"Guised as sous-chefs with butcher knives tucked into their waistbands," Kanya snapped from the rafters, her voice dropping through the metal grating with the cold precision of a sniper locking a target. "Jaka, if those men so much as reach for a sidearm, I am dropping smoke and ending this farce before you even heat your pan.""You will do no such thing, Kanya!" Jaka hissed back, his face flushing crimson as he aggressively slapped a heavy iron skillet onto the portable gas burner. "This is a sanctioned culinary exhibition! There are rules! There is a protocol! There are neutral delegates from the Rust-Siders sitting right over there chewing on dried kelp waiting to judge!""Those Rust-Sider delegates are currently taking bets on whether Malek poisons you or shoots you first," Leo pointed out, dumping his crate of firewood with a loud clatter that made three nearby scavengers flinch. "I just overheard two guys from the West Concourse trading five rounds of nine-millimeter ammo for Ma

"Silence!" Mara’s voice boomed across the damp, packed-dirt platform of the neutral subway station, echoing off the concrete pillars and rattling the corrugated iron roofs of the makeshift stalls. The one-eyed mechanic leaned heavily on her spanner, sweeping her single, piercing gaze over the hundreds of scavengers, outcasts, and heavily armed gang members who had crowded into the transit hub. "The dishes have been tasted. The bowls have been scraped clean. And I didn't find a single drop of poison in either of them, which is frankly a disappointment to half the front row."A low, rumbling chuckle rippled through the crowd, instantly defusing the razor-thin tension that had kept Kanya’s finger hovering over her trigger guard up in the metal rafters.Chef Malek, standing tall beside his stainless-steel prep cart at the opposite end of the dais, crossed his arms and flashed a smug, arrogant grin. He adjusted the pristine white toque perched on his head, casting

"Try reaching for that again, Malek, and I'll turn your fingers into garnishes," Kanya's voice dropped from the rafters like a cold weight, her suppressed pistol already leveled directly between the rival chef's terrified eyes.Malek froze, his hand hovering inches from his holster, sweat beading instantly on his forehead. "You... you wouldn't shoot over a cooking contest.""Watch her," Mara grunted, hefting her spanner with a menacing casualness as she stepped down from the oil-drum dais. "Now get that chemical slop cart out of our station before I feed your synthetic creamer to the feral rats."Jaka wiped his hands deliberately on a clean cloth, stepping past the humiliated rival chef without a second glance. He looked up at Kanya, who was already rappelling down from the girders with practiced, silent grace."The crowd loves us, Kanya," Jaka said, stowing his chef's knife into its leather roll with a crisp snap. "Which means our current pl

"Mara might like my pork belly, but trade routes bring out the greed in every scavenger from here to the surface ruins," Jaka said, tossing a polished silver ladle into his kit with a sharp clink as he untied his stained apron."Mara keeps her word," a gravelly voice echoed from the shadowed archway of the tunnel entrance, halting Jaka’s hands mid-fold. "And anyone who tries to tax your carts without my say-so answers directly to my spanner."Mara stepped out from the gloom, her single eye gleaming in the flickering light of the wall-mounted oil lamps, flanked by two heavily armed Rust-Sider mechanics carrying short-barreled shotguns."Glad to hear it, Mara," Kanya said, not bothering to lower her hand from her sidearm holster, her eyes darting between the newcomer and the dark tunnel behind her. "Because we’re moving the second cooking range up to the West Concourse tonight. Bambang’s already hauling the chassis through the lower bypass.""Y

"Not residential. They’re hitting the supply lines," Mara said, her single eye locking onto Jaka with uncharacteristic urgency. "They aren’t clearing out pests or looking for runaways this time. They want the food trade crippled. If they intercept Bambang with that second cooking range in the bypass, they won’t just take the metal. They’ll melt the whole rig down with you and your big friend inside it."Kanya’s hand dropped entirely to the grip of her sidearm, her knuckles whitening. "How many?""At least a dozen," Mara replied, crossing her heavy arms over a leather vest reinforced with jagged strips of corrugated iron. "Equipped with thermal optics and chemical flares. They dropped right past the old municipal security checkpoints before the sensors even flickered. My scouts spotted them moving south toward the West Concourse bypass less than twenty minutes ago. If Bambang hasn't reached the junction yet, he’s walking straight into an abattoir."Jak