost more than Cole made in three months. Hair like someone had thrown paint at a wall—yellow bleeding into blue, purple crashing into green. Chrome cuffs climbing up both ears.

  She had electric blue lips. The kind that'd glow under blacklight.

  But her eyes, that's what made him forget what he'd been drinking. Hell, made him forget his own name for half a second.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  Pink irises with concentric rings that spun like camera apertures, focusing and refocusing on him. Metallic embedded circuit lines traced from her eyes to her cheekbones. Her arms were etched with golden conduits that pulsed with inner light, ending in forge-ports on her palms that hummed with barely contained energy.

  Sequence Five, at least. Maybe Sequence Four.

  "You're Cole," she stated. Not a question.

  He forced himself to smile, to play it casual even as every reflection showed him different angles of danger. "A beautiful woman, knowing my name when I don't know hers. I should buy lottery tickets tonight."

  She glanced toward the restroom, expression unreadable. "Think your companion would appreciate you saying that?"

  "You're telling me you maintain serious relationships in our line of work?" Cole replied, matching her tone. "We both know how this world works. Tomorrow's never guaranteed, so tonight, we take what comfort we can find."

  "Fair enough," she said, sliding onto the barstool with fluid grace. "I appreciate 'practical.' I'm Lia. Forge Path, Sequence Five."

  Cole's stomach dropped.

  "That was quite an entrance exam," she continued, pulling up a hologram from her palm. It was him, fighting the Shard Stalker, shot from Kai's position. "Kai sent me this. Said you were worth watching."

  "Kai's been busy tonight," Cole muttered, suddenly very aware that his performance was being evaluated.

  "Kai doesn't just recommend people," Lia said, dismissing the hologram. "He runs full psychological profiles, memory-psych scans, predictive behavior modeling. He said your core motivation index was 'statistically significant.' Means you won't break when things get ugly."

  "Speaking from experience?"

  "I don't break," she said simply. "I bend things until they do."

  "So, is this the wire Kai was talking about?" a voice boomed.

  Cole turned to find a mountain of a man standing behind them. Blonde hair flowed back from a sharp undercut, gold earrings catching the neon. A rose tattoo covered his neck, the thorns disappearing beneath his collar. His eyes were the color of storm clouds, and his left arm was pure obsidian machinery that leaked static electricity with every movement.

  Storm Domain. The air buzzed with the smell of torn ions.

  "Wire?" Cole asked.

  "It's what we call new Domains. All potential, no insulation. I'm Lucius. Storm Domain, Sequence Five. And you're either very brave or very stupid, drinking this much on your first night with powers." He grinned, a flash of gold from his earrings catching the light. "My advice? Lean into the stupid. It's more memorable. In this city, you're going to die eventually. Might as well leave a beautiful corpse."

  "In this city, you're lucky if they leave enough of you to identify," Cole said, his voice dry. He took another sip of his drink. "'Beautiful's' a high bar."

  A third figure materialized from the crowd, a woman with a stillness that made Cole's reflections go quiet. Intricate tattoos crawled across her neck, contrasting with her delicate face and platinum-blonde hair, the patterns shifting like an ever-changing tapestry. She held a datapad that traced streams of light, threads of information flowing like water across its surface.

  Nullstrand Domain. Had to be.

  "Senna," she said without looking up from her pad. "Sequence Five Razor Dancer. Your refraction index is off. You’re seeing about forty-three percent more perspectives than your brain can handle. You’ll adjust in seventy-two hours, or risk permanent neural damage."

  "Comforting," Cole said dryly.

  "Comfort won’t change the facts," she said, finally looking up. Her irises glowed a deep red. "We need you."

  "Need me for what?"

  Lia leaned forward. "A job. High-risk, high-reward. The kind that requires a very specific skillset."

  "Corporate vault, thirty floors underground. Data retrieval," Lucius added, signaling the bartender for drinks. Four glasses of something that glowed violet appeared.

  "Let me guess," Cole said. "Security is tighter than expected?"

  Lucius laughed, a sound like distant thunder. "Security is impossible. The vault is a spatial paradox, making the hallway fold like origami. One wrong step, and you can easily lose an arm."

  Senna pulled up a holographic schematic. The vault was a cube, within a cube, within a cube, each one rotating independently. "The security system is perceptual. It exists in a state of quantum superposition, being simultaneously breached and secured until observed."

  "English?" Cole asked.

  "The vault doesn't fully exist until someone looks at it," Lia translated. "And when they do, it becomes whatever will stop them. But for someone who can see from multiple angles simultaneously, someone whose observation itself is fractured across multiple perspectives…"

  "It wouldn't know which defense to become," Cole finished.

  "A Refractor is the only one who has a chance of getting through," Senna stated. "For anyone else, it's a suicide run."

  Cole felt the weight of their attention. Three Sequence Five Domain paths, coming to him—a Sequence Six nobody, who'd just ascended hours ago.

  "What's the pay?" he asked.

  Lia smiled, sliding a silver data slate across the bar. "See for yourself."

  Cole's neural implant synced with the slate. The number that appeared made him choke on his drink. It was more than he'd make in two years of bounty jobs.

  "Project Chimera," he read from the file. "Survival probability… redacted?"

  "That's just legal, covering their asses," Lucius said dismissively. "We've done twelve impossible jobs. We're still here."

  "Your team," Cole said slowly, the pieces clicking into place in his mind. "You're the Vertex group."

  Cole had heard about them on the undercity nets. They were new, but rising quickly: the team that recovered the Helix Engine from a Blighted nest; the crew that extracted a megacorp heir from a rival's blacksite.

  "And we want you," Lia said simply. "Temporarily, at first. This one job. If you survive and don't screw up too badly, we'll discuss a more permanent arrangement."

