Zoya stared at the screen, the image of her past self, younger, sharper, almost a stranger, holding her gaze. Her voice, calm and detached, filled the alleyway. “If you’re watching this, the memory wipe worked.”
Soran, still a breath away, stiffened. He hadn't pulled fully back, heat radiating off his leather jacket against the cool night draft. His stare flicked from the datapad to Zoya’s face.
“My master plan,” past Zoya continued, a faint, almost imperceptible tremor in her tone, “the true blueprint for the ‘Spite’ installation, the method to unravel my dear ex-patron and his cronies… it’s too volatile. Too dangerous to hold in my conscious mind, where he could pry it out. You know what he’s capable of. His talent for mental extraction is as refined as his taste for theft.”
Present Zoya tasted sour bile at the back of her throat. His “talent.” The rumors back in the gilded capital of his uncanny ability to anticipate every move, every counter-attack, every legal loophole. Not gossip, she realized now. Truth.
“The neural scrub was precise,” the video Zoya explained, her expression unchanging. “Performed by Dr. Amata. She’s trustworthy. The core concept, the driving spite, that remains. But the *how*, the *when*, the *who*… those details are locked away. Scrambled. Even to me.”
Soran shifted, a low rasp in his throat. “A scrub?” he muttered. “You did this to yourself?”
Zoya ignored him, her focus riveted on the screen. Past Zoya’s gaze, so like her own, now held a desperate edge. “The thief has informants everywhere, Zoya. He’s already bought off half the city. Do not trust anyone. Not your allies, not your runners, not even the people you assume are under your thumb. Especially not them.”
The alley seemed to shrink, the lurid glow of the Mekaran night pressing in. Zoya’s gaze flickered to Soran, then back to the datapad. A sudden, sharp understanding pierced through her. Niro. His fumbling with the bug, his too-eager compliance, his carefully constructed sob story about needing work. It all clicked into place, grotesque and predictable.
“The clues to reconstruct the plan are hidden,” past Zoya went on, her tone chillingly precise. “Scattered across Mekara, disguised as mundane purchase orders, discarded sketch notes, fragments of data in forgotten files. Each piece is coded to trigger a specific neural imprint, slowly rebuilding the whole. You’ll know them when you see them. But remember,” her voice dropped to a conspiratorial hiss, “trust no one. He can read intent. He can twist loyalty. He will use your own affections against you.”
The video flickered, and past Zoya offered a grim, humorless smile. “The final piece, the key to bringing down his entire empire, is encoded into a specific heirloom. A piece of high-born history. A signet ring. Find it. Expose it. And tear him down, Zoya. Grind him into dust.”
The screen went dark, the video ending abruptly. The silence that followed was heavy, ringing with the glare of the small monitor.
Zoya didn’t speak, didn’t move. Her mind raced, sifting through every interaction, every casual glance, every word spoken since she’d arrived in Mekara.
Soran watched her, his expression unreadable, his earlier intensity replaced by a distant neutrality. “You really just… forgot your own plan?” he asked, his voice low, as if testing the words.
Zoya finally looked at him, a cold, hard glint in her eyes. “It seems I’ve been playing a much longer game than I thought.” She shoved the datapad back into her belt. “And it seems I have a certain fixer to re-fix.”
“You’re going back?” Soran asked, his brow furrowed.
“To the warehouse? No. Too obvious.” Zoya moved with sudden purpose, pulling out her own comm-pad. “Niro has a favorite haunt. A gambling den in the Lower Canyons. He assumes it’s secure. He figures I’m oblivious.” Her lips twisted into a predatory smile. “He gambles wrong.”
***
The air in the ‘Spinning Coin’ gambling den was thick with the scent of stale smoke, cheap synth-ale, and desperation. The clatter of dice and the whir of roulette wheels provided a constant, grating backdrop. Zoya found Niro Batz hunched over a holopoker table, his face pale and slick with sweat, his eyes darting nervously at the other players.
He saw her approach, and a flicker of irritation, quickly masked, crossed his features. “Zoya? What are you doing here? I thought… I sent the gilded bastard's dispatch. Told him you were out of the game. Selling off inventory.” He straightened, trying to appear nonchalant, but his hands rattled slightly against a stack of plastic chips.
