The EMP had ripped through the safehouse with the surgical precision of a data-ghost. Vashka felt the residual static prickle his skin, a faint buzz of the power grid dying around them. He could hear the heavy thud of boots on the stone floor above, drawing closer, too many of them. His hand tightened on Lescara’s, the cold precision of the air shifting confirming his fear. They weren’t coming in. They were already *in*. “Stairwell access,” Lescara murmured, already moving, tugging him towards a reinforced hatch tucked behind a stack of defunct power cells. “Main shaft. It’s brutalist construction, thick walls. We’ll drop to the lower levels, then out to the perimeter.” “Sounds like a plan someone with a death wish would devise,” Vashka quipped, but his tone lacked its usual bite. The memory of Lescara’s face, exposed and fierce, still burned behind his eyes. He shoved a smuggled data-shard into his pocket. “Lead the way, boss. Just try not to get us killed before I get to properly insult Orenze one last time.” They scrambled through the hatch, dropping into a narrow, unlit service passage that smelled of ozone and wet masonry. Lescara moved with an unsettling grace, a shadow within shadows, her hand never leaving his as they navigated the tight space. The thudding grew louder, closer, echoing the frantic beat of Vashka’s own pulse. He could hear the low, guttural murmur of comms, the metallic *snick* of weapons being readied. “How many?” he whispered. “At least six,” she replied, her voice a low thrum. “Enforcers. Orenze’s personal guard. Top tier.” They burst into an escape shaft, a vertical canyon of raw stone and exposed rebar, intermittently lit by the sickly glow of a few emergency luminaries. Rain lashed against the grimy windows high above, blurring the neon-streaked sky of Kravoc. The air was thick with the scent of wet dust and metallic fear. Vashka choked on the sulfurous exhaust, the narrow walls pressing in around them as death paced one landing up. “Time to earn my pay, I guess,” he muttered, pulling out the data-shard. “Hold tight.” The guards were a level above, their heavy assault rifles gleaming dully in the dim light. Their point-man, a brute with a scarred face and cold, obsidian eyes, barked orders into a wrist-mounted communicator. Vashka didn't hesitate. He slammed the data-shard against the shaft's main comms conduit., a relic of an older communication era, the kind he knew how to exploit. The shard pulsed with a faint, violet light. His thoughts raced, a torrent of binary and code. He wasn’t trying to jam them; he was going to hijack them. The strike team's gear, while cutting-edge, relied on synchronized biometrics for team identification and targeting. Spoofing their comms wasn't about breaking encryption; it was about injecting false signatures, mimicking their own unique bio-readouts, making them see ghosts where there were none. He pictured a digital echo, a false trace of each operative, duplicated, distorted, then broadcast back to their own targeting displays. The scarred point-man scowled. “Hold positions! Anomalies detected.” Vashka grinned, a feral flash in the gloom. “Showtime.” He pushed a burst of code through the conduit. A sudden crackle of static erupted from the squad's comms, followed by frantic shouts. “He’s behind you! No, *there*!” The operatives, trained for precision, hesitated. Their targeting reticles, projected onto their visors, flared red, indicating a hostile presence—but it was *their own* teammates’ bio-signatures, warped and misplaced. Panic blossomed. A mercenary spun, firing a short, sharp burst into the masonry wall, convinced his comrade was an intruder. Another emptied a clip down the dark spiral, yelling, “I saw him! He phased!” Chaos. Glorious, beautiful chaos. Vashka laughed, a short, sharp bark that echoed unnervingly down the iron steps. “Looks like someone needs new glasses!” Lescara didn’t laugh. She moved. As the Sentinels blundered, firing at empty air, she lunged. The scarred point-man, caught between his real enemies and the digital decoys, barely reacted before Lescara tackled him. She drove him into the grimy floor, his helmet cracking against the impact. Before he could recover, she had a vibro-knife at his throat, its low hum a deadly counterpoint to the panicked gunfire. “Orenze,” she hissed, her voice a low scrape against the din. “Where is he?” The point-man struggled, but Lescara pressed the blade harder, a thin line of blood welling. “Vrost Catacombs,” he gasped, his voice thick with pain and defiance. “Level Seven… The Override Chamber…” “When?” Lescara demanded. “Yes! He’s setting up the purge… for midnight…” The man's pupils shrank to pinpricks as he finally recognized Lescara, terror replacing his earlier defiance. “Vostra? You— Orenze will—” Lescara yanked him up, her grip brutal. “Orenze will learn fear.” She smashed his head back against the stone, knocking him unconscious. “He’s there. Orenze. By morning.” Vashka, still maintaining the spoof, watched the remaining killers melt into a confused, self-destructive melee. “Sounds like our deadline just moved up a few hours, then,” he said, pulling the data-shard free. The comms went silent, save for the grunts of the fallen operatives. “Zero hour. That’s cutting it a little close, even for me.” They slipped past the remaining survivors, scaling down two more levels before finding a service exit that led into a rain-slicked alley. The stench of stale food and exhaust fumes hit them, a welcome assault after the sterile danger of the shaft. Neon signs bled across the wet pavement, painting the narrow street in lurid purples and greens. They were in Kravoc’s oldest night market, a labyrinth of food stalls and illegal data-brokers operating under the cover of artificial rain and perpetual twilight. The alley opened into a teeming street, alive with the cacophony of hawkers, the sizzle of synthetic meat, and the pulsing beat of illicit music. Vashka pushed through the throng, pulling Lescara along. He felt the dull ache of his cut arm, the bruise on his cheek where he’d scraped it against the wall. They were bruised, battered, and running out of time. The thrum of the city was a harsh reminder of the ticking clock. “The deadline,” Lescara said, her voice tight with urgency. “The Override Chamber.” Vashka stopped, watching the flow of anonymous faces, the endless stream of humanity that could hide them, or swallow them whole. His mind raced, connecting dots, sketching out a desperate, audacious plan. Orenze was down in the catacombs, accelerating the purge. They had hours, not days, left. “There’s no way we can just waltz in there, is there?” Vashka mused aloud, his gaze settling on a pair of Vrost private security operatives patrolling the market’s edge, their dark uniforms stark against the neon glow. They were looking for him. He was sure of it. Lescara shook her head. “Not with their security, not right now. Not without root access. Orenze will be locking down the entire Spire.” Vashka’s eyes glinted with a dangerous, reckless humor. “Then we don’t waltz in. We get delivered.” He met Lescara’s gaze, a challenging smirk playing on his lips. “They want the fake heir? Fine. Let’s give them a really, *really* unhappy package.”

Neon Phantoms