“Rosenfeld Premium accounts automatically satisfy all tax obligations prior to fund disbursement. Manual filing is incompatible with Premium status.”

  — Rosenfeld Terms of Service, Section 14.2: Tax Processing

  I collapsed onto the grass, my armor clanking against the ground with a symphony of bent metal scraping stone. Every muscle in my body screamed in protest. The sword slipped from my fingers, blade still stained with violet dust that caught the afternoon light.

  Beside me, Erika dropped with considerably more grace, though even she looked winded.

  Her chest rose and fell in deep breaths. Crystal dust clung to her hair, turning the red strands silver in places, but her cute golden lock was still prominent.

  We just lay there for a moment, staring up at the sky where the tear was finally beginning to close. The white tendrils contracted one last time, then dissolved like smoke. Reality sealed itself with a soft sound like distant wind chimes.

  The grass was cool against the back of my neck where the helmet didn’t quite cover.

  I could feel the heat radiating off my damaged armor, the metal still warm from impacts and near-misses. My ribs ached where that last shrike had gotten through, a dull throb that pulsed in time with my heartbeat.

  I turned my head to look at Erika.

  She was already looking at me, and when our eyes met, she burst out laughing. Not a polite chuckle or restrained amusement… full, genuine laughter that shook her whole body. The sound was infectious, cutting through the post-battle exhaustion.

  “I took down G-5 alone!” she announced to the sky, arms spreading wide. “And this one was strong!” Her grin was enormous, practically splitting her face. “Did you see that final dagger? I put everything into it!”

  I couldn’t help but smile, warmth spreading through my chest despite the fatigue. “You were incredible. Seriously. That jump at the end? The way you just... went straight at it?” I shook my head in amazement. “That was insane. In the best way.”

  Erika rolled onto her side, propping herself up on one elbow to look at me properly.

  Her hair fell across her face, and she brushed it back with fingers that left streaks of crystal dust on her cheek. “Dash, you’re a tough guy,” she said, and there was genuine respect in her voice. “You held off all those adds with a sword. That’s difficult, especially at Level 1.”

  “And you can summon twenty daggers at once,” I countered, matching her position so we were facing each other. “Or one big one. That’s... I didn’t even know that was possible.”

  She just smiled, that fierce competitive grin softening into something warmer. Her eyes, green with flecks of gold I’d never noticed before, held mine for a long moment.

  But after a while, her smile died down.

  The warmth faded, replaced by something more serious. She sat up fully, drawing her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. “See, this is the reason incursions are dangerous.”

  I pushed myself into a sitting position with a groan, my armor protesting every movement. Several plates shifted loose, hanging by damaged straps. “Yeah, I wouldn’t survive alone. Your mentor made it seem so easy.”

  Erika snorted, the sound somehow both undignified and endearing. “He’s a Black rank. Well, level 116.” She picked at the piece of crystal embedded in her boot, pulling it loose with her fingers.

  I thought for a while, watching her work the crystal free. “Well, he has nothing to fight with, right?”

  Erika paused, looking confused. Then she rolled onto her side again, facing me with her head propped on her hand as the grass rustled softly beneath her. “He has plenty of work though?”

  Now I was confused. “I don’t see like level seventy incursions running around though? That would be like... strong, no?”

  Erika nodded, and her smile returned, smaller this time, more like a teacher pleased their student asked the right question. “I forgot you manifested yesterday.” She shifted, getting comfortable, close enough now that I could smell the mixture of her perfume that clung to her armor. “Yellow or so above incursions take a long time to form, and IC detects them in advance, so we can prepare stable chaos shards to fight them there. We need to defeat them, otherwise they would escape the shards, but we contain them.”

  She lay back on her back, arms stretched above her head, staring up at the sky. A strand of red hair fell across her face, and she didn’t bother moving it. “We actually learned that from our incursions.”

  I blinked. “Huh? Our?”

