Thalyn woke with the taste of iron on her tongue. The ceiling above her hummed faintly, one strip of light coughing, jittering between life and death. Cold air licked her bare feet.
Her boots waited under the cot, two patient beasts. She sighed, dragged them close, and shoved her feet in, stood, flexed once, and stepped into the corridor.
The table was already occupied. Elara sat forward, hands folded with a healer’s patience, though her violet eyes betrayed worry. Verrik fidgeted beside her, fingers jittering on the steel, hair damp as though he’d tried and failed to scrub fear away. Across the table, Hurst leaned like a wall, scarred hands flat, voice low and hard enough to bruise. Korr hunched in the corner, slate cracked in his lap, lips moving as he stabbed phantom equations into the air with one skeletal finger.
They stopped when Thalyn entered.
Verrik forced a nervous smile, words tumbling. “We were, ah, just talking about my brother. About the Bleakshards.”
Thalyn hooked a chair close with her boot and dropped into it. “Then you’ll be glad to know I’ve got a way to kick their nest. The relics, they’ve given me more than tricks. I can shake them until something breaks loose.”
Hurst’s eyes narrowed. “You mean to go alone.”
“It’s safer,” she replied. “Stealth is what I do. Unless one of you has an Elder toy hidden in your socks, I’m the only one holding the ring.”
Korr blinked up from his slate, eyes bloodshot, words snapping like wires. “Statistically, noise equals risk. One person is quieter than four. Especially one with… augmented geometry.” His hand flicked vaguely in her direction.
Elara’s lips parted, shut, then parted again. She studied Thalyn the way surgeons measure distance to an artery. Finally, softly: “You might be right.”
And then Arvie slid in. “Don’t forget to tell them you come bundled with a sarcastic AI, free trial, no refunds.”
Thalyn’s fingers tapped once on the table. “See? Everyone agrees.”
Verrik leaned in, voice breaking on its own urgency. “I know their hideout. Had to deal with them. For my brother’s sake.”
Arvie chimed again. “Take the purifier. It’s programmable. After soaking up the local toxin, we can reverse it, and you’ve got a polite little plague in your pocket.”
Thalyn arched a brow. “Korr. The purifier. I can use it.”
Korr’s teeth hissed against each other. His hands burrowed through his clutter until the thing emerged: half crystal, half lattice, humming faintly. “Keep it safe.”
“I will,” she said, tucking it away.
Breakfast was rations, stale and joyless. Verrik gave her his brother’s ID. Thalyn chewed the last bite, washed it down with lukewarm water, and stood.
The breather mask locked into her belt as she stepped into the undercity. Behind her eyes, the mental map bloomed, streets and caverns like veins in a sleeping beast. She marked the Bleakshards’ nest and let her gut carry her deeper.
The slums breathed around her, alleys tight as throats, steam curling from vents, the stink of boiled fungus and unwashed bodies. She passed a pair of ghouls in shackles, their handler swearing as the things clawed at the walls, wailing. Barefoot children hissed gutter-slang and scattered at the shimmer of her eyes.
Near her mark, the crowd thickened. In a dark corner, she slipped on the ring and became a whisper.
Voices leaked in, jagged, blunt-edged.
“Guy skimmed. Took the slick. Stupid.”
“Boss don’t care. Wants his cut. Don’t pay, don’t walk.”
“You tell him, see how many teeth you keep.”
The speaker jabbed a thumb toward a nearby house lit with gutterflame. She circled it, found a window sealed in corroded mesh. One touch, one murmur through Arvie, and the lock sighed open.
Inside, it was mold, incense, and dust like dead skin. She prowled until a signal blinked alive. Arvie jacked into the central console and surged through.
“Your boy Verrik’s brother, he fed them scrap fuel, weak charge-cells. Last batch was trash. They bled him for it. He vanished after.”
The door hissed open, footsteps, heavy, deliberate. Before he could turn, she slid close, a hand at his neck, pressing the right nerves. He folded to the floor like a marionette with cut strings.252Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡw6QMohip0M
Outside, a stairwell spiraled down. Voices swelled: Bleakshards mid-argument, shouting over each other about Verrik’s brother, about the men they’d lost.
