David Chen maintained his friendly smile as they walked toward the registration desk, but his mind was already three steps ahead, calculating angles and opportunities.He'd watched Alexander and Katarina get rejected by team after team. Watched how the woman—Katarina, stunning even in her simple clothes—stayed fiercely loyal to the nobody beside her. David had seen this pattern before: beautiful women with misplaced loyalty, wasting themselves on men who didn't deserve them.But where others had failed with direct approaches, David would succeed with patience and strategy.Accept them both. Gain their trust. Then during the challenge—when accidents were easy to arrange and blame was hard to assign—eliminate Alexander. Make it look natural. And afterward, console the grieving Katarina, position himself as her protector, her new partner.Simple. Clean. Effective."I really appreciate you giving us a chance," Alexander was saying as they reached the registration desk. "A lot of people we

The massive doors opened, revealing the challenge course, and Alexander felt a strange mix of disappointment and relief.The obstacle before them was a wall—not just any wall, but a sheer vertical surface stretching at least eighty feet high. But what made it unique, what made it truly challenging, were the handholds. They were spaced impossibly far apart—ten, sometimes twelve feet between grips. No human could span that distance alone.Which was why it required partners.The technique was obvious to anyone who studied it: one person would grip a handhold, bracing themselves, while their partner climbed onto their shoulders and reached up to grab the next hold.Then the first person would climb up their partner's body, stand on their shoulders, and reach the next hold above.Leapfrogging up the wall, each person alternating between being the anchor and the climber.It required inhuman grip strength to hold your own weight plus your partner's.Monster-level endurance to do it repeatedl

Alexander hung there, sixty feet up the wall, his hands gripping the rough metal handhold, watching Marcus and David's retreating backs as they headed toward the finish line.The ten-second window had closed. According to the rules, he'd failed. His team would advance without him, and he'd be stuck on Floor Fifty-Five.Anger burned through the exhaustion—not the hot, explosive kind, but cold and focused.He'd ignored his instincts.That prickling warning he'd felt about David, the sense of danger his body had recognized even when his conscious mind hadn't—he'd dismissed it all because they were desperate for partners.Never again, Alexander promised himself. From now on, he'd trust those instincts.They were the only part of his training that had never let him down.The crowd in the observation stands was a mix of gasps, jeers, and sympathetic murmurs.Some were already looking away, writing him off as another failed competitor.Marcus had reached the finish line platform, raising his

The two unconscious proxies lay at Alexander's feet, but the situation was far from resolved.More proxies were emerging from the course exits now—drawn by David's frantic offer of money, drawn by the commotion, drawn by the opportunity to earn four hundred thousand dollars for a simple beatdown.Alexander counted quickly. At least twenty proxies now formed a loose circle around him and Katarina.All of them eyeing him warily after his demonstration, but all of them calculating whether the money was worth the risk.David, emboldened by the numbers, found his courage again. "That's right! Surround him! There's no way this freak can take all of you at once!""Eight hundred thousand!" David's voice rose to a shrill pitch. "I'm doubling it! Eight hundred thousand dollars to whoever puts this man on the ground!"The proxies shifted, the increased stakes overcoming their caution. Eight hundred thousand split among twenty people was still forty thousand each. More than most of them made in a

Vanessa Sterling stood in the Floor Seventy-Five lobby with the other remaining competitors, her expression carefully neutral despite the knot of anxiety in her stomach.The mandatory challenge she'd been forced into was about to begin, and she'd already made her decision: participate minimally, take a loss if necessary, and stay on this floor.Moving higher meant increased danger.Meant more scrutiny from the families. Meant potentially putting herself in a position where even her resources and the chemical deterrent canister wouldn't be enough to protect her.Better to stay put, maintain her current position, and wait for Alexander to climb high enough that they could coordinate their next moves.The Floor Master stepped onto the raised platform, and Vanessa noticed something different about him.His usual professional demeanor had been replaced by something harder, more serious.Behind him stood twice the usual number of security guards, all wearing tactical gear instead of their n