Luca's hands stayed visible, away from his sides. The clandestine pistol in Nisede's grip didn't waver.

  "Nisede..."

  Alarms blared through the corridor.

  Red lights flooded everything. Through the corridor behind Nisede, more alarms triggered, a cascading failure of security systems lighting up in sequence.

  "Shit!" Nisede spun, her pistol tracking toward the corridor behind Luca. "Someone triggered the vault's failsafe."

  "Chris, what the hell..."

  "Sorry!" Chris's voice crackled through the earpiece, strained. "I am locked into a counter-intrusion protocol on the upper levels. Guards are flooding your position. Twenty-plus hostiles, maybe more."

  Through the corridor, Luca could hear boots, lots of them, thundering toward their position.

  The first guards rounded the corner. Six of them in light armor raised compact plasma weapons, civilian security models that looked like oversized uzis.

  Nisede fired twice, dropping the lead guard. Luca's hand went to his hip on instinct. Nothing there. He'd come unarmed, planning to rely on his wits alone.

  Shit. Should've brought the tomahawk.

  But more kept coming.

  The corridor erupted into chaos. Guards flooded the space: ten, fifteen, more behind them. Each one armed with plasma daggers and stun batons, close-quarters weapons designed for vault defense.

  Luca activated [Weak Point Focus]. The world sharpened, highlighting vulnerabilities: exposed joints, helmet gaps, balance points. A guard lunged, plasma dagger slashing. Luca dodged, drove a palm strike into the guard's throat, and grabbed the dagger before it hit the ground. The weight felt wrong compared to his tomahawk, but it would do.

  [Calculating... XP]

  [Calculating... Credits]

  Nisede's tail whipped out, catching a guard's ankle. She followed with a double-tap to his helmet.

  Another guard charged. Luca slashed the man's forearm to the bone and followed with a kick that hyperextended his knee with a sickening crack.

  A stun baton cracked across Luca's shoulder. He spun through the agony, drove the plasma dagger into a gap in the guard's armor, and ripped the baton from his convulsing grip.

  Dagger in one hand, baton in the other. Blood splattered the walls.

  "You gave me Serath's datapad!" Nisede shouted over the chaos, her back slamming against the wall beside him. She reloaded, ejecting the spent magazine. "You told me she died with honor!"

  "She did die with honor!"

  A guard grabbed Nisede from behind. She snarled, her elbow snapping back into his ribs. Luca drove the plasma dagger into the guard's thigh, twisted. Blood sprayed hot across his hand.

  "Then you stole my access card and came here anyway!"

  "Yeah, and you're here too!" Luca shot back, cracking the stun baton across another guard's helmet.

  Every time she advanced, he instinctively covered her flanks. Every time she fired, he closed the gaps with blade and baton. Her tail caught one guard across the face. Luca buried the dagger in the gap between his helmet and collar.

  A guard locked Luca in a chokehold from behind. His vision blurred. Nisede's tail wrapped around the guard's leg and yanked him off balance.

  "You good?" she asked, breathless but fierce.

  "Yeah." Luca barely managed a nod before another wave hit them.

  "They're trying to pin us!" Nisede's back pressed against Luca's.

  "Follow my lead!" Luca activated [Pattern Recognition]. The guards' movements solidified: gaps in formation, timing windows, split-second opportunities.

  He surged forward, Nisede right behind him. Luca drove his dagger into one guard's kidney, slashed another's hamstring. Her tail whipped across a third guard's face. Luca hurled the plasma dagger. It caught the guard in the neck. The guard gurgled, collapsed.

  Her pistol clicked empty. "Out!" She grabbed a fallen guard's dagger, kept moving.

  "Chris, can you unlock the service shaft?"

  "Already done," Chris's voice came through. "Twenty meters, your left. Move!"

  A plasma bolt caught Nisede's shoulder, spinning her. She cried out, stumbling.

  "I got you." Luca caught her, his arm around her waist, half-carrying her as he swung a liberated stun baton one-handed at anyone who got close.

  "Keep going," she gasped. "Don't stop."

