City of Blood and Iron

The Coffee Shop Boss

The man standing in front of us in the crisp black suit was the same friendly guy who handed me a black coffee every morning at seven o'clock.

His name tag at the small corner shop always said Marcus. He wore a faded apron, laughed at bad weather jokes, and asked about my weekend plans with a warm smile. But looking at him now inside the high tower audit pit, with the silver stamp glowing in his palm and a cold, dead look in his eyes, I knew the man from the coffee shop never existed.

"Marcus," I said, my grip tightening around the iron gun in my hand.

"Good morning, Kyle," Marcus replied, his voice smooth and polite, just like it was across the street. "I am sorry about the deception. Running a city of five million contract workers requires a lot of local oversight. Selling coffee was just a hobby to keep track of the low-level clerks."

Director Thorne scrambled backward across the steel floor, his face pale and covered in dirt. He pointed a shaking finger at the man in the black suit.

"High Director," Thorne choked out, coughing slightly as he tried to stand. "I did not know they would find the master file. You have to help me. I followed every rule."

Marcus did not even look down at Thorne. He raised his left hand, holding the glowing silver stamp, and pressed it directly into the air. A sharp, loud ring echoed through the room.

Before Thorne could take another breath, his entire body stiffened. The red contract stamp burned into his neck flared with a blinding light, and then his skin turned grey like dry ash. In less than three seconds, Director Thorne collapsed onto the polished steel floor, completely motionless, turned into a permanent piece of office furniture.

I stared at the spot where Thorne had been standing, my heart racing.

"You killed your own manager just like that?" I asked.

"He failed the audit, Kyle," Marcus said calmly, walking forward two steps. "In this city, failure has a clear price. Your father understood that rule very well. That is why he tried to steal the master file twenty years ago, and that is why he ended up in the incinerator."

Elena stepped in front of me before I could take a step forward. Her dark wings spread wide, and her amber eyes burned with a fierce, blinding light.

"You killed our father," Elena said, her voice shaking with a cold rage that filled the entire room.

"I gave him a contract, Elena," Marcus replied, tilting his head with a cold smile. "He signed it willingly, just like every citizen in Seattle. But your father thought he could rewrite the rules of the universe using family sentiment. He tried to hide the master key inside your bloodlines. A very clever trick. But bloodlines can be drained."

Marcus raised his silver stamp, pointing the heavy metal edge right at Elena's chest.

"Step away from the terminal," Marcus said. "Hand over the audit stamp, and I will let you both live out the rest of your natural lives as standard data processors on the tenth floor."

I looked at Elena. Her jaw was set, and a tiny drop of sweat ran down her cheek, but she did not look scared. She looked like a hunter waiting for the exact right second to strike.

"We are not going back to the tenth floor, Marcus," I said.

I reached into my pocket, pulled out my heavy wooden stamp, and slammed it down onto the backup keyboard beside the main screen.

The terminal sparked with bright yellow light.

"What are you doing?" Marcus asked, his polite smile finally fading for the first time.

"Filing a counter-claim," I answered.

I typed our father's exact employee ID number into the terminal—0-4-9-2—and hit the enter key with my thumb.

The entire high tower shook violently. The red error message on the main screen vanished, replaced by a bright, flashing green light that read: SYSTEM REBOOT INITIATED.

Alarms began to ring from every wall. The twelve empty chairs around the circle started to melt into liquid glass.

Marcus's face twisted into a mask of pure fury. He raised his silver stamp and charged straight toward us like a wild beast, moving faster than any normal human could ever run.

"Stop them!" Marcus shouted to the empty room.

Before he reached us, the floor beneath Marcus's feet split wide open into a deep, bottomless pit of bright golden light. He tried to stop, but his shoes slipped on the smooth steel. With a sharp cry of shock, the High Director of the Syndicate fell backward into the glowing gap.

I grabbed Elena’s hand, and we leaped backward off the platform just as the entire central console exploded into a million pieces of bright yellow dust.

We landed hard on the outer balcony outside the boardroom, sliding across the wet glass as the high tower began to collapse inward. Below us, the entire city of Seattle was lighting up. Every single digital screen on every building, car, and phone turned from red to a clean, bright gold.

The contracts were breaking. All of them.

I stood up, wiping the dust from my coat, and looked down at the iron gun in my hand. The metal was cool and steady.

Elena stood beside me, leaning against the glass railing. The amber light in her eyes had faded back to a warm, familiar brown, and a small, genuine smile touched her lips for the first time in years.

"We did it," she whispered, watching the golden lights spread across the city skyline.

"We just cleared the local branch," I said, looking up at the dark clouds still swirling above the high tower. "The city registry is open, but the main regional office across the ocean hasn't answered yet."

Before Elena could answer, the small communication radio clipped to my belt crackled to life with a burst of heavy static.

A new voice spoke through the speaker, cold, sharp, and entirely digital.

"Subject Kyle Vance. This is Regional Director Vance Senior speaking from the offshore headquarters. Your father left you a message, but he forgot to mention one important detail."

My hand froze on the radio.

"What detail?" I asked into the small speaker.

"You are not the only heir," the voice laughed softly. "And your sister's contract was never owned by Seattle. She was sold to the offshore division ten years ago. If you want to see her alive again, you have exactly twelve hours to turn yourself in at the private docks."

The radio went dead.

I looked over at Elena. She was staring at her own hands, where the skin was suddenly turning a bright, glowing silver.