Zoya leaned against a grimy pillar, her gaze sweeping over the table, assessing the game, the players, and Niro’s pathetic attempts at a bluff. “Selling inventory, Niro? Is that what he thinks you’re doing for me?” Her tone stayed even, almost pleasant, cutting through the din of the den like sheet metal.
Niro gave a forced laugh. “Of course. What else? You’re done, right? We talked about this.”
“We did,” Zoya agreed, her eyes narrowing. “We talked about a lot of things. Like the Breccon-issue micro-bug you planted in my warehouse. Remember that, Niro? The one that chirps straight into Julian’s ear?”
Niro’s face went slack. The chips he was holding clattered onto the table. “What? I… I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He darted a look around, but the other gamblers were too engrossed in their own losses to notice.
“Oh, you know, Niro.” Zoya pushed off the pillar, stepping closer. Her shadow fell over him like a shroud. “I had a feeling, you see. A little voice in my head, telling me not to trust the charming local fixer. My instincts, they’re rarely wrong. And then I found the bug. Tucked neatly under the kinetic-resin container. A perfect little listening device, courtesy of his private tech division.”
He stammered, his eyes wide with panic. “No! You’re mistaken! I swear, Zoya, I would never…”
“Save it.” Zoya’s voice turned cold, stripped of its earlier amusement. “I knew you were a double agent from the moment I found it. But I let you play your game. I let you feed my thieving ex all the lies I wanted him to hear. About giving up. About selling my supplies. About my pathetic, broken heart.” She leaned in, her words quiet and jagged. “Funny, isn’t it? How easy it is to manipulate someone who assumes they’re holding the leash.”
Niro’s facade crumbled. He sagged in his seat, all the bluster draining out of him. His eyes, usually shifty and calculating, were now filled with a raw, desperate fear. “Please, Zoya. Don’t… don’t tell him. He’ll… he’ll kill me.”
“And why would he kill you, Niro?” Zoya prodded, enjoying the exquisite torment. “What exactly are you doing for him that makes your life forfeit if he finds out you’re compromised?”
He swallowed hard, his throat working. “My sister… Elia. She’s sick. With the bone blight. The treatment… it’s imported from the upper estates. Costs everything. Julian… he offered to cover it. In exchange for… for information. He said you were a threat to his new projects. He said you deserved what you got.” Niro looked up, tears welling in his eyes. “I just… I needed the money, Zoya. She’s all I have.”
Zoya’s expression remained impassive. Sentiment was a weakness she couldn’t afford. “Your sister, Elia,” she repeated, lodging the name into her mental inventory. “So, he has you by the throat with family debt. Convenient for him. Less so for you, now that I know.” She straightened, offering zero sympathy. “Here’s how this works, Niro. You keep feeding him my fabricated intel. You keep playing the devoted informant. But now, you also feed *me* his secrets. Every rumor, every order, every move he makes against me. You are my eyes and ears inside his network. You will be my weapon.”
Niro nodded frantically, his face tear-streaked. “Yes, Zoya. Anything. Just… please. Don’t let him hurt Elia.”
“He won’t,” Zoya promised, a dangerous glint in her eyes. “Because you’re going to help me destroy him first.” She tossed a datachip onto the table, directly in front of him. “This contains the first set of falsified plans for your patron. Make sure he gets it. And this,” she added, dropping a small, flat device next to it, “is a secured comm-channel. You will report to me, and only me, every twelve hours. Understood?”
Niro snatched up the devices. “Understood, Zoya. Yes. Completely.”
Zoya watched him for a moment longer, a cold satisfaction settling in her. The chess pieces were moving. She turned to leave, her work here done. As she walked away, the chaotic sounds of the gambling den seemed to recede, replaced by the ghost of her past self’s voice.
*“The final piece, the key to bringing down his entire empire, is encoded into a specific heirloom. A piece of high-born history. A signet ring. Find it. Expose it. And tear him down, Zoya. Grind him into dust.”*
And then, a surname surfaced. Not from the video, but triggered by the word ‘heirloom’—a scrap of overheard chatter from a long-forgotten gala back in the gilded capital.
*“The Kest family signet… a true mark of status.”*
Zoya stopped dead, her head snapping up. Her gaze swept across the grimy, neon-lit street, past the vendors, past the buzzing holographic advertisements, and landed on a familiar figure leaning against a dark alley wall across the thoroughfare, his long-lens camera still trained on her. Soran. Kest. The brooding street photographer was a runaway aristocrat.