She halted. A droid stood on guard before an iron door.
“Closer,” Arvie whispered.
She crept. The droid’s optics flared. “UN…” it barked, then froze and rotated back into place, voice glitching into silence.
“Mine now,” Arvie said smugly.
“Make it swing wild. Scare the lot of them.”
The droid lurched forward, arms flailing, scattering gang voices into chaos. Steel fists hit the walls.
“Shit! Droid’s loose!”
“Who tripped it, kill it!”
“Back off, back off!”
Thalyn pulled the mapper relic free. It whirled, painting the house into her mind, vaults, choke points, exits, and returned to her.
She pulled on the breather mask and lifted the purifier. “Arvie. Reverse it. Gentle dose. Just enough to tuck them in.”
“Your wish’s my toxin, my queen.”
The relic rose, spun, and belched shimmer. One by one, the Bleakshards staggered, dropped, voices guttering mid-curse. The purifier clattered to the floor. She scooped it up before the dust settled.
The house fell silent except for the low mechanical whirr of the droid awaiting orders.
The vault door stood unguarded now. She approached, let Arvie whisper through the lock, and it parted with a hiss.
Inside, crates of smuggled tech, broken armor rigs, exotic alloys, and weapons that had seen better centuries. She moved through the collection like a ghost in a museum of violence.
One piece caught her eye: a compact pulse-thrower, black as oil, its frame carved with delicate, almost biological filigree. When her fingers closed around the grip, it purred, soft magnetic resonance syncing to her pulse.
Thalyn grinned. “Perfect.” She holstered it, feeling its weight settle like destiny.
Then she turned to the droid. “What shall we do with you?”
Arvie’s tone dripped with static sarcasm. “Let’s give our metal friend a more civic purpose.”
“Reprogram it,” Thalyn said. “Have it deliver the vault’s contents to the local Directorate outpost. Tell them the Bleakshards are down and ripe for plucking.”
“Got it. Snitch-mode engaged. This one’s going to win employee of the month.”
The droid spasmed once as Arvie’s code poured through it, then straightened and loaded itself with stolen arms and marched out.
They left through the front. The guard barely had time to gape before she dropped him with a nerve tap. Onlookers stared as the loaded droid lumbered away, but none dared interfere.
It vanished into the smog, footsteps fading into the static hum of the streets.
Thalyn watched it go, then melted back into the alleys. By the time she reached the crew’s hideout, her muscles burned and her mind thrummed from exhaustion. The alley was mercifully empty as she slipped inside without a sound.
The others jumped when she suddenly appeared at their table.
Verrik leaned back, wide-eyed. Korr sputtered nonsense. Elara just shook her head slowly.
Hurst’s gaze was unreadable steel. “Shook them hard?”
“Better than that,” she said, peeling off the breather mask. “They won’t be walking for a while, if ever. Directorate’s probably already knocking on their door. Consider their nest smoked.”
Korr gawked. “So, what happened?”
“Just tucked them in for a nap,” Thalyn said. She drew the pulse-thrower, set it on the table. Its faint hum filled the silence. “Found this baby in their vault. Felt rude to leave it behind.”
Then she told them everything, clean. “They’ll pin it on the Directorate,” she finished. “Not us.”
Hurst’s gaze lingered on the weapon, then on her. “Nice work.”
Elara’s brow creased, worry tracing fine lines. “You look pale.”
“I’ll live.”
“Correction,” Arvie said dryly. “You’ll live provided you don’t wear that ring again for a while. It fed on you while you played shadow queen. That’s what some relics do, drain the good bits first: focus, motivation, the will to exist. Then comes the fun part, apathy, depression, maybe a touch of catatonia if you’re ambitious. You’ll need rest, more than usual.”
Thalyn groaned. “Alright, I’m fried,” she muttered. “These artifacts always want a piece of you.”
She made it to her quarters on autopilot, dropped the satchel, and face-planted onto the cot. Sleep took her mid-fall, boots, grime, and all.
ns216.73.216.69da2
and then Add to home screen.