The café two blocks from the venue had lighting that forgave everyone without pretending they were fine.

  Not flattering. Not warm. Just soft enough that the bluish cast of screen glow didn’t make every face look sick, and the lines of fatigue read like the normal cost of a tournament day instead of a warning label.

  Most of the booths were occupied by the same species of people: lanyards on the table, rig cases wedged against seats, tablets propped up like a second set of eyes. A couple of players near the counter argued about Charge curves over a tower of paper cups. Somewhere behind the espresso machine, a barista kept calling order numbers with the steady cadence of someone who’d learned that competitive gamers never stop being competitive, even with pastries.

  Mason slid into the corner booth Naomi chose without asking. She’d picked the one with a wall at their backs and a clear view of the entrance—an angle, not an accident. He set his rig case beside him, strap looped around his wrist. The case wasn’t worth much to anyone with sponsorship money, but it contained his whole season.

  His forearm still buzzed with haptic afterimage from his last match block. Not pain. More like his rig wanted one more Beat, one more command, one more chance to prove the win wasn’t a fluke.

  Naomi wiped a small sticky patch on the tabletop with a napkin before anything touched it. Then she set down her tablet, a folding stand, and a cable. Each item landed with the same exactness she used when setting a trap—no wasted motion, no chance for the world to bump her off-line.

  Mason watched her hands because watching was safer than thinking about the moment in Bay 11 when a creature’s eyes had widened at something it wasn’t supposed to understand.

  A barista called out a number. Naomi stood, collected two drinks and a tray like she’d already done the calculus on wait time versus line density, then returned without breaking her rhythm.

  She set a black coffee in front of herself and slid Mason a drink that looked like it had been engineered to keep teens awake through poor life choices.

  Mason eyed the tray. “You ordered?”

  Naomi took her seat. “You stood at the counter and stared at the menu like it was written in a dead language.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  Her lenses caught the café lights in a thin glare. “You asked the barista what ‘protein-forward’ meant.”

  Mason grimaced. “I needed clarification.”

  “You needed rescuing.”

  He leaned back, accepting the hit. “Fine. Thanks.”

  Naomi angled the tablet stand a few degrees so both of them could see without leaning into each other too much. The adjustment made his knee shift under the table to give her space. He caught himself doing it and pretended it was for his rig case.

  Naomi didn’t comment. She just plugged in the cable, tapped her screen awake, and opened a folder structure so neat it made Mason feel like his deck box was an active crime scene.

  RUBEN COLE vs EVAN LUTZ — BAY 11

  “Start at Beat four,” Naomi said. The stylus was already in her hand.

  Mason’s eyebrows rose. “You remember the exact Beat.”

  “I remember when the trap was set.”

  “That’s not what I—” He stopped, then let the sentence die. “Right. Patterns.”

  Naomi’s stylus hovered, a quiet warning. “Eat something.”

  “I will, Mom.”

  Her attention flicked up, sharp enough to cut. “Your mother is right to worry.”

  Mason took a bite of the sandwich he’d bought because it was cheap and came with two sides. He chewed with the serious expression of someone trying to convince his body it wasn’t being betrayed by cafeteria-level bread.

  Naomi scrubbed the timeline. The footage was raw field cam with the basic overlays—Charge, Core Integrity, lane markers. No highlight edits, no dramatic zooms. Just two players and the Core Field shimmer.

  Anchor Bite sat face-down in Ruben’s Tactic lane.

  Beat counter: 4.

  Feral Lance lunged. The thrust hit. ARMOR FRACTURE flashed.

  Then the trap triggered.

  Naomi tapped a control Mason didn’t even know existed on the viewer app. The playback shifted to frame-by-frame, each advance a tiny slice of motion.

  The lane shimmer began to stitch the glyphs into existence—hooked lines forming like someone drawing in light.

  And Feral Lance turned its head.

  Not toward Iron Grip. Not toward Ruben.

  Down. Directly at the half-formed glyphs.

  Its eyes widened.

  Its posture dipped like bracing for a hit that hadn’t happened yet.

  Mason’s stomach dropped with the same cold, sour speed as in the bay.

  “There,” he said. The word came out too quiet, as if volume might make it worse.

  Naomi paused the frame. The trap icon in the overlay hadn’t fully resolved into its “revealed” state. The system knew what was happening, but the broadcast layer hadn’t finished telling the audience.

  Naomi zoomed in until pixels started to break at the edges. “Again.”

  She backed up four frames, then advanced one at a time.

