Location: Mid-District Loop, Maatari
Time: 06:42 PM
The sedan idled beneath a rain-warped skyglass awning, its paint the color of polished dusk. Khaz sat behind the wheel in a borrowed driver's jacket, collar up, cap brim low. The cabin smelled faintly of new leather and office anxiety.
A door opened. Minister Cael Orwen slid into the back without looking at the driver. His suit was precise, his cough expensive. A briefcase rode the seat beside him like a passenger.
"East corridor," he said, checking his halosync. "Vault District—private entry."
Khaz eased the car out. Rain threaded the road in long diagonal lines, dragging the city light into streaks. Their reflection unspooled across the windshield—amber, blue, violet—then folded back into darkness as the sedan slipped under the loop.
Orwen cleared his throat again. "We're late. Maintain speed."
Khaz did.
The loop bent. Traffic thinned to a passing whisper. It was the kind of silence you rented by the meter. Industrial towers gave way to Vault-facing facades: clean angles, subdued glow, guards at corners trying not to look like guards.
Khaz checked the rearview.
Orwen watched his halosync with a bureaucrat's trance. Tre'co's outline pooled at the edge of the mirror—faint, a three-headed ripple in the glass, more suggestion than shape.
"Schedule conflict?" Khaz asked, voice flat.
Orwen blinked up, annoyed to discover another presence in the car. "Important caucus. Reallocations." He leaned back. "You people don't need details."
"Wouldn't help me drive."
That ended the conversation.
They slid through the first security bead. A soft tone acknowledged the car's borrowed credentials. A second tone, lower, carried no judgment.
"Left here," Orwen said, pointing with the hand that wasn't holding power like a habit.
Khaz took the left, then another bend. The private gate rose on magnets. Rain powdered its underside and fell in a straight sheet. Orwen's briefcase shivered slightly when the car crossed the threshold—the way metal remembers storm.
The final approach road ran parallel to a reflecting pool that pretended not to notice weather. A thin line of trees separated concrete from water; their leaves wore the rain like jewelry.
"Stop here," Orwen said.
Khaz did not.
He rolled five meters farther and let the engine idle in a blind spot between two dome cameras. Silence crystallized in the car.
Orwen leaned forward. "Driver—"
Khaz raised his right hand to the mirror and spoke without looking back. "Feed."
Tre'co came through the glass like a rumor hardening into fact—three spectral heads blooming from the reflection, jaws opening in perfect unison.
Orwen had just enough time to suck air like a man who'd been told the truth.
Too late.
Khaz's left hand pinned his shoulder. The right called the hound. The move was clean. It left no mess on the upholstery, only a chill that could cool an inferno.
Quiet returned. So did the rain.
Khaz exhaled, freed the seatbelt, and angled Orwen's body into a composed lean. He wiped the rear glass with a cloth until it held only ordinary reflections again. Tre'co's glow receded to the chain, where it pulsed once and went still.
He lifted the briefcase. Heavy. Honest.
"Clean," he said softly.
He stepped out with the case under his coat and walked away as the car kept idling like it had decided to forget him.
By the time the first perimeter guard noticed the sedan's strange patience, Khaz was already another shadow under another awning, feet splashing rain off cobblestone.
Location: Upper Grid, Maatari - The RelayPoint
Time: 07:35 PM
Khaz's halosync beeped once, a scrambled channel. He lifted it to his ear. Static merged into a voice that never raised itself farther than it had to.
"Contract status?" Drev asked.
"Delivered," Khaz answered. "Clean."
"Good. Your drop is under the relay point. It's in a black polymer case, silver seal. Called a Musa Vial. Black market high tech."
"A case?" Khaz asked.
"A converter," Drev replied. "It turns dirty Musa into clean. There's a shadow bit in the inner pocket, hot and loaded with the transfer. Slot it, choose your method. Digital or printed. Your call."
"And you trust me with that." Khaz said, not a question.
"I trust results." A pause, the kind that suggests a smile without making the mistake of becoming one. "Consider it an investment."
The line clicked silent.
Khaz stepped under the relay and found the case exactly where Drev said it would be. Black polymer. Silver seal. Weight that suggested confidence more than metal.
Inside, foam cradled a thin console. The inner pocket held a small black chip the size of a thumbnail. The edges fractured, surface stippled with faint blue static. The shadow bit felt warm when it slid into the slot. The case woke with a low hum, glyph-lines skating across the interface.
A prompt lit the panel:
SELECT MODE:
> Digital
Khaz tapped the print glyph.
The machine spoke in simple mechanics: feed, calibrate, press. Musa sheets slid into existence, warm from stamping, seals bright with fresh ink and thread. He counted by touch, not by number, and laid them in a stack that answered questions better than any screen could.
He closed the case and let the latch find itself.
Some people trusted numbers. Khaz still trusted weight.
He dropped the Shadow Bit on the ground, gave it three stern stomps, using his heel to scatter the remains and walked out into the rain.
Location: The Gullies, Maatari - The Rustpan
Time: 08:22 PM
The Rustpan's windows wore the night like a second skin. Condensation blurred faces into shapes, turned neon into watercolor, made the room feel closer than it was.
Marta pointed a spatula at him before he could sit. "You ever notice how you only show up when it rains?"
"Rain doesn't talk as much," he said, sliding into his booth.
She squinted. "That true? Feels like it says plenty to my roof."
He left the briefcase by his leg. The stack of Musa by his palm stayed covered with an elbow.
Marta clattered a plate down without asking—rice, charred cevi-root, grillfish with a glaze that smelled like a good memory. A mug of java followed, its steam carrying the bitter comfort of people who made it through today and hadn't decided about tomorrow.
"You hear the gossip?" she asked, leaning on the booth edge with the hospitality of a warning. "Some official's driver took him on the scenic route and he never came back. Vault District's got static in its corners. And—" she lowered her voice— "my meter says GridLeech plans to 'stabilize rates' next cycle. Which means they'll raise them and call that math."
Khaz ate. The room's noise folded into a low band: a trio arguing over bracket caps and glyph usage; a tired couple trying to split the bill with a coupon; somebody promising a friend that the Vault always "fixes the numbers before the numbers fix you."
Marta watched him for a second longer than comfort required. "You look warmer tonight," she said. "Don't get used to it."
He kept his eyes on the food. "I won't."
"You never do."
At the far end of the counter a holofeed ran without sound, captions crawling like ants. A headline cut through the fogged glass of its frame:
MINISTER ORWEN FOUND DEAD — VAULT DISTRICT SIGNALS RESTRUCTURE
Below it, a tag scrolled past about outages and overflow, a note on "temporary rate adjustments" that everybody in the room had heard before in different words.
Marta caught Khaz's glance. "They're gonna say it's a medical," she said, voice dropping into the register of people who know they're not supposed to know. "Or stress. Or the rain. Never their hand."
"Rain gets blamed for a lot," he said.
"Cheapest suspect in the city."
He finished the plate, left the mug half-drunk. The heat in his hands had settled to something that wasn't heat anymore. He slid a small wrap across the table—two notes inside, folded with neat indifference.
Marta lifted it, felt the weight, and made a face like he'd told a joke he didn't think was one. "You always tip when it rains."
Khaz stood. "City charges extra for weather."
She laughed. The echo following him out the door.
Drizzle slicked the street into a mirror that didn't tell the truth. The briefcase's handle creaked softly as Khaz shifted his grip. His chain pulsed once, an old habit checking the perimeter.
He stepped off the curb. Neon ran along the water at his feet.
The city carried on.