Soo-Jin shadowed us on the second Hunter, moving between vehicles with predatory economy: aggressive when she needed to be, ghostly when she didn't. My Korean blade. Lethal poetry in motion.
Even the way she flicked through a gap felt like she was doing the traffic a favor by not ending it.
In my gloved hand I cradled something that physics politely pretended not to notice.
A mirror the size of a palm tablet, thin as printer paper, edges bending light into fractured rainbows that shifted like nervous tics. The surface wasn't glass, wasn't crystal—wasn't anything catalogued in human materials science. It thrummed faintly under my fingertips, alive in a way that made skin crawl if you thought about it too long.
Inside: gold.
Deep, molten, honey-thick consciousness swirling in slow, hypnotic currents. No heartbeat rhythm. Just power pretending to be patient.
