City of Blood and Iron

The Golden Summons

The giant golden envelope burst open with a sharp sound like glass snapping under heavy pressure, spraying bright yellow light across the frozen lobby.

I grabbed Elena’s arm and yanked her backward just as a sheet of thick paper shot out of the envelope like a knife. It slammed into the marble reception desk, cutting straight through the wood as if it were soft paper.

"Stay behind me," I said, pulling my iron gun from my coat and keeping my eyes locked on the glowing paper.

"Do not worry about me, Kyle," Elena replied, her voice cold and steady. She reached into her pocket and pulled out my cheap plastic pen, spinning it between her fingers with a calm precision that showed she was ready for whatever was coming. "The Higher-Ups think a fancy summons will scare us. They do not know we are already done following their rules."

The frozen security guards and office workers standing around the lobby did not move. They remained stuck in place like stone statues, their eyes completely blank, watching the floating golden paper pulse with a slow, heavy rhythm.

THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.

A deep voice echoed from the open envelope, filling the empty room with a sound that rattled my teeth.

"Subject Kyle Vance and asset Elena Vance. You have bypassed municipal security and interfered with the lower administrative servers. The Board of Directors demands your immediate appearance in the high tower for final judgment."

The glowing words on the paper shifted, turning into a set of stairs made of pure yellow light that started at our feet and stretched straight up through the glass ceiling, rising into the stormy clouds above the city.

"They want us to walk right into their courtroom," I said, looking up the long stairs that disappeared into the dark sky.

"Of course they do," Elena laughed softly, a sound without any warmth. "They want to put us on trial and force us to sign away our rights before we can reach the main server. If we go up those stairs as ordinary citizens, they will erase us in five seconds."

"Then we do not go up as citizens," I said, a dangerous plan forming in my mind.

I reached into my coat and pulled out my heavy wooden stamp. The golden ink carved into the bottom still glowed with a faint, steady light.

"We go up as auditors," I added.

Elena smiled, a sharp and brilliant expression that made her look like the powerful asset the Syndicate had tried so hard to control for five years. She stepped right onto the first step of the glowing yellow staircase without a single second of hesitation.

"Let us go audit the board," she said.

We started climbing. Every step we took upward made the air grow colder and thinner. The normal sounds of Seattle traffic faded away completely, replaced by the low, angry hum of thousands of digital contracts being processed all at once.

Below us, the city of Seattle looked like a tiny toy board made of glowing lines and grey blocks. Above us, the dark clouds parted to reveal a massive floating building made of white marble and glass, the high tower of the Board of Directors.

We reached the top of the stairs in less than a minute. The heavy double doors of the boardroom stood wide open, glowing with bright golden light.

We stepped inside.

The room was enormous, shaped like a giant circle with a high dome ceiling that looked out over the whole world. Twelve tall chairs sat in a wide semi-circle around a central platform. Eleven of the chairs were empty, occupied only by floating grey holographic screens that displayed endless columns of numbers and human life contracts.

But sitting in the twelfth chair in the very center was a familiar face.

Director Thorne.

He was not wearing his usual neat suit anymore. Instead, he wore a heavy white robe embroidered with glowing gold text. His face was no longer calm and smiling; his eyes burned with a cold, furious light as he watched us walk down the central aisle.

"You should have stayed in the basement, Kyle," Thorne said, his voice echoing off the high marble dome. "Bringing an asset into the high tower without an appointment is a capital offense."

"We did not come for an appointment, Thorne," I said, stopping ten feet away from his raised platform and raising my iron gun. "We came to close your accounts."

Thorne let out a loud, harsh laugh that made the glass windows rattle. He raised his hand and snapped his fingers twice.

From the shadows behind the twelve giant chairs, heavy metal gates slid open. A dozen elite enforcers stepped out into the light. They wore full tactical gear covered in glowing red contract stamps, and their hands held heavy energy rifles aimed straight at our chests.

"You think you can fight the entire board with a wooden stamp and a broken pen?" Thorne sneered, standing up from his chair. "You are nothing, Kyle. You are just a clerk who got lucky."

I did not flinch. I looked at Thorne, then at the guards closing in around us from all sides, and finally down at Elena standing right beside me. She was not shaking. She was looking at the main control console behind Thorne's chair, her eyes measuring the distance.

"He is right about one thing, Kyle," Elena whispered, her voice low enough that only I could hear. "We cannot beat twelve enforcers in a fair fight."

"Good thing we never play fair," I answered.

Before Thorne could give the order to fire, Elena threw my cheap plastic pen straight at the main control console behind him.

The pen hit the glass screen with a sharp crack. A massive wave of golden light exploded from the console, short-circuiting every single enforcer's rifle and turning their glowing red stamps into harmless grey ash.

Thorne's jaw dropped in absolute shock.

"Now, Kyle!" Elena shouted, diving past the confused guards.

I slammed my heavy wooden stamp down onto the marble floor with all my strength.

THWUMP.

The floor split open, and a wall of golden light surged forward, knocking Thorne off his feet and right into the central audit pit.