  The service shaft door hung open. Luca shoved her through first, then followed, slamming it shut. Plasma fire scorched the metal behind them. The guards were already trying to burn through.

  Inside, emergency lighting cast everything in red. A ladder descended into darkness.

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  Nisede was already moving, her good arm gripping the rungs. Blood seeped through her scout suit shoulder. "I've had worse."

  They descended fast, boots clanging on metal. Above them, the sound of cutting torches. The guards burning through.

  Three levels down, Luca kicked the access panel open. They stumbled into a maintenance corridor, boots echoing on metal grating.

  Above them, metal shrieked. The service shaft door gave way.

  Boots on the ladder. Shouts. Six guards, maybe eight, descending fast.

  Luca's gaze darted around. Utility panel on the wall. He sprinted to it, slammed his hand onto the emergency release.

  The corridor plunged into darkness.

  The guards faltered, their advance breaking as they searched the sudden darkness. Luca activated [Proximity Threat Map]. His interface lit up with enemy positions, vision cones, and movement paths. Eight guards. Three on the ladder, five already in the corridor.

  He activated [Heightened Awareness]. Every sound crystallized. The rasp of breath. Boot scraping metal.

  [Phantom Strike] came next. The micro-disruption field masked his movements.

  He struck hard and fast.

  The first guard never saw him. Luca's stun baton caught him across the temple. Skull met metal with a wet crack. He dropped.

  Nisede swept another's legs from under him, her blade opening his throat in one savage slash. Blood jetted against the cold metal.

  A plasma dagger flashed. Luca caught the guard's wrist, twisted until bones snapped. Luca silenced him with the baton across the jaw.

  The metallic taste of blood filled Luca's mouth. His lip had split at some point. Every muscle screamed. His dress shoes were slick with blood and worse.

  Until the last one crumpled to the floor.

  Luca staggered back, his chest heaving. Every inch of him ached, his body screaming in protest. Nisede was just as worn, her hands braced on her knees as she caught her breath. Blood slicked the floor under his feet and painted the walls.

  Emergency lighting flickered back on, dim and red.

  Their eyes met in the dim glow. The air between them felt thin, electric. Nisede straightened, wiping a smear of blood from her lip, her expression hardening.

  Before Luca could react, she lunged. Luca caught her fist mid-swing, slammed her back against the wall hard enough that the impact punched the air from her lungs.

  She snarled, teeth bared, and drove her knee up between his legs, stopping a centimeter short when he twisted his hips. Her golden eyes flashed pure murder.

  "You used me," she spat, breath hot against his mouth.

  The words hung between them like a live wire. Luca felt them land, felt the weight of what he'd done. The stolen access card. The manipulation. The way he'd looked her in the eyes and lied.

  "You're one to talk," he growled back, forearm braced across her collarbones, pinning her so tight he could feel her heart hammering against his skin. "You're here for the same thing I am. Problem?"

  Her chest heaved. For a moment, something cracked in her expression. Not softness. Something rawer. Betrayal that cut both ways.

  Her tail coiled around his thigh with crushing force, yanking him forward until there wasn't an inch of space left.

  "Good," she hissed. "Stay that way. Makes it easier to hate you."

  "Why are you really here?" Luca demanded, his voice a low growl, his breath hot against her cheek.

  Nisede's glare didn't soften, her chest heaving as she met his gaze with unwavering defiance. "Why are you?" she countered, her tone sharp, challenging, but her eyes betrayed a flicker of something deeper.

  Slowly, Luca loosened his grip, but he didn't step back.

  "We're getting nowhere like this," he said finally. "Truce?"

  Nisede hesitated, jaw clenched. Her tail lashed behind her, hard enough that it cracked against the metal grate. Her eyes searched his, looking for the lie, the angle, the next betrayal.

  "Fine," she spat. "But only because dying next to you would piss me off even more."

  "I'll take it."

  "Don't get used to it."

  Chris's voice crackled through the earpiece. "Luca, you still alive?"

  "Barely. Where are we?"

