Even with all the technological advancements made in this part of the world over the past century, there was a single aspect of the United States of America that had remained consistent:

Paper money.

Much like apos, the currency used by the European Federation that Finn had grown up with, the dollar had remained available in physical form despite how counterintuitive that might have sounded to some people. It was more a matter of politics than anything, he figured. People were already paranoid about superhuman government oversight and didn't want to let go of the final bastion of freedom they had in undocumented financial transactions.

The point was, money could be acquired by hand without owning an account or citizenship of any type. He didn't really care about the societal nuances of why this was the case, only that it was convenient for his current purposes. Because for the last order of business, he was in need of some capital.

What was he planning on purchasing? A mobile device; not exactly the same sort of phone they sold in Apexia, but one that had the necessary specifications to install a certain application.

Over here, that wasn't a high bar at all. The lesser models would suffice by a very decent margin. In essence, it was just a step in the process. The reason he hadn't acquired a phone from the heroes was that he didn't feel like going back until the time came. He was sure they would have something prepared for him if he asked, but he would rather be out on his own in the city at the moment. That, and he didn't fully trust them. Did Automique seem like a good person? Maybe. And what about the others, were they trustworthy? He couldn't say.

Generally speaking, Finn didn't trust many people to begin with. The only people he did trust were all very far away from this place.

Granted, the layer of separation from the government was unnecessary. He needed the device for a day and then he'd be done with it. Plus, there was a level of extreme security at play that he had come to learn about during his time outside Earth. He didn't have much to worry about.

As for the way he went about getting the requisite amount of cash, it was rather simple. He just looked for criminal hiding spots in his range and located their money stash. For normal heroes, he could imagine days of stakeouts and investigation to discover something worthwhile. For him, finding a good target didn't take longer than a blink.

Unlike the times when he was still reliant on a baseline human body to do his bidding, he was actually starting to notice how powerful his skill set could be in an urban setting when he had the commensurate speed and strength to quickly act on the information he received from his perceptive abilities.

The appropriation of criminal funds proceeded without fanfare. He used his stealth to walk into a drug den, grab some money, and alert the police cars and drones four blocks west of the location. These thugs were so far beneath him, he didn't see the point in personally apprehending them.

An hour later, he had his hands on a newer model of the transparent, glassy device Echelon had shown him earlier. He was currently sitting on the roof of a restaurant with free wi-fi, allowing him to download the app he needed.

Aegis.

Shade's last login was in 2031, and this would be the first time since his return that he was getting around to checking his account. Everything was more or less the same, except his credit balance.

Credits: 525'388

He blinked. The number of credits in his account surprised him, to say the least. He knew for a fact it hadn't been that high last time he checked. That had been on the evening before the Venin raid, right after he'd conducted a very thorough exchange of tactical intel via mouth-to-mouth transmission with Lyra.

Tapping his payment history, he saw that the credits had been added the next morning by an anonymous client that he'd become familiar with. He hadn't thought a dead person would receive a reward, but someone like Cyrus had a reputation to uphold. Unless…

Finn shook his head. If the man knew, he would find out when he got there. Swiping back, his eyes fell on his contact list and forum history. A name stood out. Calliope.

She was just a button away. He could message her this very second. His thumb trembled, and he bit his lips hard enough to draw blood. Why was this so hard? They could have a talk. He could tell her he was alive. He could reassure her. He could ask her what she needed.

He could fall short.

Thoughts of weakness pervaded him like rot through an apple. What if after all this time, he still wasn't capable of providing the help she needed? What if his return only made her condition worse? There was no easy answer to those questions, no way to dispel his doubts before the time actually came.

Letting her know over the phone felt as wrong as it felt dangerous. Maybe she never wanted to see him again, and this would set her off. He couldn't afford to be careless.

He sighed. He was just making excuses. There was nothing stopping him from calling Jack, Mom or anyone else back home either. And he wasn't doing that.

There was fear under the surface. Of giving them false hope, potentially. He wasn't home safe yet, and therefore it was better not to make his family and friends excited about his survival in case he died. A perfect rationalization to avoid thinking about how nervous he was to see them again.

Standing up, Finn put his phone in his pocket and ran over to his next destination. It didn't take long for him to reach the place, farther from the coast than he had traveled so far.

Similar to the other buildings in Miami, this structure had a clean, curving design that made him wonder whether the architect in charge of creating it had been inspired by waves, wind, or perhaps the shapes of birds in flight. It stood tall among the smaller office complexes nearby, its surface reflecting the late-afternoon sun in rippling glints.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

The interior couldn't have been more different from its shorter cousins, filled with labs and machinery he didn't bother to count. There were guards patrolling back and forth in the hallways, augmented by cybernetic gear on different parts of their bodies. Cyborgs, he noted.

This wasn't a gang, though. No, much more frequent than the guards were the clients. Coming in and out of the building in great numbers, he could see purchasing and selling a bunch of technology, most specializing in household maintenance or vehicle upgrades.

