The news hit like a pulse bomb.
"Breaking: Maglev 47 Derails in Upper Orion District. Dozens Dead. Corporate Negligence Suspected."
Jarek stared at the holo-feed in disbelief. The sleek, silver snake of Maglev 47 lay twisted across a raised track, support pillars buckled like cheap metal straws. Emergency drones swarmed, lifting mangled cars, while medics in hazard suits pulled survivors from the wreckage. Then came the kicker — a bold red tag beneath the feed.
"Operator: Orion Rapid Transit. Majority Stakeholder: Jarek Voss Industrial Holdings."
His pulse thudded in his ears. He didn't own any damn transit lines. Not until… he thought back, sifting through his recent acquisitions. Two weeks ago, the System had fed him a property list after a rebate windfall, all small, high-efficiency businesses. One name had been an obscure maintenance subcontractor — a nothing company. But if you owned the subcontractor, you apparently owned the liability when a maglev crashed.
The media floodgates opened. Feeds from every angle plastered the event across the orbital network. Talking heads screamed negligence. The Spires' propaganda arm had gone all in — carefully curated evidence showing falsified inspection reports, "signed" by his holding company. It was too clean, too perfectly damning.
A system chime sliced into his thoughts.
[Luck Probability Event Triggered.]
[High-Stakes Public Risk Detected.]
[Temporary Feature Unlocked: Emergency Asset Loan.]
Note: Loaned assets must be repaid via rebate reductions in future transactions. Failure to comply will result in System lockout.
He exhaled sharply. The System had never done this before. Loaned assets? That meant it could give him something on credit — but he'd pay for it later, in lost earnings.
Then his comm implant buzzed. "Mr. Voss," Kael's voice, tense, "you need to get to the crash site. Now. Public show of concern, cameras rolling. You don't, and the narrative's locked against you."
It was suicide. Which was probably why the Spires wanted him there.
He went anyway.
The maglev's impact site reeked of scorched alloy and chemical coolant. Heat shimmered off ruptured conduit lines. Hundreds of people were clustered behind barricades, some filming, others shouting curses when they saw him step out of the black shuttle. Security drones kept the crowd back, but their lenses followed him like predators.
He was halfway to the main wreck when the first shot came.
It wasn't a gunshot in the traditional sense — more of a high-pitched crack as a micro-coil sniper round tore past his ear and exploded in the concrete a meter behind him. The crowd erupted into chaos. Drones swiveled in confusion, their threat-detection lagging behind the noise.
[Threat Detected: Hostile Force, Vector 73 Degrees.]
The System overlaid a faint red arc in his vision, pinpointing the shooter on a collapsed service platform.
[Asset Loan Available: Adaptive Reflex Suite v2.0.]
[Cost: -15% rebate efficiency for 30 days.]
[Accept?]
He didn't hesitate. "Accept."
Cold fire raced down his spine as the Suite snapped into place — muscles tightening, vision sharpening, time stretching into syrup. The sniper's second shot was already in the air when he ducked, felt it whip past, and rolled behind the jagged husk of a maglev car.
Kael's voice screamed in his ear. "Multiple hostiles moving in from the east line! Looks like Spire Dogs, heavy augments!"
Through the smoke, three figures emerged — plated in black composite armor, faces hidden behind reflective masks. One carried a shock-spear, another a compact plasma thrower, and the third — the leader — had an industrial cutting saw humming at his wrist.
The crowd scattered. Drones formed a barrier, but the mercs cut through them like tin. Sparks and shredded servos littered the ground.
[Asset Loan Available: Pulse Repeater Mk III.]
[Cost: -8% rebate efficiency for 14 days.]
[Accept?]
Jarek accepted before the sentence finished scrolling. A weight settled into his hands — sleek, matte-black, barrel fluted with heat vents. He rose from cover and squeezed the trigger. Blue-white bursts slammed into the spear-carrier's chest, staggering him. The second burst punched through his armor entirely, sending him sprawling.
The plasma-thrower fired back, a roiling stream of heat that turned the maglev husk into molten slag. Jarek dove aside, the Adaptive Suite turning his body into a blur. He landed hard, shoulder screaming, and used the momentum to spin and fire again. The plasma man folded backward with a smoking hole in his visor.
The leader kept coming.
The saw whined louder as he swung it in a wide arc. Jarek parried with the repeater, sparks showering his arm. The System dropped a targeting reticle right over the man's visor. Jarek jammed the barrel against it and pulled the trigger. The reticle turned green, and the merc went limp, crashing to the ground in a tangle of limbs.
[Threat Level Reduced. Remaining Hostiles: 0.]
[Loaned Asset Usage Recorded. Total Rebate Penalty Incurred: -23%.]
[Warning: Continued debt accumulation may trigger System sanctions.]
Jarek's breathing was ragged, his muscles trembling with the aftershock of the Suite's overclock. Around him, drones zipped in to collect the bodies. Cameras, still rolling, caught every moment — the supposed corporate villain fending off assassins at his own disaster scene.
It wouldn't erase the liability the Spires had planted on him. But it might muddy the water.
He walked back to the barricades, letting the cameras see the scorched sleeve, the blood on his jaw. "We'll pay every victim's family," he told the nearest reporter, voice steady. "And we'll find out who really caused this."
The crowd didn't cheer. But they didn't scream for his blood anymore either.
Later, in the shuttle, Kael handed him a datapad. "Preliminary trace on the maglev sabotage. You're not going to like it."
The feed showed a digital trail — falsified orders, maintenance shutdowns, bribes — all routed through a shell company that, on paper, had been acquired during one of his System-fueled rebate buys. The kicker? The acquisition happened automatically. He hadn't even noticed it in the stack of micro-deals.
The Spires had used his own game against him.
The System chimed again.
[Hidden Clause Discovered: Asset Acquisition Pathways Vulnerable to Hostile Insertion.]
[Option Available: Asset Verification Protocol.]
[Cost: -5% rebate efficiency permanently.]
[Activate?]
He stared at the prompt. If he activated it, hostile actors couldn't slip poisoned assets into his portfolio again. But every purchase, every spend, every rebate from then on would yield slightly less. In his world, efficiency was power.
He accepted. It wasn't a choice. He'd take a permanent cut to keep from bleeding out entirely.
The city lights blurred past the shuttle's windows. He'd survived the ambush, but his margins were thinner. The Spires had drawn blood — not fatal, but enough to make him feel the cost.
And if they thought this would scare him off, they didn't understand Jarek Voss.
He wasn't in this just to survive.
He was here to win.