  Feral Lance’s eyes widened on frame three.

  The glyphs completed on frame five.

  The trap’s overlay confirmation landed after that, a fraction behind the reality.

  Mason stared until his vision felt tight. “That’s early.”

  “It’s before the viewer layer commits,” Naomi said.

  Mason glanced around the café like someone might overhear “viewer layer” and decide they’d become a problem. Nobody cared. Everyone was busy in their own footage, their own arguments, their own private rituals of control.

  He leaned closer, voice low. “So what does that mean in normal-person terms?”

  Naomi’s stylus tapped the screen once, then stilled. “The audience UI is late. The field isn’t.”

  Mason swallowed. “Like stream delay.”

  A small nod.

  “So the creature reacted to the field change, not the pretty version of it.”

  Naomi didn’t confirm. She didn’t deny. She just scrubbed the frames again, like repetition could sand down the edge of the implication.

  On the next pass, she toggled a telemetry sidebar. It slid in with the bland austerity of public data—numbers spectators were allowed to see if they cared enough to dig through menus.

  FIELD STABILITY: 99.4%

  INPUT LATENCY: 12ms

  BUFFER ROUTE: STANDARD

  On the Beat Anchor Bite triggered, FIELD STABILITY spiked.

  99.4 → 101.1 → 99.6

  Mason’s throat tightened. “That number again.”

  Naomi’s jaw flexed. “Not as high as Bay 3.”

  “But it’s not supposed to go over a hundred at all.”

  “It shouldn’t.” The phrasing landed with the weight of someone who’d stopped trusting “should.”

  Mason stared at the spike until it felt like it was staring back. “If a hundred is ‘fully stable,’ then 101 is… what. Extra stable?”

  Naomi’s stylus made a small, impatient circle. “Overcompensation.”

  Mason searched for an analogy that didn’t make him sound like he’d joined a cult. “Like a seatbelt that locks, then keeps tightening.”

  Naomi’s eyes flicked to him, then away. She didn’t like metaphors that made systems feel alive, but she didn’t reject it either.

  She saved the clip.

  Not to the main folder.

  A small pop-up appeared.

  ENCRYPTED ARCHIVE — KEY REQUIRED.

  Her finger hovered for a fraction too long before tapping confirm.

  Mason watched her hand more than the screen. The micro-pause, the too-controlled breath. A tell.

  “Why encrypt it?” he asked.

  Naomi’s stylus halted in midair. For a moment she didn’t look up, as if eye contact would make the question heavier.

  “Because if someone takes my tablet,” she said, “I want them to work for it.”

  Mason leaned back, trying to keep his tone light and failing. “Who’s taking your tablet?”

  Naomi’s attention stayed on the screen. “People take what they want when it matters.”

  The sentence came out too smoothly, like she’d practiced it.

  Mason’s mouth tightened. He hated how quickly the room felt smaller. He hated how easily he believed her.

  He forced himself back onto safer rails, because safer rails were what he did. “Okay. So we have evidence of something we can’t explain and can’t show anyone without sounding like we’re trying to monetize paranoia.”

  Naomi’s gaze lifted, sharp. The air between them cooled.

  “Don’t shrink it,” she said.

  Mason held the look, then nodded once. “You’re right. That was me ducking.”

  Naomi didn’t soften. She didn’t need to. The correction was enough.

  She rotated the tablet slightly, bringing up bracket projections. “You have another match block tomorrow.”

  “Of course you already looked.”

  “I didn’t look,” Naomi said. “I calculated.”

  Mason exhaled through his nose, almost amused despite himself. “What’s my probable nightmare.”

  Naomi highlighted a name.

  KAITO BRENNER — Controller/Support

  Mason’s shoulders dropped. “Support.”

  Naomi didn’t bother with sympathy. “He wants long games. He builds engines. He punishes direct aggression with reflection traps and sustain.”

  “So I can’t just run at him.”

  “You can,” Naomi said, “if you want to hand him a highlight.”

  Mason snorted. “Fair.”

  Naomi opened a clip of Kaito’s last set. On Beat six, a Striker forced what looked like an Opening. A trap triggered—clean mirror glyphs—and the damage snapped back into the attacker’s Core Integrity. The crowd in the clip had loved it.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  Naomi rewound and played it again, slower. “He leaves lanes open on purpose.”

  Mason leaned in, elbows on the table. “Bait.”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s a Controller who acts like a Support,” Mason said, the words forming as he watched Kaito’s posture in the clip. “He offers you a gift and charges interest.”

