Zarek looked at the spot where the sun hit the clearing, right near the bend in the stream. He could almost see it: smoke rising from a stone chimney, the smell of baking bread, and a life where the only orders given were about whose turn it was to fetch the wood."We start here," Zarek said, his voice steady and at peace. "We build the kitchen first."He picked up a handful of the rich, dark soil, letting it crumble through his fingers. It was a grounding sensation, a stark contrast to the cold, sterile steel of the Spire."Start on the foundation, Shaw," Zarek said, his eyes tracking Tinny, who was skipping stones across the water. "But we won't be staying here alone for long. Once the perimeter is secure and the first walls are up, I’m going to get Elara. It's time we brought our brother back to our sister."Shaw paused, his hammer resting on his shoulder. A look of genuine surprise crossed his face before smoothing into a nod. "The sister. Right. I almost forgot there was anot

"I thought you said it was the wind!" Shaw yelled, grabbing Tinny by the collar of his wool sweater and hauling him toward the transport."The wind doesn't use hyper-velocity slugs!" Zarek dove for his discarded gear, ripping a pulse rifle from a crate just as a mercenary breached the treeline.*****The clearing transformed into a kill zone. Using a half-finished kitchen wall as cover, Zarek lay down suppressing fire that forced the mercenaries to ground. But they were flanking him; they knew his blind spots.High above, Elara tracked the movement. Her heart hammered against her ribs as a mercenary leveled a long-range disruptor at Zarek’s exposed flank. If she stayed hidden, she could pick them off one by one, but the Obsidian Group didn't play by the rules. They were already adjusting, their AI calculating the trajectory of her last shot. If they realized a sniper was perched on the ridge, they would saturate the entire cliffside with incendiaries.The mercenary took a knee, a

"You're Elara," he said, his voice trembling. "You're not just the sniper. You're my big sister."Elara didn't just walk; she collapsed toward him, catching him in a desperate, bone-crushing embrace. She buried her face in the shoulder of his wool sweater. The scent of pine and childhood innocence shattered the last of her iron-clad defenses.A ragged, soul-deep sob tore from her."You're alive," she choked out, her voice wet and broken. "You're actually alive. I thought… I thought they had scrubbed you. I thought the brother I watched grow up was gone, and I was the only one left."She pulled back just enough to cup his face in her scarred, trembling hands, her tears leaving clean tracks through the grime on her cheeks. Tinny was nearly as tall as her now, his jawline sharpening into the same stubborn Riggs silhouette Zarek carried."Look at you," she cried, laughing through the sobs. "You’ve grown so much. I missed your birthdays, Tinny. I missed ten years of seeing the man you w

The cashier laughed, her holographic tattoos shimmering as she scanned a block of aged cheddar."He’s got a point. These High District apartments have polarized glass. If you don't calibrate the light, that weed will be a twig by morning. I’d trust the kid."Tinny shot Elara a look of smugness."Hear that? Expert testimony. The fern stays in my room, under my superior care.""Traitor," Elara mouthed at the cashier, though she was grinning. She leaned against the sleek counter, watching the items slide by. For the first time in years, her hands didn't feel heavy with a railgun; they felt light, restless with the novelty of ordinary life.Zarek stood at the end of the belt, his massive frame making the thermal bags look like toys. He handled the heirloom tomatoes with the same precision he used to field-strip a pulse rifle, nesting them at the top so they wouldn't be bruised by heavy jars of cold-pressed oil."Is he always this... intense?" the cashier whispered, nodding toward Zarek

Tinny dug in with an enthusiasm that bordered on religious. "If I ever see another tube of gray sludge, I’m throwing it into the sun," he declared through a mouthful of beef.Elara laughed, but her eyes kept drifting to the head of the table. Zarek had cleared a small space among the crystal glasses for a sleek, military-grade tablet. His thumb flickered across the screen with mechanical speed, his brow furrowed in a way that had nothing to do with the quality of the meal."Zarek," Elara said, setting her fork down. "Are you going to be busy like this the whole time? We just got here. The war is over for the night."Zarek didn't look up immediately, his eyes tracking a scrolling line of encrypted data. "The war is over, but the theater is just beginning, Elara." He finally tapped a final command and slid the tablet toward the center of the table so they both could see."I’m finishing the deep-layer profiles. If we’re going to live in the High District, we can't just be 'The Blackw