Silas watched as Kingsley's body disappeared into the darkness below.

  One of the bodyguards finally noticed, his scream lost in the chaos of the ongoing firefight. But it didn't matter. In the red emergency lighting and smoke, with plasma fire and panicking guests, no one would piece together what had really happened. Just another corporate executive caught in the crossfire.

  "Target eliminated," Livia reported. "The raiders will take the blame. Moving to extract."

  "Download at sixty percent," Cassius added. "Four heat signatures coming my way. I think they know where the server room is."

  The raiders were an unexpected variable, but variables could be useful if properly directed.

  If they escaped with fake data while Cassius secured the real thing... if their presence muddied the water enough that no one could trace this back to Nexus.

  "Cassius, can you create a decoy?"

  "Already ahead of you. I'm copying corrupted data to a secondary drive. Missing key algorithms, false encryption keys. They'll think they got it, but it'll be worthless garbage. Ninety percent complete on the real download."

  Silas watched the raiders working their way through the building. They knew exactly where to go, which guards to neutralize first, which guests were threats. This wasn't a random hit. Someone had known about the party, about Project Starlight, about the security.

  Someone with inside information.

  The biochip pulsed, and suddenly the fractured visions aligned into clarity. He saw Marcus's face, signing authorization for a black ops team with a different corporate signature. This wasn't a complication, it was a test. Marcus had sent the raiders to see how Silas would handle unexpected pressure.

  Or to clean up loose ends if the mission went wrong.

  "Clever bastard," Silas whispered.

  "Download complete," Cassius reported. "And I've got company. ETA twenty-six seconds."

  "Can you evade?"

  "Evade? I was thinking more along the lines of 'horrifically murder.' I haven't killed anyone in weeks. I'm getting twitchy."

  "No bodies that can be traced back to us."

  "Spoilsport. Fine. Dispersing now. But I'm keeping one of them alive to play with later."

  "No, Cassius."

  "You never let me have any fun."

  Through the hidden camera, Silas watched Cassius's body collapse into its component swarm. The process was faster this time, urgency overriding showmanship. The four raiders burst into the server room just as the last insect disappeared into the ventilation. They found the secondary drive Cassius had left, its LED blinking invitingly.

  "Got it!" one of them shouted. "Project Starlight secured!"

  They celebrated briefly, not noticing the few remaining wasps recording everything, and began their extraction.

  Meanwhile, Livia had made her way to the stairwell. "Exiting through the north emergency route.”

  "Understood. Cassius?"

  "Already out. Reforming on the roof now. Want to watch the fireworks."

  The operation clock stopped at nineteen minutes. Ahead of the curve. Kingsley was flatlined, the drive was secure, and the raid team was eating the liability. It was actually cleaner than their original plan.

  Except for one thing.

  Silas made his way back through the service corridors, but instead of heading for his extraction point, he went up. The biochip was showing him possibilities again, futures spreading out like a decision tree. He needed to shape the outcome, ensure the right future came to pass.

  He reached the roof access just as the raiders were loading into their hover-vehicles. Cassius was there, reformed, watching from behind an HVAC unit with the fascination of a child watching an ant farm.

  "What are you doing here?" Cassius asked as Silas approached.

  "Ensuring success," Silas replied, pulling out a needle pistol.

  Cassius tensed. "If you're planning to shoot me, try not to be boring about it."

  "Not you." Silas aimed at the departing hover-vehicles and fired three times. The needles were microscopic, each one containing a binary compound reverse-engineered from Zenith Corp's proprietary anti-grav tech—it would eat through the stabilizers like acid and leave a chemical signature that forensics would trace straight back to them. "They'll make it about a dozen blocks before catastrophic failure.”

  "And the authorities will find evidence of a rival corporation's involvement," Cassius said, understanding. "You're framing someone."

  "Zenith Corp has been trying to muscle in on Nexus business for months. This will set them back years."

  Cassius studied. "You planned for the raiders. You knew they were coming."

  "I planned for variables. The raiders were just one possibility."

  "And if they'd killed us?"

  "Then you weren't worth the investment." Silas turned to leave, then paused. "The cultivation lab you found. What exactly did you see?"

  Cassius was quiet for a moment. "They were trying to artificially induce Domain manifestation. Force people to Sequence 6 without the usual requirements. The test subjects..." He shook his head. "Explosive liquefaction is putting it mildly. I saw one recording where the subject turned inside out. Literally. Took him far too long to die."