  Naomi’s stylus paused. “Accurate.”

  Mason looked at her. “That’s a horrifying way to phrase it.”

  “It’s still accurate.”

  Naomi tapped to a notes page and began sketching a Beat map—when Kaito typically set traps, when his engine pieces came online, when his Charge dips exposed him.

  “You pressure early,” she said, “without committing your Rank-4. Force him to reveal the first trap, then pivot. Terrain denial. Feints. And one thing you dislike.”

  Mason braced. “Patience.”

  Naomi’s eyes stayed level. “Patience.”

  Mason leaned back and let his head hover near the booth cushion like he was considering letting the upholstery swallow him. “Ruben infected you.”

  “He was correct.”

  “That’s not a sentence I expected from you.”

  “I don’t like him,” Naomi said, stylus moving.

  “You don’t like anyone.”

  “I like some people.”

  Mason’s gaze jumped to her face. “Name one.”

  Naomi’s stylus slowed. Her attention held on him for a Beat too long, like she’d stepped into a lane and realized it was more exposed than intended.

  Then she looked back at the screen. “Kaito. He writes clean match reports.”

  Mason’s laugh came out quick, half relief, half disbelief. “That was evasive.”

  Naomi didn’t deny it.

  He studied the Beat map again, forcing himself to re-anchor in the practical. “You want me to bluff Wedge Snare.”

  “I want you to make him play around it even when it isn’t set.”

  Mason’s mouth quirked. “Weaponize what he thinks I am.”

  “Yes.” Naomi tapped her stylus against the screen once. “He’ll assume you overcommit. So don’t.”

  Mason reached toward the tablet to drag the timeline back to Kaito’s trap timing.

  Naomi reached at the same time to adjust the zoom.

  Their fingers brushed at the edge of the screen—brief contact, skin on skin.

  Both hands stopped as if a trap had armed itself.

  The café noise didn’t vanish, but it shifted—background sounds turning distant while Mason’s pulse got loud in his throat.

  Naomi drew her hand back first, not fast, just precise. She adjusted the zoom from the opposite side of the tablet, as if repositioning could undo the moment.

  Mason forced his hand to move again like it had been nothing. He cleared his throat, grabbed his drink, realized it was empty, then set it down as if that had been the plan.

  “Bluffing,” he repeated, too casual. “Cool.”

  Naomi didn’t look up. “Yes.”

  They worked through the plan anyway. Naomi pulled clips, pausing at Kaito’s tells—when his eyes shifted to the far lane before setting a trap, when he hesitated a fraction before committing a Support engine piece, when his Charge curve dipped and he covered it with a “safe” heal.

  Mason asked questions that mattered. He offered adjustments that surprised even him—angles for feints, ways to pressure without triggering mirror traps, small lines that used his Controller tools as threats rather than commitments.

  Naomi listened. Sometimes she nodded. Sometimes she corrected. Once, when Mason found a timing window she hadn’t flagged, her stylus stalled, and her mouth tightened in something that wasn’t annoyance.

  “Good,” she said, clipped.

  Mason blinked. The word hit harder than it should’ve. Naomi didn’t give out unqualified approval often. When she did, it landed like a card you didn’t know existed until it changed the match.

  He tried not to look pleased. He failed.

  Naomi returned to the Beat map, stylus moving again like she’d accidentally revealed too much.

  After a while, Mason’s sandwich sat half-eaten, forgotten. Naomi’s coffee was gone down to a dark ring at the bottom of the cup.

  Mason rubbed his rig arm, trying to dull the buzzing. “Okay,” he said. “So you have my next match modeled into submission.”

  “It’s not modeled into submission,” Naomi replied. “It’s a model.”

  Mason tilted his head. “You ever get tired of living like that. Everything as a model.”

  “No.”

  He waited, letting the silence do work.

  Naomi’s shoulders shifted with a controlled breath. “Sometimes.”

  Mason’s voice softened without him planning it. “You encrypted that clip like it was contraband.”

  Naomi didn’t respond.

  Mason pointed with his chin at the corner of her screen where the encrypted archive icon still sat like a locked door. “Why collect this much evidence if it’s just… curiosity. A normal folder would do.”

  Naomi rotated the empty cup slowly, once, leaving a faint condensation ring. Her stylus clicked against the tablet edge, then stopped. Another tell.

  “It isn’t just curiosity,” she said.

  Mason didn’t jump on it. He let the space open, gave her room to back away if she wanted.

