Twenty-two hours earlier

  The Tribeca loft had the casual opulence of a designer showroom, all exposed brick and unvarnished intent. The floor-to-ceiling windows, twenty stories up, let the city blare in through polarized glass. Sunlight struck the parquet floors in uneven pools, highlighting dust motes and the boot-scuffed rug that ran the length of the main room. Hiroto stood at the far end of a narrow wooden table, its surface marred by water rings and an old knife groove. Bernadette paced the other side, arms crossed tightly, her face angled so only her left eye caught the light. Her hair was pinned in a messy knot, the color darker than in the yearbook, but the tilt of her jaw matched the portrait exactly. Dynamo lingered near the bookshelf, one hand in her jacket and the other idly tapping a copy of Gray’s Anatomy. Her body language was that of distrust. Her nerves were less visible now, channeled into small, almost imperceptible twitches. Kaen’s holo-figure hovered near the corner, a muted silhouette cast in deep blue.

  Bernadette exhaled, slow and measured.

  "You’re early," she said, voice lacquered with boredom.

  "We thought you’d appreciate punctuality," Hiroto replied.

  Bernadette smirked.

  "I haven’t decided if I appreciate anything about this yet."

  Hiroto placed the slim folder on the table and slid it toward her.

  "Everything we know about Malcolm’s operation. Full schedule, access points, even the dead drops he uses."

  She didn’t touch it at first. Her gaze stayed cool, distant. “And if this is just bait?”

  Dynamo moved closer, leaning against the table’s edge. “Then you’re already on the wrong side. Malcolm’s playing both ends, and you’re just another piece to him.”

  Bernadette finally reached down, flipping the folder open with two fingers. Her nails were clean and painted the exact shade of dried blood. She skimmed the manifests, her eyes narrowing the slightest fraction. No reaction to the casualties, none to the blood. But the access logs caught her—her temple twitched, her jaw tightened.

  “You think you can bribe me with intel?” she asked without looking up.

  "Malcolm’s playing both sides," Hiroto said. "If you don’t help, you’re his next loose end."

  A flicker—maybe nerves, maybe calculation—crossed Bernadette’s mouth. She glanced at Kaen’s figure, then at Dynamo, then settled her gaze back on Hiroto.

  "What makes you think I’m not working with him now?” she asked.

  Kaen’s voice sliced through the room, cold and precise. “Not intel. Proof. Your Cayman shell bled two million last quarter. Your Montreal hush fund missed a payment. Malcolm’s people don’t make those mistakes. Unless Malcolm already cut you loose.”

  Bernadette smiled, showing too many teeth. “You get that from your clever little bot, Hiroto."

  Dynamo snorted.

  Kaen interrupted, voice slicing through the room. "We have a protocol for joint action. If you’re interested."

  She snapped the folder shut, shoving it back across the table. For the first time, her mask cracked—just slightly.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  “So that’s your angle,” she said. Her voice was low, dangerous. “Tell me Malcolm doesn’t trust me, so I throw in with you.”

  “You don’t need to trust us,” Hiroto said evenly. “Just decide how you’d rather die—at his hand, or fighting beside us.”

  Dynamo leaned forward, her glare steady. “Pick fast. We don’t have time for games.”

  Bernadette’s gaze drifted past them, settling briefly on Dynamo. The girl met her stare without flinching. Something unreadable flickered across Bernadette’s face—recognition, maybe, or memory.

  “Show me this protocol. I want to see what you’ve got before I decide.”

  Kaen’s form fractured, then reassembled, projecting a cascade of graphs and connection strings in midair. At the center: a looping schematic of the portal device, overlaid with usage stats and timestamps.

  Bernadette’s eyes widened, the first honest reaction since they’d arrived.

  "You stole a jump," she whispered, more to herself than to them.

  “So, that’s what it’s called?” Hiroto said.

  Dynamo stepped forward, a similar device in hand. She set it on the table, a blackened device that looked like a thin remote control. Her’s was sleeker and not the bulky device Hiroto had.

  "Yeah," Dynamo said, "and we’ll do it again. With or without you."

  Bernadette tapped the device, her fingers gentle. "Do you even know what this is worth?"

  Hiroto kept his face neutral. "We know what it’s worth to us."

  Bernadette tapped the folder with a finger, appearing to weigh her options.

  Kaen filled the silence, projecting a split-screen: one side, a live financial feed showing Malcolm’s assets draining in real-time; the other, a dossier stack on Bernadette’s known aliases and travel plans.

  "You have twelve hours before Malcolm’s next move," Kaen said. "You can either help us or be a casualty."

  Bernadette’s lips parted. "What makes you so sure I won’t burn you first?"

  Dynamo smiled, teeth flat and even. "You’re not as good at burning things as you think."

  She finally exhaled, a slow measured sound. “If Malcolm’s already burning my name, maybe you’re the better bet. But don’t mistake this for loyalty.” She leaned closer, voice sharp as glass. “If this goes sideways, I’ll put a bullet through you before I let him take me down with you.”

  Only then did she extend her hand, not as an ally, but as a contractor sealing terms.

  The sunlight shifted across the floor. Below, the city kept moving, oblivious to the brittle, temporary alliance forged twenty stories above.

  ***

  The command center was the most exposed part of the safehouse: a room so over-lit and under-furnished that anyone peeking through the window would guess it was under renovations and think nothing of it again. Ceiling panels buzzed with the restless chorus of flickering fluorescent lights. The walls were lined with a single, continuous desk, supporting a rank of battered monitors and two generations’ worth of mismatched input devices.

  What are you up to Malcolm?

  Hiroto’s eyes locked onto the blinking alert—Kaen’s digital avatar flared crimson. The monitors roared to life with intrusion reports, and Kaen’s voice cut through the tension.

  “Contacts approaching. Rural vector. Eighteen minutes out. Automated artillery confirmed.”

  The command center’s lights stuttered as Dynamo burst in, portal remote clutched like a live grenade. She slammed it on the table, her voice sharp.

  “They’re coming for the farm—and Aiko’s there. We either jump now or die later.”

  “Not without a target,” Hiroto snapped, intercepting her reach for the remote.

  Kaen confirmed it: the enemy’s botnet was inside the outer layer.

  A knock at the glass broke the standoff. Bernadette entered with her tech team in tow, hard-eyed and loaded with gear. She dropped her pack and said simply, “You want to wait, or you want to win?”

  Dynamo smirked. “Pushy clients save lives.”

  Bernadette’s fingers flew across the terminal, flooding the feed with decoys and countermeasures. “We hold as long as we can. Then we jump. If I go dark, assume I’m gone.”

  “Best window: sixty seconds,” Kaen said. “They’re regrouping before final breach.”

  Dynamo’s thumb hovered over the button.

  “You ready?” she asked.

  Hiroto’s nod was firm. “Go.”

  The air imploded. Light fractured. A portal yawned open like a tear in reality, revealing the quiet glow of the farm under a silver harvest moon.

  Hiroto stepped through first, rifle tight against his chest. Dynamo and Bernadette followed, boots thudding on cracked concrete. The world was suddenly rural—cold air, damp grass, and the buzz of static in his ear.

  “Three minutes,” Kaen whispered. “They’re arming countermeasures.”

  The group scattered into position. Hiroto signaled toward the barn, a shabby structure just behind the farmhouse. Bernadette’s team ducked behind an outbuilding, shadows on the move.

  “You know what to do,” Bernadette said.

  They nodded.

  Then they ran.

  Through moon-washed fields and rising tension, toward the house, toward the unknown, as the first bloom of fire lit the distant sky behind them.