The factory smelled of hot plastic and machine grease. The air was dry and gritty with dust, the way it gets anywhere things are cut, melted, and fed into machines. Boris Illget walked beside Wilt Norcutt with easy confidence in his posture, but his eyes kept moving. Young Illget had already noticed it. Something about this place was wrong.

  They were waved through the gate too quickly.

  No questions. No standard delay. No call to verify clearance. The guard barely looked up. He just flicked a hand toward the checkpoint and sent them on.

  Wilt caught it immediately and said nothing. She slowed by half a step and glanced up at the cameras. They were all in place, but one tiny light blinked unevenly, like someone had tampered with it not long ago.

  The corridor narrowed between two workshops. On the left came the steady pounding of industrial presses. On the right there was silence.

  Not peace.

  The wrong kind of silence.

  Then everything broke.

  First came a flash with almost no sound. Then a brutal punch of pressure in the ear and the sharp metallic tang of ozone.

  A laser bolt skimmed so close the heat brushed Boris’s cheek. The next one hit him.

  The armor on his shoulder flared like foil under a torch. He jerked as if someone had slammed a crowbar into bone and clapped a hand over the wound. Blood shoved through his fingers at once.

  “Fuck,” he breathed, stumbling back into the wall.

  Wilt did not waste time asking whether he could still move. He was upright, but the injured arm was already shaking. The beam had burned through the plating and gone deeper than either of them wanted.

  Figures stepped out of the shadows.

  Not plant security. Not workers.

  Eight of them, dressed in dark uniforms with no insignia, faces half-hidden behind masks. They moved with the calm efficiency of people who expected resistance. Two carried laser carbines. The rest held compact pistols that looked expensive and well maintained.

  They were not here to arrest anyone.

  They were here to kill.

  Wilt clenched her jaw. The last few days had been a blur of fights, pressure, minds pried open and bent into obedience. Focus came slower now, heavier, like trying to lift iron with exhausted muscles.

  There was no cover.

  No clean retreat.

  She stepped forward.

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  And reached.

  Not for all of them. Only for the weakest.

  It was always the same. Three of them were soft at the edges. One stank of fear and did a poor job hiding it. One burned with anger but had nothing solid underneath. One was a slurry of fatigue, chemicals, and plain stupidity.

  Wilt hit them hard.

  No gesture. No words. Just a violent mental shove, like fingers driving into wet clay.

  All three twitched at once.

  One raised his weapon the wrong way. Another froze, blinking as if he had woken up in the wrong body. The third tried to scream, but the sound caught in his throat.

  Shoot, she forced into them, driving the command into that thin seam where thought becomes action.

  They opened fire on their own side.

  The first shot dropped one of the carbine men before he even understood he had been targeted. Another attacker tried to break left and took a round through the thigh, collapsing into the wall. The third spun and emptied a burst into a teammate who had just started to pull up a grenade.

  The corridor erupted with noise and ricochets.

  One of the remaining attackers surged forward, fast and disciplined, adjusting instantly. Wilt felt the aim settle on her.

  A shot.

  Another.

  Another.

  She slipped sideways, but one charge still snapped past her ribs and burned a black scar into the wall behind her. The shock raced through her nerves like live current.

  “Move,” someone barked. “Drop her.”

  Wilt felt her grip starting to slide. The three were easy to seize and easy to lose when her body was busy staying alive.

  She crushed the last resistance out of them.

  Again.

  Then two more shots.

  Her puppets fired. One attacker dropped to a knee with both hands clamped over his stomach. Another dove behind a crate, and Boris, breathing through gritted teeth, raised his pistol and finished him with two tight shots.

  “I’m still here,” he rasped, furious at the weakness in his own voice.

  Wilt flicked a glance at him.

  “Stay with me.”

  The remaining attackers did not panic. They shifted angles, traded cover, and moved like a real unit. A small cylinder clattered across the floor.

  Smoke blossomed at once, thick and gray, harsh enough to sting the lungs.

  Wilt coughed, and for one heartbeat her focus slipped.

  That was enough.

  The three men under her control jerked like dogs cut loose from a leash. One was shot through the neck by his own people, quick and efficient. The second started to swing his gun toward Wilt, but Boris fired first. The third swayed, knees giving way, and hit the floor hard.

  “Five,” Wilt murmured, counting without meaning to. “Five…”

  Eight bodies, if the broken ones counted.

  It still did not feel like victory.

  It felt like survival with its teeth out.

  Then came footsteps.

  Not rushed.

  Not careful.

  Someone walking as if the corridor belonged to them.

  A woman stepped out of the silent passage.

  Tall. Black hair pulled back. Clean features and a cold, steady gaze. No tactical armor, just a plain suit, but the pistol in her hand sat there like it had grown from her wrist.

  “You really came to me on your own?” Deborah Keddis said, sounding almost tired.

  Boris lifted his head. Recognition cut through the pain in his face.

  “Deborah,” he said, his voice raw.

  She did not smile.

  “You were a narcissist then,” Deborah said. “You’re a narcissist now.”

  Boris tried to answer.

  He never got the chance.

  Deborah raised the pistol and shot him in the face.

  No flourish. No speech. Just the click, the shot, and the end.

  His body hit the concrete like a dropped mannequin. Blood spread quickly, dark and steaming.

  Wilt went very still.

  Not from shock.

  From calculation.

  Partner down. Alone. Running on fumes.

  Keddis spat to the side, as if something disgusting had landed on her shoe.

  “Stupid son of a bitch,” she said evenly. “Right to the end, still convinced the world revolved around him.”

  Wilt straightened. Her hands trembled despite every effort to steady them. The weakness stayed buried behind her eyes.

  “Doris ordered this,” she said.

  Deborah’s gaze passed over her, and something pleased flickered there.

  “Smart girl,” she said. “Quick on the uptake.”

  The pistol rose again.

  The next second would belong to whoever blinked first.