Cole woke from his nap with a start, his heart hammering. The dream again—violet light, his shoulder dissolving into nothing. He flexed his left hand. It had been two months since his fight with the Two-Horned Repeater.

  Just the dreams that hadn't healed yet.

  Since the battle it had been a slew of small jobs—taking care of local thugs causing trouble, bodyguard work for merchants, one memorable night helping Lia extract a gang leader's spine for "medical research." Nothing worth writing home about, if he'd had a home to write to.

  The retinal clock burned 18:47 into his vision.

  "Shit. Shit."

  He rolled off the mattress. His foot caught a bottleneck. The pile of empties clattered across the floor. He’d been meaning to trash them for a week. Now they were just landmines. Hendricks was going to look at him with that specific brand of disappointment.

  He grabbed the least wrinkled shirt from the floor pile. It passed the smell test. Jeans next. His reflection in the cracked mirror showed what it always did: a man held together by augmentations and stubbornness, with bags under his eyes that had bags of their own.

  The elevator ride down to the community floor felt longer than usual. Maybe it was the hangover, or maybe it was Mrs. Petre from 4B, who was in there, eyeing him with that mixture of fascination and revulsion that normal people couldn't quite hide. Like looking at a car wreck that walked.

  "Rough night?" She tried to keep it light.

  "Rough month," Cole replied, watching the numbers descend. "You know how it is."

  "I really don't," she said, clutching her purse a little tighter.

  The doors slid back on the community deck. It saved them both from the silence. The Thursday night Domain meet was already live. Maybe twenty heads scattered around the converted rec room. Someone had rigged a holoboard with real-time migration vectors from the Wastes. Glowing red icons swarmed across the topographic map. Another screen displayed current market prices for core types. A river of green and red numbers flowed upward like a digital waterfall.

  The vibe was part business meeting. Part intel briefing. Part social club for people who killed monsters for a paycheck. The air tasted of synth-coffee and the faint metallic tang of weapons solvent.

  "You're late."

  Hendricks stood at the front. His security uniform was crisp. Razor creases. The man survived four corp purges and still pressed his shirt like the universe had rules.

  "Sorry, sorry. Got caught up tracking a lead on a Sequence 5 nest."

  "Find it?"

  Cole hesitated. The lie buffered on his tongue. He hadn't been on a lead. He had crashed hard after a seventy-two hour sim-training marathon.

  "Just a couple of scavs frying a circuit board. Looked like a heat signature but it was just a trash fire."

  "Hmmm... Yeah." Hendricks gave him the look anyway, but it was more routine than genuine disappointment.

  Cole walked to his seat and saw a familiar face.

  Ashley was already seated in her usual spot. Light brown hair pulled back in a ponytail. Her silver irises, the telltale sign of a Lucent, caught the overhead fluorescents as she tracked his approach. She wore a simple blue jumpsuit but the cut screamed credits. Custom tailoring, the kind of fabric that whispered money

  "Someone's in trouble," she said. A smile played at the corner of her mouth.

  Cole dropped into the chair beside her. "At least he isn't making the disappointed fatherly face anymore and downgraded to regular disappointment."

  "Oof, those are the worst. Everytime he gives me one I feel like I relive all those moments my dad never hugged me."

  Cole let out a bark of laughter before he could stop himself. Hendricks's stare turned glacial, adding a layer of judgment that could have frozen hell.

  "You're going to get me in trouble again with jokes like that," Cole whispered.

  "Is that such a bad thing?" Ashley’s eyes gleamed with mischief. "Besides. You aren't the only one in the hot seat. Jax hasn't stopped complaining since he got back from his hunt.".

  Hendricks cleared his throat. A warning shot. "Alright, settle down. Before we get to market prices, we have a new community concern. Jax, you want to brief us on what you encountered in the Northern Dead Zone?"

  The iron-torsoed man turned. Jax. His face was a roadmap of scar tissue.