  Naomi’s gaze lifted. The calm was still there, but the strain around her eyes looked sharper now, like she’d been reading fine print for too long.

  “AstraForge approached me,” she said.

  Mason’s mouth went dry. “Here.”

  “In the venue earlier,” Naomi replied. “After Bay 3. Then again today, indirectly.”

  “Because of your NP_Theory stuff.”

  A small nod.

  “What did they want?”

  Naomi opened a document preview. It was clean corporate formatting with her name at the top and enough black bars in the text to make Mason’s skin prickle.

  INTERNSHIP OFFER — ASTRAFORGE APPLIED SYSTEMS — CONDITIONAL

  Mason stared. “That’s real.”

  Naomi scrolled. Clause after clause marched down the screen like they were trying to fence her in with polite language.

  “It’s paid,” Naomi said. “More than anything I’d make tutoring or doing matchup write-ups. It comes with access—raw field logs, internal stability metrics, the monitoring suite. A badge that opens doors that don’t exist for spectators.”

  Mason heard the temptation in the details, and it made him uneasy because it sounded like the exact thing she wanted.

  “And the cost?” he asked.

  Naomi stopped scrolling and tapped a section that made Mason’s stomach clench.

  DATA OWNERSHIP: ALL ANALYSES, DERIVATIONS, AND ASSOCIATED MATERIALS CREATED DURING THE TERM…

  He read the next line and felt his face tighten.

  “Everything you learn becomes theirs,” he said.

  “Yes,” Naomi replied.

  “And the NDA.”

  Naomi tapped another clause.

  NON-DISCLOSURE: INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO CORE FIELD PARAMETERS, FINAL DRIVE MODULATION, AND BIO-NEURAL ECHO CONSTRUCT REACTIVITY…

  Mason’s throat tightened. The phrase was right there, normalized on legal paper like it belonged in a brochure.

  “Bio-neural echo constructs,” he murmured.

  Naomi’s expression went rigid around the edges. “They use it like it’s ordinary.”

  Mason leaned back, anger creeping up hot and sharp. “They’re trying to buy you.”

  Naomi’s mouth twitched, humor without softness. “They’re trying to rent me.”

  Mason’s hands curled around the empty cup until the plastic creaked. He forced himself to loosen his grip before it became embarrassing.

  “Are you going to do it?” he asked.

  Naomi closed the document preview like shutting a door. The screen returned to match footage, as if normalcy was a choice she could make with one tap.

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  The honesty landed like an Opening—rare, dangerous, real.

  “My parents will want me to take it,” Naomi continued. “It’s prestige. It’s a clean path. It’s a story that makes sense.”

  Mason swallowed. “What do you want.”

  Naomi’s eyes flicked to the encrypted archive icon again. “I want to know what the Core Field is doing when nobody’s watching. I want to know what these creatures are when we aren’t calling them ‘constructs’ to feel better.”

  “That’s not a job,” Mason said, quiet.

  “It could be,” Naomi replied, then her jaw tightened like she regretted how much hope sounded like weakness.

  Mason’s mind leapt to warnings he didn’t know how to phrase without sounding like a fear-monger. Inside jobs. Golden cages. Access traded for silence.

  “You’d have to stop asking questions they don’t like,” he said.

  Naomi’s gaze sharpened. “Or I could ask them from inside. With real data. Not scraps.”

  “Scraps still let you speak,” Mason said. “Inside comes with… ownership.”

  Naomi’s fingers flattened on the table, steadying. “If I don’t take it, I keep guessing. I keep pulling public telemetry and pretending it’s enough. I keep encrypting clips like I’m smuggling my own sanity.”

  Mason’s chest tightened. He wanted to tell her she wasn’t alone in that. That he’d seen her hand hover before she hit confirm, like the tablet itself was a risk.

  He didn’t know how to say it without turning it into something too intimate.

  Naomi kept going, voice still controlled. “If I take it, I become part of their narrative even if I fight it. If I don’t, I stay outside and shout into glass.”

  Mason glanced past her shoulder at the café, at the other booths. A kid who looked fourteen sat with a parent, watching match clips with wide eyes. The kid’s hand moved in the air as if practicing commands; the parent sipped tea and smiled like the game was harmless, like the worst thing in the world was losing a round.

  Mason’s voice came out rough. “At least you have a door.”

  Naomi’s brows drew together. “You have doors.”

