"Time is all I have left, Tazrek, and unlike you, I'm spending mine with my eyes wide open," Vaelric rasped, his shoulder blades grinding against the freezing condensation of the iron pipes as he forced himself to stand taller despite the exhausting weight of the past weeks. "Look at your comms. You know as well as I do that the board doesn't pay out hazard bonuses to agents who fail to secure high-value assets within twenty-four hours. Your window closed ten minutes ago."Tazrek's knuckles turned stark, chalky white as his grip tightened around the frame of his sidearm, his eyes darting frantically between Vaelric’s unblinking gaze and the dark, recessed corner of the service tunnel where the flickering emergency light buzzed a monotonous, maddening rhythm."Shut up," Tazrek muttered, his free hand finally trembling as it dipped toward his tactical pouch, fumbling with the heavy Velcro flap that guarded his secondary channel. "If there's a priority-zero flag on my terminal, it's beca

"Scroll down," Vaelric challenged, not moving an inch, his shoulders still pinned against the freezing metal pipes. "Go past the supply quotas. Look at the asset reassignment roster for sector four."Tazrek’s thumb swiped across the matte-black screen, the amber light casting a sickly glow across the hard angles of his face. His eyes darted across the rows of shifting text, scanning the encrypted designations that ordinary citizens would have mistaken for harmless serial numbers. But Tazrek was an enforcement veteran; he knew the firm’s syntax better than he knew his own mother’s face."Mavren..." Tazrek whispered, the word escaping his lips as a sudden, involuntary breath of cold air. His thumb froze over the glass. "They flagged Mavren for termination-retrieve. Not detention. Termination.""And they did it twelve minutes ago, right while you were busy trying to play the dutiful hound," Vaelric said, stepping away from the wall, his boots crunching loudly on the grit-strewn concrete

"And look where it got us," Vaelric snapped, his hand shooting out to grip the heavy collar of Tazrek’s tactical coat, yanking the enforcer forward until their noses were inches apart. "Sitting in a freezing concrete shaft while the board liquidates our entire past. Mavren is locked in the processing vault on sub-level nine. You think they’re going to give him a trial? You think they’ll let him retire to some quiet corner of Voss with a pension and a handshake?"Tazrek didn’t try to break the grip. His dark eyes remained steady, cold, and entirely unbothered by the sudden escalation. Slowly, deliberately, he reached up and wrapped his calloused fingers around Vaelric’s wrist, applying just enough pressure to make the joints pop in warning."Let go, Vaelric," Tazrek murmured, his breath fogging in the frigid air between them. "I’m not your enemy. I’m the guy who’s currently choosing not to shoot you in the throat with a localized pulse-pistol. Keep your hands on your own side of the le

"It should," a third voice cut through the freezing damp of the maintenance corridor, sharp and dripping with dangerous sarcasm.Both men froze. Tazrek’s grip on Vaelric’s wrist loosened just a fraction, his dark eyes darting away from Vaelric’s face toward the shadowed junction of the service duct behind them. Vaelric didn't drop his hold on the enforcer's collar, but his breath hitched, his mind racing through every security protocol and personnel roster he had memorized during his tenure on the fifteenth floor."Who’s there?" Vaelric demanded, his voice echoing off the damp concrete walls, tight with sudden paranoia. "Step out where the terminal light can hit you."A low, raspy chuckle emerged from the gloom, followed by the heavy, metallic scrape of boot heels against industrial grating. Out stepped a figure draped in a salt-stained trench coat, one arm tucked awkwardly against his ribs, his face half-shadowed by a sagging synthetic hood. It wasn't an enforcer from the upper tiers

"A keycard?" Mavren laughed, a wet, hacking sound that ended in a sharp wince as his cracked ribs shifted beneath his stained tunic. He leaned heavily against the rusted iron frame of the maintenance door, his pale face slick with cold sweat. "You think the Board hands out exit passes to corporate traitors, Tazrek? They were melting down my neural implants when the primary power grid hiccuped. Call it bad luck for them, brilliant timing for me.""Bad luck doesn't bypass biometric locks," Tazrek said, his hand hovering dangerously close to the pulse-pistol at his hip despite the administrative grid threat Vaelric had mentioned earlier. His sharp eyes scanned the dark service junction behind Mavren, looking for a hidden accomplice or an armed extraction team. "Who else is with you? You didn't crawl out of a Level Nine vault on your own with those injuries."Vaelric stepped between them, his hands raised palms up to defuse the escalating tension, though his own heart was hammering agains