Krevan’s eyes snapped from the crushed bodies to the scorched timer above the heavy blast door. Three minutes. The red digits bled across the grimy metal, a stark countdown to annihilation. “Vilem wants to erase all of it,” Krevan growled, his voice a low rumble of ice and fury. He stepped forward, easing Tazia away from the pipe and guiding her back. The air shimmered with the heat of the steam, smelling of burnt oil and ozone. “Of course he does.” Tazia’s voice was flat. She tugged her arm away from his grip, not out of anger, but a weary familiarity. “That’s how he operates.” *The air in the old textile mill had always been thick with lint and the sickly sweet scent of singed wool. Tazia, barely fifteen, had squinted through the perpetual haze, her fingers raw from guiding fabric through the snarling looms. Her shifts stretched, blurring into an endless cycle of exhaustion. Vilem Coda, then just ‘Mr. Coda’ to the workforce, would stride through the assembly rows, his expensive shoes crunching on discarded threads. He’d pat a worker’s shoulder, a performative gesture of concern. Tazia had watched him once, her head throbbing from the noise, as he ‘comforted’ a young man whose hand had been caught in a press. Vilem had smiled, a flash of white teeth, and told the boy, “A good worker is a pliable worker. We can always find a new hand, but loyalty is rare.” He hadn’t even bothered to ask the boy’s name. Tazia had known then, with the bitter clarity of youth, that Vilem saw them all as interchangeable parts, disposable as the broken threads on the floor. Her ‘godfather’ had simply been another boss, albeit one with a more charming smile.* “This way!” Krevan’s voice cut through the memory, sharp and commanding. “There’s an old service tunnel on the north side. It should still be clear.” Sanna, still trembling against the wall, pushed herself upright. “A tunnel? But… the demolition charges are everywhere. We need to disable them. There’s no time to outrun them all.” Her eyes, wide and bloodshot, darted between the timer and the mangled machinery. “Brix, status report,” Krevan barked into his comms. He was already moving, pulling Tazia along, his grip firm. Tazia allowed it, conserving her energy. “Boss! The main charges are tied to a central explosive terminal! It’s in the old foreman’s office, second floor! Looks like a bespoke system, no external access codes!” Brix’s voice crackled through the receiver. “Bespoke…?” Sanna gasped, a sudden, desperate light in her eyes. “A closed-loop system! It means… it’s a physical trigger. A microchip could disrupt the signal if jammed into the right port.” She fumbled at her belt, pulling out a small, intricately wired circuit board, no larger than her thumb. It was her last prototype, the one meant to bridge the gap between Rovigrad’s clunky tech and her forgotten future. Her face contorted with agony. “We don’t have time for that,” Krevan said, his gaze fixed on the complex layout. “We’re evacuating.” “No!” Sanna pushed past him, a wild, almost fanatical resolve hardening her features. “This is the only way! It might buy us… maybe a minute, if I get lucky.” Her voice was fierce, driven by a ghost of her former ambition, now twisted into a desperate gamble for survival. “The foreman’s office! Show me!” Krevan hesitated for a fraction of a second, his protective instincts warring with the brutal logic of war. The timer glared 02:27. A minute could be the difference between escape and being buried alive. “Follow me,” he ordered, his voice clipped. They scrambled up a rusted metal staircase, their boots ringing over iron treads. Dust rained down from the corroding beams above. The structure groaned around them, the demolition charges already beginning to take their toll, distant shudders rattling the floor. The foreman’s office was a small, grimy box overlooking the main floor. Inside, on a cluttered desk, sat a crude, black box with a single, blinking red light and the digital readout. The timer read 01:58. Sanna didn’t hesitate. Her hands, calloused and stained with grease, moved with a surgical precision born of frantic practice. She tore a panel off the firing casing with a screwdriver from her belt, exposing a nest of brightly colored wires. Her eyes scanned the schematic with a speed Krevan found unnerving. She jammed her precious microchip into a small, open port, twisting it until it caught. A faint hiss leaked from the housing, and the blinking red light stuttered. The digital clock froze at 01:54. Then, with a groan, it began to slowly tick *backward*. 