  Erika coughed, and I watched a faint blush creep up her neck. “Oh, right. There is a subsystem, and you can become an incursion.” She turned her head to look at me, the movement making more crystal dust cascade from her hair. “System creates I don’t know like a copy of everyone on your team and throws you somewhere in the universe. If you die, you get back safe and sound, but you keep your LPs. Also, you need to kill anything that moves, so it’s not for me...”

  She made a disgusted sound—"bleh"—complete with sticking out her tongue.

  “You can choose the RH subsystem, though.” Her eyes brightened again, the competitive fire returning. “I wanna take that when I become Orange rank.”

  I lay back down beside her, and above us the sky was clear and blue, completely unmarked by the violence that had just torn through this peaceful park. “RH,” I repeated, testing the word. “What does that mean?”

  “A secret, and not anyone can be selected. I can be. Maybe. Hopefully.” Her voice was soft, almost wistful, and I could hear the uncertainty beneath the confidence.

  Before I could respond, her wrist buzzed. She glanced down at the band, then toward the park entrance. Her entire posture shifted, still relaxed, but with an edge of alertness that hadn’t been there before.

  I followed her gaze.

  An older woman in tactical armor was walking toward us with light steps. Mid-thirties, maybe, with dark hair cut short that emphasized her cheekbones and harder eyes. Her armor was matte black, form-fitted but clearly reinforced at critical points, with glowing glyphs etched along the plates in patterns I didn’t recognize.

  A wand hung at her hip… not ornamental, but functional, the grip worn smooth from use.

  She moved like someone who’d fought incursions for years and survived them all. Her gaze swept across the battlefield, cataloging the crystalline corpses, the damaged pavilion, and the scorch marks in the grass.

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  “Officer Cadet Erika, report,” she said when she reached us. Her voice was professional, carrying the weight of authority.

  Erika was on her feet instantly, snapping to attention. “Incursion Lieutenant Nadia.” She saluted, fist to chest.

  I scrambled up more slowly, my armor groaning in protest. Standing felt like a mistake my body would make me regret later.

  Erika’s report was brief, delivered in professional tones that were nothing like her usual warmth. “I was en route to meet Licensed Diver Dash Kallum when the incursion manifested. Upon arrival, I discovered Kallum and one civilian already engaged with the first wave. The civilian evacuated at my direction when safe egress became available. I engaged the second wave and boss-class entity. Incursion terminated. Gray-1 classification confirmed, with Gray-5 boss. Zero civilian casualties. Zero structural damage beyond cosmetic.”

  Nadia nodded, her expression unchanging. Then those sharp eyes turned to me. “License.”

  I fumbled for it, fingers clumsy in my damaged gauntlets, and pulled out the holographic card. She took it, produced a small scanner from her belt, and ran it over the card’s surface, and light flickered as data processed.

  She handed it back with a small smile, the first break in her professional demeanor. “Good job on your first incursion.”

  Erika let out a quiet sigh beside me, clearly relieved it was a real license.

  I felt my stomach drop slightly. The incursion yesterday didn’t count in any official records, and I definitely wasn’t about to correct her assumption, so I tactically ignored the fact that this was actually my second incursion and said, “I tried my best, ma’am.”

  Hey, I wasn’t lying! I just... wasn’t volunteering extra information, that was different.

  Totally different.

  The woman nodded approvingly, then pulled out a larger device, a scanner that hummed to life with a soft whir. She swept it in a slow arc around us; the device emitted a pale blue light that washed over the battlefield.

  “Hmmm. Okay, there are cameras and techies are counting... oh, that was fast.” She chuckled, with genuine amusement in the sound. “Dash, you are credited with 119 confirmed kills, danger Gray-1. The Gray-5 goes solely to Erika, no payment.”

  I blinked. One hundred and nineteen? I’d thought maybe eighty, ninety at most. But the techies didn’t lie, apparently.