  "Did you document it?"

  "Everything. Video, chemical compositions, research notes, even DNA samples from my wasps. It's all here." He tapped his temple. "Question is, what's it worth to you?"

  Silas smiled. This was exactly the kind of leverage he needed. Not just Project Starlight, but evidence of Aetheris conducting illegal human experimentation. Marcus would be pleased with the primary mission, but this secondary intelligence would be Silas's to use.

  "We'll discuss compensation later. For now, let's—"

  The roof access door opened and Livia emerged.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  "Kingsley's confirmed dead. Body recovered by Aetheris cleanup teams," she reported. "The raiders are panicking. Their vehicles are starting to malfunction."

  They made their way off the roof as Aetheris security vehicles approached. In the distance, the raiders' vehicles were falling from the sky, their anti-grav units failing exactly as Silas had planned. The official story would be of a corporate raid gone wrong, of Julian Kingsley's tragic death in the mayhem.

  The extraction unit sat in the sub-level concrete. A generic logistics van. You saw a thousand of them on the streets every hour. The civilian skin was just a wrapper for the ballistic composite plating and a comms suite.

  They loaded in quickly, Cassius taking the driver's seat, his hands already reforming into the exact shape to interface with the vehicle's controls. Silas and Livia took the rear.

  "Turn on the news," Silas ordered.

  The main screen flickered to life. A reporter was already on scene, her voice breathless with excitement: "Breaking update. A suspected corporate hit has resulted in confirmed casualties. Julian Kingsley, head of R&D, reportedly fell to his death during the incident..."

  "The cultivation lab," Silas said to Cassius, ignoring the broadcast. "The experiments Kingsley was running. Were any of them successful?"

  "Define successful."

  "Did any test subjects survive the artificial advancement?"

  "One. A woman. Subject 27, according to the files. She was a normal human, baseline genetics, no augmentations. They pushed her to Sequence 6. She survived, but... changed. They have her in containment."

  "Changed how?" Silas pressed.

  "The files weren't specific. Just medical readings that didn't make sense. Neural activity off the charts, like her brain was operating in dimensions we can't perceive. Cellular mutation markers. Her DNA was rewriting itself in real-time. They were keeping her sedated because when she was conscious..." Cassius shook his head. "The recordings showed reality distortions. Small ones. Objects moving without being touched. Walls becoming transparent. Time flowing backward for seconds at a time. Like the Domain was rejecting her or she was rejecting it."

  "Do you have her location?"

  "Why?"

  "Because someone who survived what Kingsley was doing might be useful. And because Marcus doesn't know she exists."

  Cassius smiled. "Planning on building your own army? Off the books?"

  "Marcus treats us as tools," Silas said. "Hammers to break things, scalpels to cut things. But what if we could be more? What if we could be the ones holding the tools?"

  "I'm in," Cassius said immediately. "This job was supposed to be simple. Instead, I'm sitting on enough corporate secrets to start a war. I want to see where this goes."

  They both looked at Livia. She was staring out the window.

  "Marcus will kill us if he finds out," she said simply.

  "Yes."

  "The probability of success is minimal."

  "Yes."

  "You're asking us to steal from Aetheris twice. Once was business. Twice is war."

  "No," Silas said, leaning forward. "I'm asking you to help me change the game. Marcus thinks in terms of corporate hierarchy, climbing ladders, accumulating power. But what if we could skip the ladder entirely? What if we could crack the system's rules themselves?"

  "The system has rules for a reason," Livia said. "Breaking them has consequences."

  "The question is whether we're willing to pay the price."

  Livia turned to face him, her grey eyes unreadable. "You think this woman is the key?"

  "I think she's a prototype. A proof of concept that humans can be artificially advanced without the gods' blessing, without cores, without any of the traditional paths." Silas's eyes gleamed with possibility. "Imagine if we could replicate it. Refine it. Control it. We could make gods, Livia. Or become them."

  "Gods," she said flatly. "You want to become a god."

  "Don't you?"

  She was silent for a long moment. Then: "Yes. "When do we start?"

  "After we deliver the data we begin preparing. Once Marcus rewards us and thinks we're his loyal dogs. Then we begin the plan to start building something of our own."

  The van pulled into Nexus Tower's underground entrance, passing through multiple security checkpoints. Each scan made Silas's skin crawl, wondering if this would be the one that detected their deception.

