“...but the activation is in three days.” Isken’s fingers flew across the holographic display, tracing the origin of Nimra’s signal. “A ghost link. Untraceable beyond this immediate connection. She’s using a custom-weave scrambler.” He glared at the woman on screen. “Nimra, this isn’t just a breach. This is treason against the Morcrest consortium. Why?” Nimra’s pale face was rigid with terror. “Because he’s a fool, Isken. Kylian. And he’s going to get us all killed. He’s already pushed the upper-tier launch forward to tomorrow morning, but the Rust-Steppes core detonation… that’s still three days out. He doesn’t understand the feed overload. He thinks it’s stable.” Her gaze flickered to Ryzalia, a desperate plea. “I’ve seen your designs, Ryzalia. His modifications are catastrophic.” Ryzalia stepped closer to the screen. “You want to help.” It wasn’t a question. “What do you have?” “The broadcast schematics. The pinnacle tier's live feed security layout. Every access point, every blind spot for tomorrow’s spectacle.” Nimra’s hand, trembling, reached off-screen, then returned, holding a small, flat data chip. “I can send it. Encrypted through this channel, direct to your Hext server. But you have to move fast. Kylian is a cornered animal.” Isken moved to interject, but Ryzalia cut him off with a sharp glance. “Send it.” A shimmer of data particles materialized on a secondary screen, confirming the transfer. Isken’s analysis software immediately began scanning the package. “Legitimate. This is comprehensive.” He looked at Nimra, a sliver of grudging respect in his eyes. “You’ve burned your bridges, publicist.” Nimra gave a mirthless laugh. “My bridge was rotten the moment Kylian decided to steal his sister’s work and call it genius. But there’s more.” Her voice dropped to a barely audible rasp. “Kylian… he’s frantic about ‘loose ends.’ He heard rumors about Ryzalia’s old workshop, the orphanage where she grew up in the Rust-Steppes. He sent enforcers. To destroy anything left. Any… evidence.” The air in the lab went taut. Heat prickled the back of Ryzalia’s neck. The sanctuary. Her childhood home. The youths she grew up beside, the caretakers who’d shielded her. Kylian wasn't just targeting her past; he was threatening the only family she’d ever truly known. He was burning her roots. “When?” Ryzalia’s voice was a low growl. Nimra blinked rapidly. “They departed an hour ago. They’ll be there any minute now. Heavily armed. They’re under orders to clear the entire sector.” “This changes nothing for the core,” Isken said, his voice clipped, trying to assert control. “Our focus remains the broadcast, the mathematical proof.” Ryzalia didn’t even acknowledge him. She was already moving, striding towards the lab’s private exit, the one that led directly to the Hext Syndicate Spire’s upper transport levels. “He’s not touching them.” Isken blocked her path, a hand raised. “Ryzalia, stop. This is precisely the kind of impulsive, reckless maneuver that gets people killed. This isn’t a part of the plan. You’re Voldir Hext’s Chief Artificer. You don’t engage in street brawls.” “They’re children, Isken! My friends!” Her voice rose, raw with fury. “Kylian Morcrest doesn’t get to burn my life from the ground up and think there won’t be consequences. I watched him throw me in the mud. I will not watch him hurt the people who truly cared for me.” She shoved past him with unexpected force, the repulsor guard on her wrist sending a low hum of protest against his own. “Stay here. Stick to your plan. I’ll make my own.” She didn’t wait for his reply, storming down the gleaming corridor. The Spire’s automated systems recognized her clearance, granting access to the hangar bay. Rows of Hext-branded transport skiffs, sleek and menacing, gleamed under the overhead lights. She bypassed the standard shuttles, heading directly for a heavily armored assault skiff, its kinetic cannons folded neatly along its chassis. A security attendant, a burly man with the Hext sigil tattooed on his neck, stepped forward, his palm open in a gesture of inquiry. “Artificer Morcrest? This model requires Level Six clearance and a mission brief.” Ryzalia didn’t slow. “Level Six granted. Mission brief: Personal Vengeance.” She keyed her wrist-mounted data-pad, overriding the skiff’s entry