  "Wasn't a monster," he growled, his Ferro Domain causing the metal plate in his chest to vibrate with his words. "It was people. Scrappers. But they weren't using scavenged tech. This was mil-spec hardware. Plasma casters. Kinetic barriers. They even deployed a portable EMP cannon. Pinned me down for six hours."

  A murmur went through the room. Military hardware wasn't unheard of, but an EMP cannon was a serious escalation.

  "Did you get a look at their affiliation?" Hendricks asked, his expression hardening.

  "No markings," Jax grumbled. "Armor was matte black, standard merc issue. But their tactics… coordinated. Precise. They weren't just trying to scavenge my gear. They were trying to capture me. They wanted me alive."

  "Capture?" A woman with holographic tattoos, Minerva, looked up from her data-slate. "That's a new development. Scrappers kill for parts. They don't take prisoners."

  "My thought exactly," Jax said. "I only got out because I destabilized the ground beneath them, dropped their whole damn convoy into a sinkhole. But they'll be back. Someone's funding them. Someone with deep pockets."

  "OmniCorp's been expanding their 'asset acquisition' division”, a wiry man named Torres chimed in from the back. "Heard they're paying top dollar for live Domains. For 'research.'"

  "That's a nice word for involuntary test subjects," Cole said to Ashley.

  "Let's not jump to conclusions," Hendricks said, though the concern in his voice was clear. "For now, consider the Northern Zone a no-go unless you're traveling in a fireteam. We'll pool our intel and see if we can identify this new player." He nodded to another woman. "Jenna, market report."

  The meeting continued, a familiar litany of dangers and opportunities. The price of Sequence Four cores was down, a corporate team having flooded the market after a successful hunt. A new strain of chrome-rot was spreading through the lower districts, causing older cybernetics to literally rust from the inside out. A bounty had been placed on a rogue AI that was haunting the city's data-net, leaving cryptic poems in corporate financial reports.

  Cole leaned toward Ashley. "You believe him? About the capture attempt?"

  "Jax doesn't exaggerate. He's too pragmatic for that. If he says they wanted him alive, they wanted him alive. The question is why." Her silver pupils seemed to look through him for a moment.

  The formal part of the meeting wound down, people breaking off into smaller groups to trade rumors and plan hunts.

  "—and the weirdest thing," a hunter was saying, "is that the Scrappers weren't even speaking Trade-Standard. It was some old, pre-Collapse dialect. Sounded almost... corporate."

  "—swear to god, the thing had tentacles made of solidified nightmares. My psych-implants are still trying to categorize the trauma."

  "—so I told the client, the price is the price. You want a Sequence Five core hand-delivered, you pay the premium. He tried to haggle. I showed him my arm-cannon. He stopped haggling."

  Ashley touched Cole's arm. "Want some real coffee? The stuff Robert makes tastes like motor oil."

  "Motor oil might be an improvement," Cole agreed.

  They walked over to where Minerva was examining a data pad. Despite her young appearance, something about her suggested age—an old soul wearing a young face.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  "Cole," she said without looking up. "I hear you took down something interesting two months back."

  "News travels fast."

  "Good news travels fast. Bad news travels faster. And interesting news?" She looked up with those solid black eyes. "That teleports."

  "I'm interesting?"

  She pulled out a contact chip—black, featureless. When Cole took it, his retinal display flashed with an encrypted address. "I run a job board for people with particular skills. Discreet clients, discreet operators."

  Cole pocketed the chip. "I'll think about it."

  "Do." She drifted away before he could respond, disappearing into the crowd.

  "You collect those?" Ashley gestured toward where the chip had been.

  "First one I've gotten. Usually people just comm me directly." Cole said. "You?"

  "I've got a drawer full of blank chips from people who think mystery equals professionalism. Half of them are probably dead now, but I keep the cards anyway."

  "Morbid."

  She smiled. "Fair warning. Minerva's job board isn't for everyone. The discrete clients she mentioned? That's code for 'don't ask questions, don't expect backup, and definitely don't expect legal protection if things go wrong.'"

  "Sounds like most jobs in this city."

  "True. But Minerva's are usually the ones that get people disappeared. Just... be selective if you call that number." She glanced around the thinning crowd. "Speaking of discrete work, walk with me? There's something we need to discuss. Privately."