  "I need to think about it," Cole’s head spinning from more than just alcohol.

  "Smart," Lia nodded, standing. "Rushing into things gets people killed. Here's my contact information." A connection request popped up in his neural display. "We brief tomorrow at fourteen hundred. Location will be sent if you accept."

  Lucius downed his glowing drink in one go. "Fair warning, rookie. This job? It's going to hurt. But if you survive, you'll have a nice payday."

  "And if I don't survive?"

  "Then you won't care about money, anyway," Senna said with brutal practicality.

  They left as smoothly as they'd arrived, the crowd parting unconsciously for them. Cole stared at the data slate, at the large number, at the redacted survival probability.

  "What was that about?" Jess asked, returning from the restroom. Her pink hair was slightly mussed, lipstick refreshed.

  "Opportunity," Cole mused, pocketing the slate. "Either the best or worst decision of my life."

  She looked at him, recognizing the expression. "You're going to take it."

  "Probably."

  "Even though it might kill you?"

  "Everything might kill me," Cole said, pulling her closer. "At least this pays well."

  She laughed, but it didn't reach her eyes. "When does it start?"

  "Tomorrow, maybe. If I accept."

  "Then we better make tonight count," she said, and kissed him.

  The kiss tasted like cheap alcohol and rain. Like being alive when they shouldn't be. The only real thing in this world of chrome and lies.

  The walk to his hab took twenty minutes. Rain turned every surface into a mirror—puddles showing him from below, windows from the side, droplets making everything fish-eye distorted. By the time they hit his building, he was holding Jess's hand like it was the only thing keeping him from fragmenting. Her warmth reminded him which reflection was actually him.

  His apartment was a spartan box on the thirty-second floor of a residential spire, with one armored window overlooking the Forge-City's burning heart. Weapons on the wall. One photo stuck to the fridge: him, Damian, and Jess after their first hunt, bloody and grinning like idiots. It wasn’t a home. Just somewhere to store gear between jobs.

  The door hissed shut, sealing them in with the sound of the storm. They dropped their wet clothes and armor pieces leaving a trail from the door to the bed. This part was familiar, a ritual of shedding the outside world: the grit of the Wastes, the blood of the hunt, the watchful eyes of the bar, until there were only two people left.

  Jess's hands were on his chest, warm against his skin. She was watching his hands shake, his eyes jumping to angles that weren't there. Trying to pull him back from whatever the hell he'd touched out there.

  "Hey," she whispered. "You with me, mirror boy?"

  He tried to focus. Just her, just now. But when he kissed her, his control slipped.

  He closed his eyes, but it didn't matter. He still saw everything.

  He saw the room reflected in the mirror-bright chrome of his own arm. He saw the city lights bouncing off her spinal ports at the base of her spine. Then he saw her, an echo from a second ago, still standing by the door, a phantom of the immediate past.

  He pulled back, shaking. "I... shit. I can't turn it off."

  She didn't even blink. This was their world, after all. A world of glitches and strange powers. She traced the new rune on his hand with her fingertip. The crescent moon and the red line felt cold, alien. When she turned, the light-lines along her spine pulsed blue, painting shadows on the sheets.

  "Then don't," she said, steady as steel. "Don't fight it. Just find me in all of it. I'm the real one, Cole. The warm one. The one that's here."

  She pulled him back. This time he let go.

  He let the storm take him.

  The physical act became a sensory explosion, a cascade of overwhelming data. Cole was in every reflection in the room. He felt her heartbeat in three different tempos: real-time, a half-second delayed echo, and somehow, impossibly, a beat that hadn't happened yet. He saw the curve of her back in a single drop of sweat rolling down his own shoulder. He saw the moment through her own eyes, a version of himself staring back with unnervingly silver eyes. He saw the blue light from her spine refracting through his vision, creating a halo that shifted through nameless colors; purple bleeding into silver, bleeding into something his brain refused to categorize, like seeing ultraviolet for the first time. He felt the connection not as one man, but as many, every reflection in the room sharing the same sensation, the same desperate, grounding touch.

  For a terrifying moment, he was losing himself, his consciousness shattering into a thousand pieces.

  "Cole." Her voice cut through it all. "Look at me. Not the reflections. Me."

  Her hand found his face as she turned it toward her, her thumb over his eye. The reflections narrowed. Focused.

  Then he found his anchor.

  Through all the echoes and maybes, he held onto what was real. Her breath catching. Her heartbeat against his chest. He shoved everything else aside, the futures, the reflections, and focused on the only one that mattered.

  For a moment, he wasn't a Truth Refractor. He was just Cole.

  Later, rain hammered the armored glass. Jess was out cold, breathing steady. Cole stared at the ceiling, trying to get his head straight. The reflections had dialed down to background noise. Something he'd have to live with now.

  Jess shifted against him, half-awake. "That was… different. Felt like you were everywhere at once." She pressed closer, fingers finding the rune on his hand. "But you came back. Found your way back."

  Then she was out again before he could answer.

  Cole slid out of bed and walked to the window, looking out at the city's eternal, fiery glow. His own form silhouetted against the neon-lit clouds. He was beat, his body thrumming with whatever the hell this new power was. But alive. That counted for something.

  He'd survived. Leveled up. Whatever this was.

  His reflection stared back from the rain-streaked glass. Water running down like tears. He wasn't smiling.

  But for half a second, his reflection was.

  Cole blinked hard. Now his reflection matched him perfectly, same frown and everything. Was it his imagination? Or was this what Kai meant about the madness? Seeing too many truths until you couldn't tell which one was yours?

  He turned away from the window, but couldn't shake the feeling that his reflection watched him go.