What he had come here for was very much not that. Finn wasn't searching for anything so mundane. He needed a weapon. And that would start here.

Infiltrating the building would be much easier now that he knew what to look out for. Combined with invisibility, he simply had to configure his nanites such that he wouldn't trip their sensors. Heat signatures, movement, sound, he took care to be non-disruptive in any way he could.

Additionally, while partially making his body "fade" from reality, he enhanced the light distortions around him to become more real and harder for the security systems to detect—a trick that had been percolating in his mind following his enhanced flare of light against that yeti primebeast. Weaving around people, he made his way up to the fourth floor. All in all, vastly superior to the simple camouflage he had employed in his early days as Shade.

He wasn't surprised that it worked.

"Ah!" screamed a balding man in a lab coat when he rendered himself visible in the middle of a large, gray-and-black lounge.

Finn didn't waste time. "I need you to make me a weapon."

"How the FUCK did you get past security!? We have anti-teleport arrays!"

The man was already stumbling backward, nearly tripping over a rolling chair as he grasped for some sort of panic button under the desk. Finn didn't move. He didn't have to.

"Don't bother," he said. "The signal's been jammed."

A bluff. It absolutely wasn't. At best some of the sensors were being blocked from receiving input, but these systems had enough redundancy that it didn't matter. He could've pulled something with his nanites, if they could leave the confines of his body. Sadly, they could not.

"I'm not here to kill you. I need something specific. Custom build," he continued in a calm voice.

The man was breathing heavily, sweat already beading along his temple as he backed into a console. "Custom? Who sent you? Was it Volara? I swear to God, I told her we couldn't stabilize the refractor field yet—"

"I know about your black market operation," he cut in. "There's an offer I have for you."

"Can I refuse?"

"No."

"But will you pay me? I don't fold to extortion. Too costly," the guy replied.

"You'll get your payment," Finn said. He projected a rough blueprint of what he had in mind on the wall.

"No external control panel?" asked the engineer. "That makes things simpler for me, but are you sure?"

Obviously, he was sure. "How long will it take you to make?"

"Four days seems like a reasonable estimate. After the next ship—"

"Twenty-four hours," Finn decided. "Alright."

"Do you know how long it would take to source the materials for this?" responded the man, though he was already taking notes on a tablet.

"I'll get you the materials. In return, I want to be there while you make it," Finn insisted.

"I don't see why not. Price range?"

"Your competitors, all of them down. Tonight."

"...Excuse me? What do you mean by all of them?" The man was speaking to an empty room.

Finn had disappeared.

*******

As soon as she felt and saw the environment shift again, Genevieve's expression soured. The pickaxe spawned in her hands, indispensable as usual.

Ahead of her, she could see Niebla and Havoc running to start hacking away at the giant floating meteor they were on, no doubt hoping to be granted a moment in the safe zone later. She clicked her tongue.

Impossible constellations swirled above their heads in every color of the rainbow. Twin red suns burned in the distance, heating them up to desert-like temperatures.

She was still figuring out how this had become her life. If someone had told her twenty years ago that she would be the one to end up in prison, instead of father, she would've… cried, most likely. She was hardened now.

It mattered not. Trapped here in Somnus, her sole priority was getting back to Yves.

The issue was, how did one "get back" from an unending dream?

That was the nature of their existence here. In the real world, they were nothing but a row of inmates completely dead to the world, not harming a soul. In the dream world, they were chained to a series of landscapes where they were forced to perform labor in service of the masses.

She could not rest, for she was already asleep. She could not dream, for she was already dreaming.

Goddamn psionics.

And then there was the fighting.

Genevieve entered her shifter form, the large snake variant, in a heartbeat. She dodged a set of red metallic blades, spewing her poison breath as visual cover to get closer enough for a tail whip.

It connected, crushing the aggressor into a flood of silver sparks. She didn't stay to appreciate her handiwork and sped ahead to the next son of a bitch bothering her.

Just when she was close to destroying her second opponent, a third one smashed into her, knocking her flat. The ground cratered, but she countered without hesitation. Hyper-toxic venom flooded the veins of her enemy. Taking him down was doable as well, albeit in a longer time frame.

Four more jumped on top of her. All of them Unbound. She fought valiantly, and was rewarded with a beheading. Her brain was crushed to bits for good measure too.

Black surrounded her.

The featureless void gave her exactly five seconds of peace before she saw the colors of the mining world.

Her body reconstructed itself, beside her former subordinate. It felt like being rebuilt from a mass of electric tingles and cotton candy. Entirely too cutesy for her tastes.

"Tired of fighting yet?" Havoc laughed, slamming his pickaxe down.

"What did I say about rhetorical questions," she shot back, stalking away. "Think harder next time."

No matter how far they sent her, no matter how long it took her to come back into this plane of existence, she never quit.

Because Viperia's unbinding came with an ability nobody else was privy to.

Her skin molted, invigorating her to new heights. Every day, she grew a little bit stronger. Every day, she was closer to escaping. And once she did, her son had better be fine.

Or there would be consequences.

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