Zero sat on a crate in the cargo hold of the Scrap-Vulture, a rusted transport skimming the smog layer of Sector 4. The adrenaline from the fight was fading, replaced by the dull throb of a headache. He wiped the last of the nosebleed away with the back of his glove, staring at the Cognis core humming on the deck. It was a cylinder of blue light, worth more than the ship they were flying in.

  "You okay, Zero?" Cas asked, her voice echoing from the cockpit. "You zoned out for a second there."

  "Just a glitch in the stack," Zero muttered. The memory of the Helios-7 Spire—of Rook grinning as he died—clung to him like static. He forced it out. This was business.

  "Well, snap out of it," Cas said. "Because we just got a ping on the Dark-Mesh. Priority One. Encrypted."

  Zero stepped into the cockpit, the synthetic whiskey a warm weight in his gut. The air here was a brisk 18°C. He preferred it that way; he didn't suit up for a contract until he’d seen the color of the credits. He stood there in his grey thermal boxers and a compression top that clung to his corded frame, a shadow waiting to move.

  "You're late," Cas quipped, her fingers flying across the holographic nav-slate. She was dressed for comfort—a white "Neko-Pop" tank and high-cut panties—but her posture was rigid with focus.

  As he leaned against the doorframe, her gaze finally broke from the code. It traveled slowly down his chest, lingering on the twelve-pack and the obvious morning wood pressing against his boxers. She didn't look away; she clocked the physical tell and filed it away as a data point in his current state of fatigue. "Hmmmmmm."

  "Turn the heaters up, Cas. The air has a bite to it," Zero grunted. He could feel the heat of his own blood rising, a biological distraction he didn't have the luxury to indulge. He resented the reaction—it was a obstacle to his operational silence.

  "Can't. The array is pulling a massive load on this handshake," she said. As the decryption hit a progress wall, she sat back. The chill had made her nipples visibly erect against the thin cotton of her top, a fact she didn't bother to conceal or acknowledge. She looked at him with a predator’s smirk, enjoying the way his hazel eyes tracked the movement.

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  "Expensive taste for a freezer-burn enthusiast," Zero noted, forcing his focus back to the silk logo to avoid her gaze. "Luxury laundry in a Sector 4 cargo-ship? Who’d you lift those from?"

  "Gift from a grateful client," Cas smirked. "I guess you were overcompensating with that sword."

  "The ping, Cas." He kept his voice flat, a manual override on his own pulse.

  "Right." Her playfulness vanished as the screen flashed gold. "Look at the math. This isn't scrap-fees. This is 'exit-the-planet' money."

  Zero leaned over her shoulder, the magnetic soles of his boots clicking on the deck. He looked at the screen.

  CONTRACT: PROJECT NSFW-32 OBJECTIVE: ACQUISITION & EXTRACTION TARGET: COGNIS VAULT, DECK 12 (UNVERIFIED) PAYMENT: 50 MILLION CREDITS

  "50 million," Zero whispered. The number felt like a threat.

  "Fifty million buys us into the Closed-Loop Economy," Cas said, her voice dropping an octave as she stared at the payout. She stretched then, her back arching as her breasts pointed toward the bulkhead, legs spreading out in a display of raw, confident ownership of the space. She wasn't performing for him; she was riding the high of the gamble, letting the adrenaline settle into her muscles.

  "Who's the client?"

  "Anonymous. But the encryption? It's 'Pre-Haywire'—2030s architecture. The payment is escrowed through a ghost entity I can't trace to a physical bank. It’s a heavy lift, Samurai. I've vetted the crew Silas put together."

  Zero’s jaw tightened. The whiskey tasted like ash. Silas.

  "Silas," Zero repeated, his voice carefully flat.

  Cas paused. Her fingers stopped their rhythmic tapping on the slate. She turned in her chair, her beady eyes searching his face, the playfulness gone. She registered the spike in his heart rate before he could mask it. "Zero? Your pulse just spiked ten beats. You okay?"

  "Just a glitch," he lied, but the word felt brittle in his mouth.

  "Just make sure you're behind the pressurized seal before they vent the sector," Cas warned, her voice now professional, sharp. "Plan A: Meet Jax and Val, verify the funds, assess the Titan. Plan B: If it's a setup, I dump the ship's reactor core. It’ll turn the Vulture into a thermal smokescreen, and you cut your way back to the airlock. We’ll be ghosts in Sector 4 after that, but we'll be alive."

  The Scrap-Vulture was en route to dock six hours later.

  He adjusted the seal on his mask, the hiss of the locking mechanism a familiar, cold comfort. He didn't trust Silas, and he didn't trust the air in this sector; the mask was the only thing between him and a world that had already tried to kill him once.

  Betrayal was nothing new in this line of business, but payback still comes due. As far as Zero was concerned, Silas was in the red.

  "Lead the way," Zero said, his voice a low, mechanical growl.