The heavy oak doors of the municipal press center swung open with dramatic finality, admitting a blinding sea of white-hot camera flashes and the aggressive, overlapping roar of a dozen competing reporters. Elias Vasantari strode to the center of the mahogany podium, his posture stiff, his tailored charcoal suit unwrinkled despite the catastrophic collapse of his corporation’s stock prices over the past forty-eight hours. Beside him stood Raka, a towering, silent silhouette of corporate muscle, his tailored uniform devoid of insignia but heavy with implied menace.Vasantari raised a single, manicured hand, and the press corps instantly quieted, hanging on his every breath."Ladies and gentlemen, we are facing an unprecedented crisis of law, order, and corporate security," Vasantari began, his baritone voice ringing with manufactured sorrow and righteous indignation. "The cyber-terrorist attack that crippled the Oakhaven Financial Center was not an act of random malice. It was a target

"If someone so much as looks at you sideways, we walk," Darian said, adjusting the stiff collar of his tuxedo with a wincing twitch. His ocular HUD flickered, casting a faint, amber-tinted reflection against the polished surface of the high-end masquerade mask resting in his palm. "No heroes, no grand revelations, and absolutely no detours into the executive suites until the room clears.""Relax, Darian," Elora replied, smoothing the sweeping, emerald-silk fabric of her evening gown as she checked her reflection in the cracked mirror of the safehouse. She turned sharply, her eyes flashing with a cold, determined light. "You’re the one wearing a mask. I’m just a prodigal daughter returning to her natural habitat to collect a very expensive inheritance. Put it on before we miss our window."Darian pressed the intricate, silver-filigree mask over his face. The internal magnetic locks clicked into place with a sharp snap, syncing the synthetic optics of the mask with his remaining ocular

"I am blending," Darian hissed, his voice muffled by the silver-filigree mask. He stared at a cluster of Vasantari board members near the champagne fountain. "But blending is hard when my HUD tags half the guest list as 'High-Value Assets' and the other half as 'Potential Liabilities.' There’s a guy by the pillar—third from the left—who’s been favoring his left side for ten minutes. He’s packing something under that velvet blazer."Elora squeezed his arm, her nails digging into his sleeve. "Ignore the hardware. Focus on the host. Look at Marcus Thorne. He’s three glasses of cognac deep and currently complaining to a senator about the quarterly drop in industrial output. If anyone has the physical key to the slush fund ledger, it’s him. He’s the only one of the board who doesn't use a digital vault for the high-frequency trading codes—he prefers a physical encryption drive. My father calls him old-fashioned. I call him a walking security hole."Darian shifted his gaze. Thorne was a blo

Darian forced his breathing to remain shallow, the internal cooling fans of his ocular hardware whirring softly against his temples. "Thorne is moving," he muttered, the digital overlay in his HUD highlighting the board member’s erratic, cognac-fueled path toward the service hallway. "He’s leaving the floor, Elora. If we don’t shadow him, we lose the drive."Elora took a deliberate, mocking sip of her champagne, her eyes fixed on her father across the room. "Patience is a weapon, Darian. If we follow him too closely, his security detail will vaporize us before we reach the elevators. Let him get comfortable.""Comfortable is where he makes mistakes," Darian countered, his hand brushing his coat pocket, checking for the proximity jammer Tavia had jury-rigged for this job."Or where he makes phone calls," Elora whispered. "Look. There."Thorne stumbled, leaning heavily against a decorative bust of Oakhaven’s founder, his fingers fumbling with a sleek, obsidian-colored encryption drive.

Darian slammed his palm against his temple, a futile attempt to crush the glitching neon geometry blooming across his vision. The hallway—a sterile, gold-leafed vein of the gala’s architecture—seemed to buckle, the floor undulating like the deck of a ship in a storm."Darian!" Elora grabbed his arm, her grip iron-hard. "Talk to me. Is it the feed? Is it Raka?"He shook his head, his teeth gritted so hard his jaw ached. The static wasn't just interference; it was invasive, a jagged, weeping wound in his neural interface. "It’s not Raka," he rasped, his voice sounding hollow, as if he were shouting from the bottom of a well. "It’s... it’s the Archon logs. They’re bleeding. I just saw the warehouse, Elora. The smoke. The sound of the roof collapsing. I was there. I am there.""You’re here," she countered, her voice sharp, demanding his attention. She moved in front of him, pinning him with a gaze that held no room for digital madness. "Look at me. Not the HUD, not the logs. Me. What colo