"You ever get the feeling something's about to catch fire, but that thing is you?"
The line buzzed incessantly a few times before Niko picked up.
"Rhett?" his voice was tight with static, like he'd just wrestled his comm out of a drawer. "I don't think I've ever talked to you this early in the day... is that an improvement or am I on the other side of a disaster?
"It's time-sensitive. I'm on my way up."
"Up?"
"To your place."
A pause. "Are you drunk?"
"Not yet."
The line cut off before Niko could ask anything else.
Rhett made his way to the apartment faster than he ever had before. The lobby was empty, every pod available and glistening with Sovereign gold and black trim. He leaned against the interior of the ascent pod, arms folded, trying not to chew his lip raw as it lifted him upwards through the building. The pod was a little older, probably third-gen. It creaked in a familiar way - enough to feel nostalgic, not unlike poverty with character. Floor twenty-three blinked into view, and with a final lurch, the pod doors split open.
Rhett stepped off the ascent pod and into Niko's place like he'd just exited an orbital drop. No knock, no warning. Just the automatic hiss of pressure equalizing as the pod dock disengaged and spat him into the living space. His jacket, still half-zipped, looked like it had been slept in or lost a fistfight with a dryer. His eyes were wild - not red, not tired, just wide, like something was chewing on his thoughts from the inside out.
Niko blinked up from his console. "...Did you die and get reanimated by your debt?"
Rhett walked straight past him, heading for the tiny side alcove that passed for a kitchen. He found a flask, sniffed it, recoiled, and poured something stronger from a bottle labeled in a language neither of them spoke.
"I think I killed someone," he muttered.
Niko's spine straightened like he'd been remote-shocked. "You what?"
Rhett turned, sloshing the drink, eyes unfocused. "Not on purpose. Not like you're thinking. He just... keeled over. Heart or brain or soul finally gave out, I dunno. Wasn't even my fault. I was just-"
"Who?"
"Thorne."
Niko froze. "Please tell me you don't mean the Thorne. Not the nearly-black Dyn level exec with enough spending authority to clearcut a hemisphere and replace it with marble. Not the guy who's been on the Sovereign Watchlist of Untouchables since I was in primary."
Rhett made a finger-gun gesture and shot the air beside his head. "That's the one."
Niko sat down. Hard. "You can't just say things like that and then drink something flammable."
"Why not? It's not like it's not true."
"You need help."
"Great. Get me a lawyer, a coffin, and a haircut. In that order."
The door hissed again.
Tessa stepped in, chrome arm catching the warm downlights. Her jacket was rolled to the elbows, her hair braided tight against the sides with a cascade of copper down her back. She clocked the tension instantly.
"Did someone die or something?"
Rhett pointed. "Niko, tell her."
Niko shook his head. "What is she doing here?!"
Rhett looked entirely unbothered. "Tess is a fantastic counterpart to my shenanigans. Who better to round out corporate espionage?"
Niko was not impressed. "You invited your cybernetic hookup to my house?!"
Rhett sighed, took another drink, and looked at Tessa like she was the only person who might possibly understand. "So remember that executive lounge job I do? The one with the fragile egos and stronger cocktails? One of them dropped dead in front of me mid-call. Thorne."
Her eyebrows lifted. "Wait, Thorne as in - ?"
"Yes. That Thorne."
She whistled low. "And you're still breathing because...?"
"Because I didn't stick around to be blamed. And because I may have... panicked. Answered a call meant for him. Got through it. Made a few... let's call them bold decisions. Transferred a few million."
Niko paled. Tessa didn't.
Rhett leaned forward now, animated, alive in a way he hadn't been since the last time he won a barfight against a guy twice his size. "And that's not the worst part. The ID bracelet? I swapped it. When the med techs came, they scanned me as the one who died. So to them, Rhett Korran's a corpse. And Thorne? He just went for a walk."
"You're an idiot," Niko muttered.
"A rich idiot," Rhett corrected, grinning now. "And an untraceable one."
Tessa tilted her head, half-impressed, half-alarmed. "So what's next? You gonna keep wearing the bracelet and hope no one from the board notices the new guy looks like he just crawled out of a betting den?"
"Funny you say that." Rhett gestured to himself. "Turns out, high-end execs are expected to not look like someone's liquor-soaked side quest. So I figured I need upgrades. Physical, digital, social."
Niko gestured broadly. "You need a new life, Rhett. Not just better optics. Executives don't just have friends. They have enemies. Thorne's probably had more knives aimed at his back than you've had hot meals."
Rhett shrugged. "Lucky I'm hard to stab."
Tessa folded her arms. "You have, what, eight thousand in augment tech? Total?"
"Give or take a few shady firmware patches."
"You'll need triple that just to pass as a mid-tier dyn in public. Let alone in a boardroom. You can't be the guy who flinches every time his elbow port glitches."
Rhett's voice took on a dramatic tone, mock-heroic. "Then upgrade me, doc. Make me whole."
Niko looked at Tessa. "This is going to end badly."
She gave a dry smirk. "Probably. But at least now he's dressed for it."
--- in progress