By the time they reached the upper levels of Aurora Prime, Jarek could feel eyes on them. It wasn't paranoia; in this city, attention was currency, and he'd just spent a fortune of it in one night. Kael guided him through a side exit that bypassed the main casino floor, but even there, the glances followed—dealers, security drones, anonymous patrons with too much time to watch strangers.
Kael kept her voice low. "You don't walk away from the Table of Spires clean. They'll test you."
"They already did," Jarek said, thinking of the razor-edged Luck Mission he'd just completed. "And I'm still here."
"You think that was a test?" She shook her head. "That was a handshake."
They stepped into the lift, the glass tube carrying them up through the casino's heart. Layers of neon flickered past, along with the faint thump of bass from entertainment halls and the distant clatter of credits on tabletops. Jarek's thoughts kept circling back to the Quantum Marker—an object the System had dropped into his inventory without ceremony, like it was just another tool. But the thing radiated significance, weight.
The lift doors slid open to the private suite Kael used for business. Sleek black surfaces, holo-displays hovering in midair, a stocked bar glowing faintly blue. The moment the door sealed, she rounded on him.
"What exactly are you carrying?"
Jarek didn't pretend not to know what she meant. He pulled the Quantum Marker from his jacket pocket and set it on the table. It was a flat disc, smaller than his palm, its surface shifting with an iridescent sheen that seemed to respond to the light—or to the person looking at it.
Kael's eyes narrowed. "That's… not tech I've seen before."
"It's not tech anyone here has seen," Jarek said quietly. "System gave it to me."
"You say that like it's normal."
"Normal enough for me." He picked it back up, feeling its strange hum in his fingers. "It lets me… bend probability. Small ways. Short bursts. Costs something each time, but it pays back if I play it right."
Kael sat back, studying him. "The Spires will want it. Not because they understand it, but because they think they can turn it into leverage. You flash this at the wrong time, and you won't have to worry about losing—it'll be gone before you blink."
"Then I'll make sure no one can take it from me."
Kael didn't answer right away. She poured two drinks from the bar and slid one toward him. "There's another game tomorrow night. Not cards. Bidding. High-value assets, some legal, most not. You don't buy them to own them—you buy them so someone else can't. And the Spires always show up for those."
"You want me to bid?"
"I want you to spend," she said. "Big. Whatever multiplier your little miracle gives you, use it. But keep the winnings quiet. You can't outshine the Spires this soon, or they'll bury you before you can cash in."
Jarek swirled the drink in his glass, considering. The System didn't give warnings, but it did give patterns. Every time he spent, he gained—solid, traceable electronic funds. Not counterfeit. Not illusions. Real credits that could move through any legitimate channel without raising flags… for now.
"What's the target?" he asked.
"Not credits. Information. A memory core, supposedly pulled from an old jump station before it went cold. Rumor says it's got coordinates to an uncharted resource cluster." She leaned forward. "That kind of find would make the Spires bleed. And if you win it, you don't keep it—you sell it to someone they hate even more."
"That's a dangerous kind of profit."
"It's the only kind worth making," Kael said.
The night stretched on in quiet planning, but Jarek's mind kept drifting. Somewhere in the back of his head, the System pulsed softly—like it was listening. He wondered if it had its own stake in this, or if it simply fed on the friction he created with every transaction.
By morning, the casino suite was empty except for him. Kael had gone to set things in motion, leaving him with the city's haze creeping in through the tinted glass. He checked his balance.
> Account: 1,542,000 Credits
Clean. No phantom traces, no anomalies. If anyone audited it, it would look like a string of good bets and better timing. That was the dangerous beauty of it—he could appear merely lucky.
In the afternoon, a package arrived via anonymous courier. Inside was a suit—sleek, charcoal with faint silver threading—and a small earpiece. A note was attached in Kael's sharp handwriting: Wear this. Listen when told.
The bidding hall that night was a different world from the casino's glow. No flashing lights, no raucous cheers—just a quiet amphitheater lined with tiered seating, each row separated by privacy screens. The air was cool, scrubbed clean of scent, the kind of place where even the walls felt like they were listening.
Kael met him at the entrance, her own attire a black dress that shimmered subtly when she moved. "Remember," she murmured, "you're here to disrupt, not dominate. Push them, make them spend, but take the core at the end."
He nodded and followed her in.
The first lots were meaningless to him—antique weapons, luxury starcruiser parts, rare vials of genetically tailored perfume. The bidders kept their gestures small, discreet, but the numbers were obscene. Jarek stayed quiet, letting the room settle before making his first move.
When the fifth lot came up—a set of encrypted financial records from a collapsed megacorp—he raised his bid without hesitation. The rebate hit instantly.
> [Expenditure Detected. Rebate multiplier: 3.0×. Funds returned: 3,000,000 credits. Net gain: +2,000,000 credits.]
He hid the flicker of satisfaction. The room noticed him now—masked faces glancing his way, murmurs slipping past the privacy barriers.
Lot eight came, then nine. The Spires made their first play on lot ten, a rare AI core. Their masked representative upped the bid in precise increments, forcing others to drop out. Jarek jumped in late, just enough to push the price higher before backing out. The Spires won, but they paid double what they'd planned.
Kael's voice crackled softly in his earpiece. "Perfect. Keep pressing."
By the time the memory core appeared, the air in the hall was taut. The auctioneer's voice was calm, but the tension under it was unmistakable. The Spires moved fast, raising the bid before anyone else could breathe.
Jarek didn't wait. He pushed it higher. They countered instantly. Back and forth it went, each bid a blade drawn slower, closer. His multiplier came in low this time—1.5×—but it was enough.
When the hammer fell, the memory core was his.
Kael didn't smile until they were outside. "You just bought yourself a war."
Jarek glanced at the earpiece in his palm before tucking it away. "Then I'd better make sure I can afford it."
Somewhere deep in the system's invisible architecture, the Quantum Marker pulsed once, like a quiet laugh.