  “My doors don’t feel like choices,” Mason said. He surprised himself with how fast it came out. “They feel like hallways that end in the same place.”

  Naomi didn’t interrupt. She waited, which was worse than pity.

  Mason stared at his hands. They looked too young to be responsible for anything, but his life didn’t care.

  “My dad thinks this is a phase,” he said. “Not because he hates me. He just sees AstraForge logos everywhere. He sees the way they bought out half my neighborhood and called it ‘revitalization.’ He sees my mom coming home wrecked from double shifts. Then he sees me spending hours learning how to make creatures fight for points.”

  Naomi’s attention softened—not sentimental, just precise, like she was focusing a lens.

  Mason kept his eyes on the condensation ring Naomi had made with her cup. “If nationals don’t change something, I graduate and go full-time at the grocery store. Or I take whatever job my dad’s friend can get me. I watch my parents argue about bills and pretend I’m not part of the stress.”

  Naomi’s mouth tightened. Her stylus wasn’t moving anymore.

  Mason swallowed hard. “So when Ruben tells me not to play hungry…”

  He let out a breath that shook once, then steadied. “I don’t know how. Because if I’m not chasing wins, I’m just a guy with a hobby and a family that needs money.”

  Naomi didn’t reach for her tablet. She didn’t turn his confession into a note. She sat there, still, like stillness was something she could offer.

  When she spoke, her voice stayed quiet and level. “That isn’t why they’re stressed.”

  Mason looked up. “What.”

  Naomi’s gaze held his. “They’re stressed because the world is expensive and corporations squeeze everything they can. That existed before you picked up a deck.”

  His throat burned. He looked away, embarrassed by how close he was to losing control in a café full of strangers.

  Naomi continued, careful in the way she always was—comfort delivered as causality, not sentiment. “You’re trying to build a path that isn’t handed to you. That’s not nothing.”

  Mason let out a tight breath that almost became a laugh. “That sounds like something people write in scholarship essays.”

  Naomi’s mouth tilted a fraction. “I’ve read a lot of scholarship essays.”

  The dryness helped. It gave him something to grip besides the ache in his chest.

  Mason rubbed his face, then dropped his hand. “Okay. Fine. Hunger is still real.”

  Naomi nodded once. “Yes.”

  “And your fear is real.”

  Naomi’s fingers tightened around the empty cup, then relaxed. “Yes.”

  Mason watched her hands. “So you collect evidence because you want control.”

  Naomi’s gaze went to the encrypted icon again. “I collect evidence because if I’m scared, I want it to point somewhere. Evidence makes fear… functional.”

  Mason stared at her for a long Beat. “You’re actually scared.”

  Naomi’s jaw set. “Yes.”

  The word landed without decoration. No joke. No deflection.

  Mason’s voice softened. “Of making the wrong choice.”

  “Of making the choice that’s easiest to explain,” Naomi replied. “And waking up later realizing I traded my questions for a badge.”

  Mason nodded slowly, feeling the shape of it. “And I’m scared of making the choice I don’t want because it’s the only one left.”

  Naomi’s fingers moved on the tabletop, drifting closer to his hand, then stopping a few inches away. Not touch. Not retreat. Just reduced distance.

  Mason stared at the gap like it was a lane boundary you couldn’t cross without consequences.

  He tried to lighten the air because it was getting heavy enough to crush him. “So,” he said, voice deliberately casual, “this is the worst study session I’ve ever had.”

  Naomi’s gaze flicked down to the space between their hands, then back up. “Worst?”

  “I don’t know what normal people do in cafés,” Mason said. “Probably not discuss corporate ownership clauses and stability spikes and possible not-actually-fake creatures.”

  Naomi’s stylus rolled once between her fingers. “Is that what this is.”

  Mason blinked. “What.”

  “A study session.” Naomi’s voice stayed flat, but something in her posture shifted—subtle, as if she’d placed a foot on the edge of a line and realized she could step back at any time.

  Heat climbed behind Mason’s ears. He grabbed his empty cup again, then set it down like it was useful.

  “It started as a study session,” he said.

  Naomi waited.

  Mason stared at the Beat map on her screen and decided to be less of a coward, at least by a millimeter. “Now it’s still that. But I like being here.”

  Naomi blinked once. The smallest smile appeared and vanished so fast it felt like a glitch.

  “Data point,” she said.

  Mason’s laugh came out in a rush, relief making his chest loosen. “Of course you’d call it that.”

  Naomi’s gaze dropped again. Her fingers moved a fraction closer, then stopped.