01:53, 01:52… “It’s reversing the signal! It might not disable it, but it’s buying us time!” Sanna cried, a desperate triumph in her voice. Her ambition, her dreams of modern tech, were irrevocably lodged in the heart of this crude bomb, lost forever. A single tear cut a clean path through the soot on her cheek. “Go!” Krevan shoved her towards the door, his gaze fixed on the still-ticking, albeit backward, timer. “North exit! Now!” They raced down another set of stairs, the building now visibly shaking, dust and debris raining down in earnest. A section of the ceiling fifty feet ahead collapsed with a deafening roar, blocking their direct path to the service tunnel. “Diversion!” Krevan bellowed, tugging Tazia beneath a reinforced support column. “There must be another way out!” Just then, a figure emerged from the swirling dust, blocking their view of the only remaining exit – a heavy, steel loading bay door. Vilem Coda. His tailored suit was smudged, his jaw set, and in his hand rested a heavy pistol. He aimed it directly at Krevan. “Going somewhere, Krevan?” Vilem’s voice was calm against the groaning girders. “I’m afraid this is where your little empire crumbles. And you along with it.” Tazia inhaled a mouthful of lime dust, her patience finally snapping. She was tired. So incredibly tired of the noise, the drama, the never-ending disruptions to her peace. She looked around, her eyes scanning the debris-strewn floor. Her gaze fell upon an orange pallet loader, its engine idle and keys dangling from the column. It was parked just a few yards away, partially shielded by a pile of salvaged pipes. “Oh, for the love of—” Tazia muttered, cutting off Vilem’s monologue. She marched toward the machine. Krevan, seeing the glint in her eyes, knew that particular look. It was the one she wore just before she did something utterly reckless, yet undeniably effective. He didn’t try to stop her. Tazia hoisted herself into the steel bucket seat. The diesel turned over, sputtering before it caught in a raspy, deafening idle. She slammed the gear into drive, the heavy machine lurching forward. Vilem jerked his chin toward the noise, the sidearm wavering toward Krevan. “What are you doing, you foolish woman?!” he shouted, stumbling back as the iron vehicle bore down on him. He raised his gun, but Tazia didn’t waver. She leveled the front tines straight at Vilem's waist, aiming to pin rather than impale. Masonry split overhead, dropping mortar across the hood. The iron tines slammed into Vilem with a muffled crunch, wedging him against the cinderblocks. His firearm dropped into the gravel, his mouth opening in an unvoiced wheeze. A harsh relay click sounded from the floor above as the countdown resumed its forward march. “That’s enough out of you,” Tazia said, her voice flat, as she killed the engine. Concrete chunks clattered onto the iron plates around them. She looked at Krevan, an exasperated sigh escaping her lips. “Now, can we go? My nap schedule is utterly ruined.” Krevan stared at Vilem pinned against the masonry, then back at Tazia's dust-smeared profile, completely captivated. But the building was collapsing. He turned to the loading bay door, only to see the large, heavy door beginning to buckle under the strain of the collapsing ceiling. Their time was almost up. The master terminal's remote display over the lintel flashed 00:00:10. Krevan glanced at the struggling elder boss, then at the fallen sidearm. Next to Vilem, half-buried under a pile of rubble, was the distinctive, embossed leather of Vilem’s operational ledger. Securing it would grant Krevan irrefutable proof, solidify his dominion over Rovigrad’s underworld, end the shadow war for good. But then his eyes fell on a patch of expensive, smoke-stained wool fabric, caught on a jagged piece of rebar just beyond the forklift. His coat. The one he’d wrapped around Tazia, the one he wore for every important meeting, the one that had been a silent witness to their life together. It was ruined, torn, singed, but it was *his*. And he knew Tazia detested him acquiring new clothes. He had to choose. Ten seconds. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One.

Ashes and Ambition