The numbers burned into my vision: `00:12:00:00`. Twelve hours. The Valcasta Spire, all its gleaming towers and hidden data streams, gone. Nerea didn’t wait for my sputtering outrage. Her fingers clasped my forearm like iron pliers, hauling me upright.
“No time for existential dread, Valcasta,” she said, her voice now a low, urgent murmur. “The board wants us both deleted. They’re not just locking us in; they’re turning this lounge into a pressure cooker.”
Indeed, the heavy chromesteel door shrieked as a laser grid flickered to life across its surface, followed by the hiss of a neurotoxin gas being pumped through discrete wall vents. The remaining unconscious guards twitched. We wouldn't have long.
Nerea scanned the room, stopping at a bronze-slatted intake grille set high above an abstract wall relief. “Up we go.”
“Are you insane? That’s decorative trim!” I wheezed, bitter chemical vapor already prickling the back of my throat. “It leads nowhere but—.”
Before I could finish, Nerea had already leaped onto a velvet chaise, then to a side table, her Kevlar-lined gown barely hindering her agility. She reached the grate, not bothering with the delicate filigree. She drove the heel of her palm straight into the metal. The casing sheared with a sharp crack. A follow-up blow tore the brass rivets from the studs, revealing a dark, dust-choked maw. The humming of the Spire’s vast internal systems was suddenly much, much louder.
“It leads to the HVAC network, actually. My watch pulled schematics during the gala,” Nerea explained, her voice muffled slightly by the roaring air current. She gestured for me to follow. “Move it, unless you fancy a quick nap courtesy of Solstice Industries.”
I hesitated, one last shard of dignity battling my survival instinct. The gas was making me woozy. The laser grid pulsed ominously closer to the door. With a choked cough, I scrambled after her, pushing through the jagged opening. The instant I was inside, Nerea kicked the bent frame back into place, wedging it hard into the recess. It wouldn't hold forever, but it bought us precious minutes.
Darkness swallowed us, broken only by the faint, pulsing red light from Nerea’s smartwatch. The air was thick with the scent of ozone and stale dust. We crawled, the rough metal grating scraping against my expensive silks, the constant roar of the air currents deafening. I could feel the vibrations of the entire building through my palms. This was utterly humiliating. This was not how a Valcasta heiress evaded capture.
“Left here, then straight for about twenty meters,” Nerea murmured, her voice somehow cutting through the industrial din. “There’s a maintenance access point that should lead us down to the lower corporate sectors. Less guarded, more staff traffic.”
I bit back a retort. My stomach rumbled, a deep, embarrassing growl that echoed in the confined space. I hadn’t eaten anything substantial since the tea party, and that felt like a lifetime ago. The macarons I’d dismissed as tasteless now seemed like an impossible dream.
Nerea paused, tilting her ear against the duct wall to track vibrations through the steel. Then, with a casualness that bordered on offensive, she reached into a hidden pocket in her ridiculous gown. She pulled out a small, grease-stained paper bag.
“Here,” she said, offering it to me. “You look like you’re about to gnaw off your own arm.”
I stared at the bag, then at her. “What… what is that?”
“Truffle fries. From the gala buffet. They were running low, so I snagged a bag for later,” she explained, as if this was the most natural thing in the world. The smell of garlic oil and twice-fried russet potatoes cut through the gritty duct air. My mouth watered, betraying my cultivated composure.
“Are you serious? In the middle of an escape from armed mercenaries, you’re offering me… stolen fast food?” I scoffed, but my voice lacked its usual bite.
“Gourmet fast food. And yes, I’m serious. You need energy. We both do,” she insisted, pushing the bag closer. “Take one. They’re still warm.”
My resolve crumbled. The smell was intoxicating. Against every refined instinct, I reached into the wax paper and pulled out a single golden fry. The crunch rang out over the blower's drone, coarse sea salt hitting my tongue with shocking sharpness. It was divine. I took another. And another. Soon, I was shamelessly devouring them, forgetting the dust, the danger, even Nerea herself, for a glorious moment.
Nerea watched me, a small, knowing smile playing on her lips. “Better?”
I swallowed the last bite, forcing myself to regain some semblance of dignity. “Adequate,” I lied, though my eyes probably betrayed the truth. The grease on my fingers felt like a badge of shame and relief. The shared, absurd moment had chipped away at some of my carefully constructed walls.
“You know,” I began, the words tumbling out before I could stop them, “my… my uncle. He never really saw me as family. After my parents passed, he took me in, but it was always conditional. I had to be flawless. Top marks, the poised socialite, the model successor. He drilled into me that I was a placeholder, a temporary solution until the *true* heir emerged.” I gestured vaguely in her direction. “I’ve spent my entire life trying to prove I wasn’t. That I deserved this. That I wasn’t a fraud.” My voice cracked, raw with a vulnerability I hadn’t shown anyone in decades. “It’s why I pushed so hard, why I hated you for just… existing.”
Nerea was quiet for a long moment, the only sound the roaring ventilation. She didn’t gloat, didn’t judge. She simply listened. When she spoke, her voice was softer than I’d ever heard it.
“I get it,” she said without mockery. “Being told you’re not enough, or that you’re only there until something better comes along… it digs deep. For me, I never wanted any of this. The Spire, the billions, the corporate wars. All I ever wanted was to get high-speed fiber to Aitzandi, my village. We’ve been begging the conglomerates for years, but no one cares about a few hundred goat farmers in the middle of nowhere. My *aita* and *ama*… they just want reliable internet so they can sell their cheese online and video call their cousins in Donostia without it buffering every five seconds. This inheritance… it was supposed to be my way to fund it myself. Cut out the middleman, build our own grid.” She let out an uncharacteristically dry huff. “Now, it’s just twelve hours of trying not to die and watch everything burn.”
Her confession, so simple and utterly devoid of avarice, struck me. My grand, complex schemes, my psychological warfare, all of it seemed petty next to her honest, small-town dream. The cold, calculating world of Valcasta Inc. felt even more distant. In the grimy belly of the duct, trading stolen gala snacks, our conflicting ambitions narrowed down to raw survival.
Suddenly, Nerea stiffened. Her earpiece, almost invisible in her earlobe, crackled to life. She pressed a finger to it, her eyes narrowing. I could faintly hear a tinny, excited voice, punctuated by a familiar *cock-a-doodle-doo*.
“Bixente?” Nerea hissed into the mic. “Report. What’s happening on the roof?”
I leaned closer, straining to hear. The faint voice grew clearer, tinged with urgency and the unmistakable sound of a heavy-lift rotor cutting through the metropolitan air.
“Nerea! Boss! You won’t believe it! The board… they’re moving the Master Terminal! I’m watching it from the roof! They’ve got a heavy transport chopper, one of those black Raven-class models, airlifting the whole server array off the ninety-ninth floor’s roof access now! They’re taking it!”