  “That’s fine,” I said, meaning it. The boss had been all Erika; I’d just handled cleanup.

  The woman’s smile widened slightly, and she nodded. “Good job, really. Unfortunate you were caught in it, but glad you still had armor on you.” Her eyes swept over my TitanWard setup, taking in every dent, every gouge, every plate hanging by threads. “Though I would recommend repairs, if that is even possible.”

  I glanced down at myself. Yeah. The armor looked like it had been through a trash compactor. Then the compactor had exploded. Then someone had used the remains for target practice.

  “You should be receiving payment from Scavantis shortly,” Nadia continued. “Erika.” She turned to her, tone shifting back to pure professionalism. “I’ve notified Strike Marshal. ISP and IRSD are on their way. You’re relieved.”

  Erika nodded, accepting the dismissal. “Thank you, ma’am,” she said, saluting once more before relaxing her posture.

  Nadia turned back to me. “That’s all. You can go.”

  “Thanks,” I added, sketching something that might have resembled a respectful nod if I squinted.

  Erika started walking toward the park entrance, toward where her Vantrel was still parked with its landing marks slightly scarred into the permacrete, nothing a good rain couldn’t wash away. I fell into step beside her, my armor clanking with each movement, pieces shifting and scraping that definitely shouldn’t be moving independently.

  Behind us, Lieutenant Nadia was already on her comm, coordinating the cleanup teams that would descend on the park to catalog the incursion, assess the damage, and probably file seventeen different reports in triplicate.

  But that was her problem now.

  My holoband buzzed.

  I blinked as I glanced at the last rows on my holo. “What the fuck?” I pulled the detailed logs for the past two days.

  [ROSENFELD INTERPLANETARY BANK - Premium Account Details]

  Starting Balance: +￠1654

  Transport For Tago: -￠2

  Traninum South High stipend: +￠160

  Eddy’s Affordable Loans: +￠1000

  Eddy’s Affordable Parts: -￠2500

  Noodles For Everyone: -￠6

  Offline Transaction: +￠80

  StrataTech Tinkering Room: -￠41

  Eddy’s Affordable Parts: -￠150

  Transport For Tago: -￠2

  Transport For Tago: -￠2

  Scavantis Direct Payment: ￠450

  Transport For Tago: -￠2

  Transport For Tago: -￠2

  Transport For Tago: -￠2

  Midorikawa D?mmergrund Park: -￠1

  Midorikawa Café: -￠15

  Midorikawa D?mmergrund Park: -￠1

  PARK BILL by Mayor Prattle: +￠1

  D-12678 Tago: +￠952

  D-12678 TAX: -￠87

  D-12678 ICC: -￠62

  D-12678 Scavantis: -￠284

  The last four were paired and connected to a tax bill. As if in a dream, I clicked on the details.

  [Scavantis Dive Report #12678]

  Gross recovery value by Tago Inc: ￠952 (￠8x119)

  [ROSENFELD INTERPLANETARY BANK - payment details]

  [PREMIUM TAX PROCESSING]

  ├─ Tax Processing Service Fee: -￠10 (1%)

  ├─ Premium Account Subscription Refund: +￠10

  └─ After-Tax Subtotal: ￠952

  STATUTORY DEDUCTIONS:

  ├─ Tago City Dive Tax: -￠48 (5%)

  ├─ Earth 2.0 Federal Tax: -￠29 (3%)

  ├─ Sol Alliance Tax: -￠10 (1%)

  └─ After-Tax Subtotal: ￠865

  ICC REGULATORY FEES:

  ├─ Incursion Access Permit (ICC-IRSD): -￠35 (4%)

  ├─ Perimeter Security Maintenance (ICC-ISP): -￠18 (2%)

  ├─ Threat Monitoring & Dispatch: -￠9 (1%)

  └─ Post-ICC Subtotal: ￠803

  SCAVANTIS FEES:

  ├─ Company Commission: -￠161 (20%)

  ├─ Mandatory Health Coverage: -￠57 (7%)

  ├─ Mandatory Diver Insurance: -￠41 (5%)

  ├─ Decontamination Processing: -￠25 (3%)

  └─ Net Payment: ￠519

  [Processed automatically via Rosenfeld Premium Account]

  [Full tax documentation filed with relevant agencies]

  I pulled up my holoband again, staring at the payment breakdown, and let out a long grumble.