  As they rode the elevator up to the debriefing floor, Silas accessed the facility schematics, the data overlaying his vision. The woman, Subject 27, was being held in Sub-Level 7 of the Aetheris Medical Research Facility.

  The elevator opened onto the executive floor. Marcus's assistant was waiting for them, her smile as sharp as her chrome nails.

  "Mr. Aurelius will see you now," she said. "He's very pleased with tonight's results."

  They followed her down the hallway.

  As they entered the office Marcus stood by the windows, his back to them, watching the city burn with emergency lights.

  "Excellent work," Marcus said without turning. "Kingsley is dead, Project Starlight is secured, and Zenith Corp is taking the fall."

  "The raiders complicated things," Silas said carefully.

  "Complications are expected. It's how you handle them that matters." Marcus finally turned, his expression unreadable. "I assume you acquired additional intelligence during the operation?"

  "Cassius discovered a cultivation lab on floor 45," Silas reported. "Aetheris was experimenting with artificial Domain advancement. All subjects terminated. We have complete documentation."

  Not a lie. Just incomplete. Marcus's eyes gleamed. "Fascinating. This data will be invaluable for our own research. Anything else?"

  "The usual corporate espionage. Financial records, R&D timelines, personnel files. All in the report."

  "And nothing... unusual? No surviving test subjects? No anomalies?"

  The question was too specific. Marcus knew something. Or suspected something. Silas kept his expression neutral.

  "The lab was a graveyard. Whatever they were trying, it failed comprehensively."

  Marcus studied him for a long moment. Then he smiled. "Of course. Well done, Director Creed. Your payment has been transferred. Take tomorrow off. You've earned it."

  They were dismissed.

  Ninety-seven floors above, Marcus stood in his office, watching the news reports on several different screens. The story was playing out exactly as planned, corporate raiders, tragic death, Project Starlight mysteriously vanished. Zenith Corp's stock was already plummeting as evidence of their involvement 'leaked' to the media.

  "Silas performed well," Dr. Parker said from behind him. She was holding a tablet that showed biometric data from the mission, stress levels, neural activity, decision patterns.

  "Indeed. Better than expected." Marcus pulled up the debriefing footage, watching Silas's micro-expressions frame by frame. "Though there was a moment during the debriefing. When I asked about survivors."

  "Elevated stress response," Parker confirmed, checking her data. "Heart rate increased by twelve percent. Pupil dilation. Micro-tremor in his left hand."

  "He was hiding something."

  "Or nervous about the question. The mission was high-stress. Some physiological irregularity is expected."

  Marcus replayed the moment again. "No. He's too well-trained for random nervousness. He was calculating whether to lie."

  He paused the video on Silas's face, neutral, controlled, but the eyes... the eyes were thinking too fast. "What did Cassius's wasps record?"

  "Everything we asked for. Research data, chemical compositions, subject termination records. Twelve failed experiments, all deceased. The lab was shut down two weeks ago."

  "And nothing else? No anomalies?"

  Parker scrolled through data. "The facility where subjects were held, Sub-Level 7, has unusual power consumption. Active life support, environmental controls. But nothing to point to anything being inside.”

  "Hmm how convenient.”

  "You think there's a survivor? That they're hiding someone?"

  "I think there is something worth investigating. Whether it's a survivor, additional research, or simply something Silas wants for himself..." Marcus smiled coldly. "Time will tell."

  "Should I increase surveillance?"

  "Passively. Monitor his movements, his communications, his financial transactions. But don't let him know we're watching. If he's planning something, I want to see what it is."

  "And if he's stealing corporate assets?"

  "Then he's more valuable than I thought. Loyalty is cheap. Ambition... ambition can be cultivated." Marcus turned back to the city view. "Besides, with this data we can possibly create our own brand of Nexus Domain walkers overnight, with zero input from the deities. We're on the verge of something revolutionary, Doctor."

  "Manufacturing ascension," Parker said quietly.

  "Exactly. No more begging for scraps from absent gods. No more hoping for cores from dead monsters. We could control advancement itself."

  His reflection in the window smiled back at him.

  "And if Silas has found a piece of that puzzle, if he's clever enough to hide it and ambitious enough to use it... then perhaps he's exactly the weapon we need."

  "Weapons that think for themselves are dangerous."

  "Only if you don't see them coming."

  Azure: Gunner

  Post-Apocalyptic LitRPG

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