  They took the stairs instead of the elevator. The one place in the building without surveillance, a deliberate blind spot Hendricks maintained for the Domain community.

  "Grand mirage heard of it?” Ashley said once they were alone in the stairwell.

  “I’ve lost a few credits before there. Why?”

  “There's something I need retrieved from there.”

  Cole stopped mid-step. "The Mirage? Ashley, that place is a fortress. They have deep connections."

  "They have more than connections." Ashley's voice dropped lower. "The owner, Elias Vance, is a Perception Domain—high Sequence, though no one knows exactly what level. The entire casino is his sensory apparatus."

  "And what exactly are you looking to retrieve?"

  "A data shard. It's being sold at the Grand Mirage during next week's high-stakes tournament. The handoff happens at the poker table. The courier meets the buyer, they play a few hands, and make the exchange look legitimate."

  Cole leaned against the railing. "And you want me to steal it during a poker game?"

  "I want you to tag the buyer while I create a distraction at the table. We follow them out, intercept them away from Vance's territory."

  "So we're not actually robbing the Grand Mirage."

  "No, but we need to operate inside it first. That's the dangerous part. Once the buyer leaves, they're just another mark on Forge City streets."

  "Why not grab it during the handoff?"

  "Because starting something inside Vance's Domain is suicide. He can supposedly read intent from body language before you even act on it. But if all you're doing is placing a tracker during some commotion..."

  "Less suspicious. What kind of distraction?"

  "I'm thinking a big win. Maybe an accusation of cheating. Something that draws every eye in the room, including Vance's."

  Ashley pulled out a data pad. "The buyer always travels with security. Intelligence says two bodyguards, one Flesh Domain and one Forge Domain. Both Sequence Five."

  Cole's eyes narrowed. "That's serious protection."

  "Which is why we hit them in transit, not at a standstill. Moving vehicles, split attention, urban terrain. It neutralizes some of their advantages."

  "You've done this before."

  "I’ve done a few similar jobs." She handed him the pad. "Everything I know about the Grand Mirage's layout, the tournament structure, and our buyer is on here."

  "Who is the buyer?"

  "Corporate. Someone with enough credits to buy information that could destabilize several major companies. The shard has the kind of data people kill for."

  "And the courier?"

  "Unknown. Probably freelance, smart enough to choose the Grand Mirage as neutral ground."

  Cole took the pad. "When's the tournament?"

  "Three days from now, invitation-only. I have two passes, high-roller and bodyguard."

  "Let me guess which role I'd be playing."

  "You do have the right build for it," she said, punching his chest. "Plus, no one expects the bodyguard to be the real threat. You just need to look intimidating and get close enough during the chaos."

  "And after we tag them?"

  "Vehicle pursuit through Forge City. I'll have transportation waiting, multiple route options depending on which exit they take."

  "Any other complications I should know about?"

  "Vance sometimes assigns his own security to high-value players. If the buyer gets a Grand Mirage escort to their vehicle, we abort. No exceptions."

  "Agreed. No point starting a war with Vance." Cole leaned back. "If things escalate, I'll take the Forge Domain. You handle the Flesh."

  Ashley grimaced. "Fear or dislike of that many limbs?"

  "Says the woman who just made that face." Cole shrugged. "I've spent a couple dozen training sessions with Lia, Forge tactics are familiar territory. Which means you get to deal with all those fun random genetic mutations."

  "How generous of you."

  "What can I say? I'm a giver."

  They reached Cole's floor. As he opened the stairwell door, Ashley added, "Meet me tomorrow at noon. We will head to the Crystal District. There's a tailor who can make you look less like someone who crawled out of the Wastes."

  "It was one time."

  "Your jacket suggests otherwise."

  Cole rolled his eyes, "We could bring Lucius, Senna, and Lia. Have them wait outside and join us in the chase."

  Ashley shook her head. "My employer is expecting full discretion in this matter. I had to pull too many strings to even get you involved, which is why I'm not telling you what's on the chip. Two operatives, no questions asked."