  “What’s wrong?” Erika glanced over, her expression shifting from post-battle satisfaction to curiosity.

  I sighed, the sound muffled by my helmet. “I just... I knew there’d be fees. Taxes. Whatever. But this?” I pulled up the detailed report and held it out to her. “Half. They took nearly half.”

  Erika slowed, leaning in to scan the breakdown. Her eyes flashed over the lines, but then they stopped and widened.

  “Wait.” She grabbed my wrist, pulling the holoband closer to her face. “Is that... Dash, do you have a Premium Rosenfeld account?”

  I blinked. “Uh, yeah? Every Kallum gets one at birth. The corporation buys lifetime access for like half a million or something.”

  Erika stared at me. Just... stared with her mouth ajar. “Half a million.”

  “Yeah?” I said, confused by her reaction. “It’s standard for—”

  “Standard?!” She let go of my wrist and threw her hands up. “Dash, I’ve got a budget one; I can’t even afford a regular Rosenfeld account! Four hundred sols a month!” Her voice pitched higher with each word. “Four hundred! And regular+? That’s a thousand! I didn’t even know Premium was a thing you could just... buy!”

  I shifted uncomfortably, my damaged armor creaking. “I mean, it’s not like I chose—”

  “Of course you didn’t choose!” Erika laughed, but there was an edge to it. Not quite bitter, but definitely frustrated. “That’s the whole point! You were born into it!” She shook her head, still laughing as we reached the edge of the park. “It’s so unfair how the rich have it easy. You probably don’t even think about it, do you? Just... automatic tax processing, premium benefits, everything handled.”

  “I... guess?” I said weakly.

  She sighed, the laughter fading into something softer. “Sorry. Not your fault.” She glanced at me, a small smile returning. “But seriously. Half a million. That’s insane.”

  We stepped through the gate, and there it was.

  Erika’s Vantrel.

  The car sat low to the ground on its gravitic cushion, barely hovering, sleek lines flowing from nose to tail like a bug mid-leap. The body was painted deep crimson that shifted to black in the shadows, a color-shifting paint job. The canopy was tinted so dark I couldn’t see inside, smooth curves of smart-glass that could probably stop small arms fire.

  It looked fast even standing still, and the Vantrel logo gleamed on the hood, stylized wings wrapping around a star. Erika walked up to it and ran her hand along the hood, fingers trailing across the paint with obvious affection.

  The touch was gentle.

  “I spent all my savings just for the down payment on this beauty,” she whispered, not looking at me. “Every credit I’d saved from my apprenticeship. Every reward from training. Everything.” She smiled, and there was genuine pride in her smile. “Worth it though. She’s perfect.”

  I looked at the car, then at Erika, then back at the car. “How much was the down payment?”

  “Forty thousand,” she said casually, like that was a normal amount of money to just... have. “Monthly payments are brutal, but I can manage with my IC salary.” She pressed her palm to the door, and it recognized her biometrics immediately, the canopy hissing open with a soft pneumatic sigh.

  The interior was just as impressive. Leather seats, real leather, not synth, in black with crimson stitching. A holographic dashboard flickered to life the moment the door opened.

  “Come on,” Erika said, gesturing to the passenger seat. “I’ll give you a ride home. That armor looks like it’s about to fall apart, and I’m not letting you take public transit looking like you lost a fight with a trash compactor.”

  “I won the fight,” I protested, but climbed in anyway.

  TODAY’S CHAPTER IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY Vantrel

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