The high-speed lift deposited Savya onto a plush carpet, the silence of the private corridor split by the distant rumble of the gala. The screen on her handheld terminal blinked: 11:45 PM. Fifteen minutes. Her antidote payload was primed, but useless without an external upload point. The DJ booth, she recalled from Luzia’s blueprints, was the only terminal hardwired directly to the city’s greater grid, bypassing the spire’s internal firewalls. Her escape from the server core had been exhilarating, but the real game began now. She moved with purpose, scanning the corridor. A service entrance, discreetly tucked beside a colossal abstract sculpture, beckoned. Inside, a chaotic symphony of clattering dishes and hushed expletives played out. Uniformed catering staff, their faces etched with the strain of high-stakes service, rushed past with platters of artisan canapés and crystalline flutes of effervescent wine. A stack of freshly pressed uniforms sat on a shelf near a sanitation station, an opportunity too blatant to ignore. Savya snagged a crisp white jacket, black trousers, and a tight vest. The fabric felt stiff, unlike the frayed cotton of her temple clothes. She dumped her grimy tech-gear into a laundry hamper, securing the terminal and modified ring inside the vest’s inner pocket. With a quick look into a polished steel panel, she smoothed down her hair. A wolf in a server's uniform. Her gaze caught on a smart-tray, abandoned on a stainless-steel worktable. Its surface glowed with subtle warmth, designed to keep delicacies at optimal temperature. A small, almost invisible control panel pulsed at its edge. Perfect. She lifted it, then loaded it with half-filled champagne flutes, the bubbles catching the ambient light like tiny, imprisoned stars. As she moved, she tapped her augmented ring to the tray. A faint hum vibrated through her palm as she accessed the warming element’s sub-routines. With a few swift taps across her palm slate, she pushed the heat output, not to a scalding extreme, but to a diffuse, broad-spectrum frequency. The goal wasn't to cook the champagne, but to create a localized thermal bloom, a shimmering distortion that would blind the Spire’s omnipresent thermal scanners. It was a crude but effective spoof, a thermal smokescreen in a room full of prying eyes. “Excuse me, sir, madam,” she murmured, her voice adopting a practiced, deferential lilt, a stark contrast to her usual street-hustler cadence. The grand ballroom unfolded before her, a dizzying expanse of crystal chandeliers, reflective floor tiles, and a dense forest of Xantheo’s ultra-wealthy. Each face was a mask of curated indifference or feigned delight, framed by bespoke tailoring and gravity-defying hair. Every conversation seemed to hover just above the dull roar of the live orchestra, a constant drone of self-importance and thinly veiled contempt. She weaved through the throngs, the smart-tray held steady, its invisible warmth blooming around her. Scanners embedded in the ornate archways and disguised as decorative sconces would register only a generalized heat signature, a fuzzy anomaly easily dismissed as a malfunctioning heating vent or an overzealous chef’s latest creation. It was a ghost signal drifting straight through the gala. As she neared the central atrium, a familiar voice, deep and resonant, cut through the din. “The Lyran merger is at 2.7 points. If it hits 3.1 before midnight, we’ve secured the Dorsal-Cove contracts for the next fiscal. A true coup.” Savya paused, feigning to offer champagne to a particularly gaudy dowager. Her eyes drifted to the source of the voice: her father, Elias Cortazar, a man she’d only known through grainy news feeds and whispered rumors from the Temple. He stood by a floor-to-ceiling viewport, his back to the room, utterly absorbed in a holographic display that pulsed with real-time stock tickers and market projections. He gestured animatedly at an executive beside him, completely oblivious to the impending network collapse, to the daughter he’d only just met, or to the fake heir he’d elevated. “A triumph, Sir,” the junior executive intoned, head bobbing in practiced deference. “Your foresight is unmatched.” Savya’s lip curled. This was the man who had supposedly loved her mother, the magnate who had built this towering mausoleum of wealth. He saw nothing but numbers, cared for nothing but profit. Luzia’s trap, the impending blackout, the sacrifice of the temple—it was all just background noise to his precious market fluctuations. Spite bit deep into her ribs. This wasn’t just about survival anymore. It was about ripping down their entire corporate fortress. She moved on, her false smile fixed, her tray a shield against observation. The DJ booth was a raised platform, glowing softly with an array of pulsating lights and holographic equalizers. A portly DJ, lost in his own world of mixing, bobbed his head to the synthesized beat. He was exactly where the blueprints said he’d be. Savya approached the booth, pretending to wipe down a nearby railing with a napkin. She checked the terminal clock: 11:53 PM. Seven minutes. She needed to be quick. With a swift, practiced motion, she bumped the DJ’s elbow, sending a stack of lyric sheets tumbling to the floor. “My apologies, sir!” she exclaimed, her voice pitched just high enough to be heard over the music. “Let me assist you.” As the DJ grumbled, bending to collect his papers, Savya slipped around the console. Her eyes immediately located the external port, a standard data conduit labeled with a faded ‘GRID ACCESS’ sticker. She pulled Canto’s key drive from her pocket, its physical warmth a familiar comfort, and slotted it in. A quick, silent command from her ring, and her patch script began its upload, racing through the conduits. Just as the upload progress bar flashed 70%, a sudden, jarring crackle ripped through the ballroom’s immense speaker array, momentarily silencing the orchestra. Every head in the room snapped towards the stage. The lights dimmed, then pulsed an ominous red. The music died completely. A familiar, calm voice, amplified to a booming, disembodied presence, filled the sudden, echoing silence. “Attention, esteemed guests of the Cortazar Spire.” Elder Canto. His voice, usually serene, now held an undeniable edge of triumph. “I regret to inform you that your celebrated heiress, Savya Cortazar, is not who she appears to be. She is a dangerous cyber-terrorist. And she is, at this very moment, attempting to detonate the entire Spire.” Savya froze, knuckles tightening on the console edge as the key drive hummed in the port, the patch script creeping toward completion. The ballroom erupted in a cacophony of gasps, screams, and panicked murmurs, all directed squarely at the DJ booth where she stood, illuminated by the crimson glow. Her name echoed through the vast space, bouncing off the mirrored glass. The countdown on her slate flashed 00:05:00. Five minutes. And every single eye was on her.

Champagne and Spoofs