  "Understood. At least that means a bigger split for us, huh?"

  Ashley smiled and continued up the stairs, leaving Cole with the data pad and the promise of what would likely be a very interesting week.

  His apartment felt smaller after the meeting, packed with new information and unanswered questions. He activated the pad, scrolling through security specifications.

  The Grand Mirage was a fortress disguised as entertainment. Motion sensors, thermal imaging, probability engines that could predict likely threats. And Vance himself—confirmed high-Sequence Perception Domain with abilities that bordered on precognition.

  But the buyer's profile was what really caught his eye. Thomas Calder, acquisitions specialist for Zenith Global. The data included his preferred exit routes, vehicle specifications, and most importantly his bodyguards' files.

  The Flesh Domain was called "Titan," real name unknown. Could reportedly take rifle rounds without flinching, regenerate from near-fatal wounds in seconds. The Forge Domain went by Sarah Morgan, ex-military, specialized in creating weaponized constructs from available metal. Both had served Calder for five years without a single failed protection detail.

  The tournament structure gave them one shot. Table assignments were fixed once play began—no switching seats, no late entries. Ashley would need to be at Calder's table from the start. The handoff was predicted for the fourth hour of play, when the blinds got high enough to justify large chip movements that could mask the exchange.

  Cole memorized the Grand Mirage's layout, noting blind spots in the main gaming floor where he could position himself during Ashley's distraction. The tracker was nano-tech, nearly invisible, just needed skin contact to burrow in and activate.

  Three seconds. In a room where Elias Vance could read hostile intent before you acted on it.

  This was going to be interesting.

  His comm buzzed. Lia's face appeared on screen.

  "Missed you at drinks. Again."

  "Sorry, building meeting ran long."

  "Find any good gossip?"

  "Found a job, actually."

  "Need backup?"

  "Can't bring any. Two-person job, invitation only."

  "Who's the second?"

  "Woman from my building. Ashley."

  "Silver eyes?"

  "You've met?"

  "Seen her around. She carries herself like she's killed more people than she can count but doesn't feel bad about it. Be careful."

  "Always am."

  "No, you're always lucky."

  After Lia hung up, Cole spent a few more hours going over everything.

  The real problem wasn't the heist itself—that would happen outside, away from Vance's domain. The problem was operating inside the Grand Mirage without triggering Vance's abilities.

  According to the intelligence Ashley had compiled, Vance's Perception Domain let him read intent from microexpressions, body language, even heartbeat patterns

  And Cole would be planning to tag a man with an illegal tracker while pretending to be a bodyguard.

  The key was in the role itself. Bodyguards were supposed to watch people. A little hypervigilance was expected. The trick would be keeping his intentions simple, surface-level. Don't think about the tracker. Don't think about the chase afterward. Just focus on the immediate action: bump into someone during a commotion, make it look accidental.

  He pulled up the tournament rules again, studying the behavioral patterns Vance's system would expect. High-stakes meant exactly that, players got emotional and accusations easily flew. The whole environment was designed around tension and aggression.

  What they needed to do was make their deception look like the same kind of performance everyone else would be putting on. Ashley accusing someone of cheating wouldn't seem suspicious, it would seem like exactly the kind of drama that happened at high-stakes tables. Cole scanning the room like a paranoid bodyguard wouldn't trigger alarms, it would look like he was doing his job.

  The dangerous part was the three seconds of contact needed for the tracker to burrow in. Three seconds of focused intent, right under Vance's nose.

  Cole flexed his left hand, studying the way the fingers responded. The Storm City arm he’d gotten after the fight with the Repeater had been a stopgap.

  But for a job like this?

  He needed something better.

  He'd been putting it off, but now it was time to go see Al for a much needed upgrade.

  He made a note to comm Al in the morning, then returned to the data pad, running through the plan again. And again.

  By the time he finally collapsed into bed, dawn was breaking over the Forge City skyline.

  Three days until the tournament.

  Three days to become someone who could walk into a fortress and walk out undetected.

  This should be fun.