A vast, open-plan space stretched across the entire north face, its walls a seamless expanse of electro-chromatic glass that shimmered with an internal, ethereal light. Deep-pile silken rugs, the color of twilight, swallowed every echo, making the space feel both boundless and intimately silent. Sculptural installations, impossible geometries crafted from polished obsidian and spun gold, punctuated the room. The air, cool and faintly ozonic, held the scent of rare woods and something sharper – a metallic tang of filtered air and unearned success. Penn stepped out, his cheap, scuffed Cinder-Wards boots sinking into the rug. He clutched the tattered canvas bag, his prop from the lower wards, a little tighter. A man stood by the far viewport, his back to Penn, silhouetted against the dizzying vista of Veridium’s upper-tier spires. He was a monolith in a bespoke suit, his posture rigid, conveying an authority that seemed to bend the light around him. Tiberius Vangale. Penn felt no familial warmth, only the cold precision of a mark being appraised. The man turned slowly. Tiberius’s face was sharp, chiseled from granite, his eyes the color of old ice. A predator’s gaze, assessing, dismissing, calculating. He wore his wealth like a second skin, impermeable and lethal. Beside him, a younger man, impeccably dressed in a suit of iridescent cerulean, lounged with casual disdain on a cantilevered chaise. This was Sterling Vangale, the adopted heir, his features a softer, more refined copy of Tiberius’s, but his smirk carried a harder edge. He held a datapad, idly swiping, barely glancing up. “Penn,” Tiberius’s voice was a low rumble, devoid of inflection. “Welcome to your… new home.” He didn’t offer a hand, nor did his expression soften. It was a statement, not an invitation. Penn’s face split into a wide, almost manic grin as his gaze darted across the impossible scale of the room. “Whoa! This is… this is bigger than ten Cinder-Wards apartments combined!” He took an exaggerated step forward, his head swiveling, trying to take everything in at once. “Is that real glass? You can see everything! It’s like a giant window to the whole city!” Sterling let out a soft, derisive chuckle, finally looking up from his datapad. His gaze lingered on Penn’s boots, then his worn strap, before settling on Penn’s face with a practiced sneer. “Amusing. I suppose it must be quite the shock after whatever hovel you crawled out of.” Penn ignored him, his performance in full swing. He gestured wildly towards one of the obsidian sculptures, a towering, cantilevered piece that resembled a petrified wave. “And look at that! Is that a rock? A really, really big shiny rock?” He took another step, head tilted back in manufactured awe, his internal clock ticking through the choreography. “I’ve never seen anything so… so fancy!” As he spoke, he pivoted sharply, his canvas pack swinging like a pendulum. His elbow, precisely angled, made contact with the plinth of a pristine, antique porcelain vase, a delicate thing painted with impossible crimson birds. The vase wobbled, then, with a slow, agonizing tilt, it slid from its perch. Time seemed to stretch. Penn let out a yelp of feigned surprise, flailing his arms uselessly, as if trying to catch it. The vase hit the deep rug with a muffled, yet distinct, *crack*. Fragments of crimson bird scattered across the twilight-colored pile. Tiberius did not flinch, though his mouth pressed into a thin, unyielding seam. Sterling, however, sprang to his feet, a look of disgusted fury twisting his handsome features. “You imbecile! Do you have any idea what that was? A pre-Dynastic Celadon Urn! Irreplaceable! You absolute slum-trash!” Penn let his grin collapse into slack-jawed, guilt-ridden dismay. He wrung his hands, his gaze darting between the broken pieces and Sterling’s enraged face. “Oh, no! I am so, so sorry! I didn’t mean to! It just… slipped! I’m so clumsy, I really am.” He bent down clumsily, as if to pick up a piece, his hand brushing Sterling’s leg. In the brief moment of chaos, as Sterling fumed and Tiberius’s security detail began to materialize, Penn’s fingers moved with the practiced grace of a viper. He lifted the slim, metallic rectangle from Sterling’s inner jacket pocket with a motion so fluid it was invisible. Sterling was too busy staring at the broken vase, too caught up in his own outrage, to notice anything but the bumbling idiot at his feet. “Don’t touch it!” Sterling snapped, recoiling as if Penn’s touch might contaminate him. “Just… leave it. Someone will clean up your pathetic mess. Father, honestly, can’t we send him back? He’s going to dismantle the entire penthouse piece by piece.” Tiberius raised a hand, silencing Sterling. His gaze, once again, was fixed on Penn, a long, appraising look that seemed to bore into him. But Penn’s performance held firm, his eyes still wide, his lower lip trembling slightly. “It’s fine, Sterling,” Tiberius finally said, his voice flat. “He’ll learn. Solon, show Penn to his quarters. Ensure he has everything he needs. And perhaps remove anything breakable from the immediate vicinity.” The last part was delivered with a dry, almost imperceptible sarcasm. Penn followed the estate's lead steward through a series of silently sliding doors and minimalist corridors. His new bedroom was another cavernous space, a private sanctuary of glass and polished metal, overlooking the glittering nebula of Veridium’s financial district. The bed, a colossal slab of memory foam and spun silk, seemed to float above the floor. The steward delivered a perfunctory overview of the room’s amenities, then excused himself, the door hissing shut behind him with a soft click. Alone, Penn’s shoulders slumped. The guileless grin vanished, replaced by a cool, calculating expression. He pulled the slim, metallic rectangle from his own pocket. Sterling’s Executive Access Keycard. Penn slipped it into a hidden compartment within his canvas satchel, retrieving a small, credit-chip-sized reader. He swiped the keycard through the reader, a tiny green light flashing on its surface. He then connected the reader to a miniature, heavily encrypted comm-pad, no bigger than his thumb, that he’d had tucked into the lining of his old jacket. Within seconds, a small, pixelated avatar of Juno Rust, her face obscured by a digital mask, flickered to life on the comm-pad’s tiny screen. “Status report, phantom,” her voice, electronically distorted, whispered through the device’s earpiece. “Any major structural damage to the operation?” Penn allowed himself a small, satisfied smirk. He tucked the comm-pad closer to his mouth, his voice a low, gravelly rasp, utterly devoid of the bumbling idiot he’d just played. “Negative, sister. Just a few broken vases, a ruffled ego, and one very useful keycard. We are in the vault.”

Penthouse Pigeons