  “You should eat,” she said, nodding at the forgotten sandwich.

  Mason looked down like it had just spawned. “Right. Nutrition. Vital.”

  Naomi’s eyes narrowed. “You’re shaking.”

  Mason froze, then forced himself not to lie. “Yeah.”

  Naomi opened her bag and pulled out a sugar packet—unopened, perfectly intact. She slid it across the table toward him like it was a low-cost card with a specific effect.

  Mason stared at it. “You’re giving me sugar.”

  “I’m giving you something to do with your hands.”

  Mason picked it up and rolled it between his fingers. The small motion anchored him, gave his nervous system a job.

  “Thanks,” he said, and meant it.

  Naomi nodded once and reopened the bracket projection, raising the wall again—but it didn’t feel as thick now. Not after she’d admitted fear. Not after he’d admitted hunger.

  They spent another stretch refining the Kaito line: which traps Mason could set without losing tempo, how to feint pressure without triggering mirrored reflection, when to queue Rank-3 instead of jumping to Rank-4 out of panic.

  Naomi wrote a short list on her tablet, then copied it to a small note and slid it across the table like handing him a charm.

  DO NOT OVERCHASE.

  BAIT FIRST TRAP.

  HOLD WEDGE SNARE.

  Mason read it, then looked up. “You wrote it like a threat.”

  “It is,” Naomi replied.

  Mason folded the note carefully and tucked it into his deck box with the kind of reverence he usually reserved for rare cards. “Okay. I’ll do it your way.”

  Naomi’s brow lifted. “You’re agreeing without arguing.”

  “Don’t get attached,” Mason said. “It’s not my brand.”

  Naomi began packing—tablet, stand, cable—returning each item to her bag in the same order it had come out. The ritual looked like she was putting herself back into a shape the world understood.

  Mason watched her hands wrap the cable loop by loop. “Are you going to tell AstraForge no?”

  Naomi paused with the cable half-coiled. “Not yet.”

  Mason’s stomach sank.

  She met his gaze. “Not yes either.”

  He exhaled, slow. “Okay.”

  Naomi finished packing and kept her hand on the bag strap for a moment without standing, as if she was deciding whether to add something she couldn’t quantify.

  “After your next match,” she said, “we do this again.”

  Mason answered too fast. “Yeah.”

  Naomi’s eyes narrowed, the edge of amusement returning. “Try to pretend you’re checking your schedule.”

  Mason leaned back, forced his posture into something calmer. “I’ll consult my calendar.”

  “Good.”

  They stood at the same time and hit the awkward pause at the end of something that wasn’t named. No hug. No touch. Just the awareness of how much space existed and how intentionally they were not crossing it.

  Naomi shifted her bag higher on her shoulder. “Mason.”

  He looked up.

  Her voice was low enough that the café noise nearly swallowed it. “Don’t play hungry.”

  The words weren’t Ruben’s warning anymore. They were hers—adopted, sharpened, offered.

  Mason nodded once. “I’ll try to hear the match.”

  Naomi studied him for a Beat like she was deciding whether that was acceptable. Then she gave a small nod and turned toward the door.

  Mason gathered his rig case and the remains of his food, moving slower than he needed to. Not to stall. Just to let his body catch up to the fact that his life had shifted a few degrees in a café booth.

  When Naomi reached the entrance, her tablet chimed softly. She glanced down at it without stopping, then continued out.

  Mason watched her go, then forced himself to look back at the table—at the faint condensation ring, at the sugar packet wrapper in his hand, at the place where their fingers had brushed the tablet edge like a small contact that changed the field.

  His own rig pinged—an incoming message.

  He checked the HUD.

  From: Naomi Park

  Subject: Kaito — Beat 5 tell

  One line of text beneath it:

  If he sets far-lane terrain at Beat 5, he’s holding mirror for Beat 6. Don’t bite.

  Mason stared at the message longer than he needed to read it. Function as intimacy. Strategy as a thread.

  He slipped the rig back into standby and pressed the folded note deeper into his deck box until he could feel it through the plastic divider.

  Evidence in an encrypted archive.

  A corporate offer like a leash made of money.

  A warning about hunger that sounded less like a scold now and more like someone trying to keep him from bleeding out where nobody would see.

  Mason lifted his rig case strap and headed back toward the venue lights, the image of Feral Lance’s widened eyes fixed behind his own—hard truth—while Naomi’s message sat warm on his HUD—soft constraint.

  Both of them felt like they mattered.