protocols. The hatch hissed open. She climbed into the pilot’s seat, the controls warm and responsive beneath her fingers. Before the attendant could formulate another objection, she engaged the repulsorlifts, the skiff rising with a low thrum. The hangar blast doors slid open, revealing the dizzying chasm of Previa’s skyline. She plunged out, an angry comet streaking towards the Rust-Steppes. Down in the low badlands, rusted scrap stretched beneath the sickly orange glow of failing sodium lights. The shelter, a repurposed multi-level cargo container structure, was already in ruins. Smoke billowed from a shattered window on the third level. Two hulking private guards, their plate suits emblazoned with the tarnished Morcrest crest, kicked at a reinforced blast door while another dragged a terrified child across broken masonry. Rage, cold and precise, sharpened Ryzalia’s focus. She dropped the skiff fast, her targeting systems locking onto the enforcers. Her Hext-funded arsenal favored exactness over blunt demolition. She threw a switch. The craft's rail emitters bypassed standard artillery, releasing a dense burst of ionizing charge calibrated to shut down nervous systems without rupturing tissue. The first soldier, mid-kick, seized up as the discharge fused his armor servos, joints freezing solid. He crashed to the ground, a twitching, sparking heap. The second guard dropped the child with a shout as a matching discharge snapped across his plating. Internal circuits shorted into screaming white noise. His defensive field backfired, blooming outward into a swollen barrier that pinned him flat against the corrugated metal wall. The child scrambled free, running to the safety of a nearby alley. The third mercenary, priming demo charges against a load-bearing girder, scrambled backward as the skiff hovered low. She did not waste another pulse. Tripping the acoustic disruptor, A high-frequency thrum filled the air, agonizingly targeting the resonant frequency of his armor’s internal comms and life support. He clutched his helmet, screaming, his knees buckling as the invisible waves assaulted his senses. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he crumpled, unconscious. More mercenaries tumbled out from the shelter's breached foyer. Ryzalia held the skiff steady on its thrusters. With two keystrokes, she loosed a clutch of micro-drones—humming silver gnats that drilled into weapon receivers and clamped armor hydraulics. One after another, the attackers collapsed into twitching heaps. Faced with technology that dismantled them without a single returned shot, the surviving squad broke ranks. Their bravado shattered, they scrambled back into their own transports, fleeing in a pathetic, desperate retreat, leaving their sparking, twitching comrades behind. Catharsis, hot and sweet, surged through Ryzalia. The children, peering from their hiding spots, slowly emerged, their fear replaced by awe. An elderly woman, the shelter matron, limped out toward the landing skid. Ryzalia climbed down, gravel grinding under her steel-toed soles. “They’re gone, Matron Vanya. Is everyone breathing?” Matron Vanya pressed a trembling hand against her collar. “Everyone is whole, child. Thanks to your arrival. But they tore the alcove apart.” She pointed toward the twisted siding of Ryzalia’s former shop, tucked into a scavenged pressure vessel. “They went straight for your benches.” Ryzalia walked into the wreckage, the familiar scent of ozone and burnt wiring filling her nostrils. Her old workbench was splintered, her rudimentary tools scattered. She knelt, sifting through the debris, a pang of sorrow mixed with the lingering triumph. Beneath a fallen shelf, half-buried in a pile of twisted conduit, her fingers brushed against something cold, metallic, and impossibly smooth. It wasn’t her tech. It was sleek, impossibly complex, forged from high-spire alloy. A small, cylindrical device, no bigger than her thumb, constructed from an alloy she didn’t recognize, yet radiating a familiar, insidious signature. It was a high-grade sabotage explosive, meticulously designed to bypass detection arrays. And the harmonic frequency thrumming inside the micro-cell… matched the exact sabotage signature Voldir Hext had hunted across a decade.

The Golden Boy's Gambit