  "Maintenance level three. The vault's secondary entrance is two levels down, but there's a problem. Laser grid between you and the access point. Dense. Resets every twenty seconds. And Luca?" Chris paused. "There are guards. Four of them. Cameras too."

  "Can you disable it?"

  "Not without triggering more alarms. You'll have to go through it."

  Nisede pushed off the wall, moving down the corridor despite her injury. "This way. I know the grid."

  They reached the grid room, and Luca's breath caught.

  It was enormous. Thirty meters across at least, with a ceiling that vanished into darkness above. Red laser beams crisscrossed the space in a dizzying web, cycling through different configurations every twenty seconds. High above, cameras pivoted constantly, scanning every angle with mechanical precision. Four guards patrolled the corners of the room, their eyes trained for any disturbance.

  "Holy shit," Luca breathed.

  Nisede nodded grimly. "You can't fight your way through this. We work together or we both die."

  "Fine by me."

  "Good." She pulled a small device from her belt, wincing. "I'll disable the cameras on my mark. You handle the guards if they spot us."

  As the laser grid reset, they slipped into the room, every movement tense.

  Nisede went first, her movements fluid despite the wounded shoulder. She ducked under the first beam, twisted through the second. Luca followed, matching her rhythm. The heat from the laser beams washed over his skin as they cycled past.

  Halfway through, the pattern shifted. Nisede dropped flat and Luca covered her on reflex, the laser's heat scorching the back of his neck. She twisted under him, glaring, and shoved him sideways into the next gap.

  A guard's flashlight swept toward them.

  Luca yanked her in, chest to chest, one hand fisted in the back of her suit to keep her flush against him. Her wounded shoulder was between them; he took the pressure on his own ribs instead.

  She went rigid, then melted just enough that he felt every curve lock against him.

  Her tail slid up the inside of his thigh again, claws pricking through fabric.

  The flashlight passed.

  Nisede slipped forward, disabling the next camera. They alternated, taking turns.

  "You know," Luca whispered as they ducked under another emitter, "for someone from high society, you're pretty good at this."

  Nisede shot him a sidelong glance. "My father thinks everything's a tool for him to exploit." Her expression softened slightly. "Not everyone has a choice in how they're used."

  Luca's eyes lingered on her. "Serath got out."

  "Serath was braver than me." Nisede's tail flicked as she twisted through another laser. "She chose freedom over safety."

  "You're here, aren't you?"

  Chris's voice crackled over the comm. "Luca, you're close, but they're seconds from picking you up. Disable that last camera, or you're blown."

  Luca crawled low to the final camera, working quickly with his hacking pad.

  The last camera went dark.

  They slipped through the final grid of lasers and arrived at a narrow corridor that descended into darkness. Behind them, one of the guards shouted. They'd been spotted.

  "Move!" Luca grabbed Nisede's good arm, pulling her through the door at the corridor's entrance. It sealed behind them with a pneumatic hiss, cutting off the guards' shouts.

  They descended, every step taking them deeper. The air grew colder. The walls transitioned from maintenance gray to polished obsidian.

  At the bottom, the vault door loomed. Biometric scanner. Retinal scan. Voice authentication. Triple-layered security.

  "Can you open it?" Luca asked.

  Nisede stepped forward, her hand trembling slightly as she pressed it to the scanner. "My father's paranoid. I have access."

  The scanner pulsed, reading her palm. The retinal scan activated, mapping her eye. Then the voice prompt appeared.

  "Nisede Velan," she said.

  A pause. Her jaw tightened.

  "Authorization code…"

  She took a long breath.

  "…Serath-seven-nine-two."

  Even now, even after everything, even in a simulation, she was unlocking the future with her sister's name.

  The vault door groaned, massive locks disengaging. It swung open slowly, revealing darkness beyond.

  Nisede glanced up at him, a serious question undercut by a slight smirk. "No more tricks?"

  "No more tricks," Luca replied, though he knew full well that with her, it might always be a dance of trust and betrayal.

  They shared one last look before turning together to face the vault.

  They stepped inside.