Vesper had been awake for thirty-six hours straight when the notification arrived, running on stims and spite while cross-referencing supply inventories that never added up to enough. One week since the last protein run from Axel, all signs of him had vanished and they didn't know why, nor could they find out because he'd specifically been avoiding Quinn's surveillance drones. It was the third day since she'd stopped checking casualty reports because the numbers only went up and there was nothing she could do about it except keep the survivors alive until tomorrow, then do it again.

Her neuralink feeds scrolled with the same useless data they'd shown yesterday: black market food prices getting artificially hijacked, corporate distribution nonexistent, monster activity holding steady at "don't enter these areas without a team with assault rifles".

Just another afternoon managing a slow-motion catastrophe in their corner of the Fourth District.

The ping arrived at exactly 17:33, cutting through the supply inventory she'd been reviewing for the third time that hour. The CYPHER notification jumped to the front of her feed as a city-wide broadcast.

DISTRICT RECLASSIFICATION EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY FOURTH DISTRICT EMERGENCY SPECIAL RESIDENTIAL ZONE HUMANITARIAN CRISIS DESIGNATION APPROVED SUBSISTENCE-TIER PRICING PROTOCOLS ACTIVATED

She blinked three times, refreshed, then blinked again.

The notification stayed solid. Not a glitch. Not a hallucination from too many stims and not enough sleep.

The Fourth District was… legal? No longer badlands?

That didn't sound right.

Vesper pulled up the pricing databases for the tenth time in that day, fingers twitching as she navigated menus through the neuralink. Black market rates for protein paste: 847 credits per kilo. Government subsistence rate: 12 credits per kilo. Water purification tablets: 230 credits per hundred-pack, now 8 credits.

She refreshed, then refreshed again.

Her throat tightened as she scrambled to input the rates into the small calculator program Quinn had cobbled together. The timeline for starvation jumped from hours to weeks.

The group-chat was in a frenzy, everyone screaming at everyone else, trying to confirm if this was real and not just some sort of massive hallucination or hack or maybe some convoluted corpo ploy. They waited with a collective held breath as Quinn's icon kept blinking.

QUINN: Confirmed. Subsistence pricing active across all approved vendors. QUINN: The district's legal. QUINN: We're legal.

ISIA: holy shit ISIA: axel did this ISIA: has to be him

VESPER: We don't know anything VESPER: Quinn, pull vendor listings. I want to know where they're setting up the distribution points.

QUINN: On it.

Vesper leaned back against the bunker wall, letting herself feel it for three seconds. Relief, sharp and dangerous. Hope was ammunition you couldn't afford to waste. She clung to the certainty of the now. Right now, they needed every pound of food that didn't need refrigeration they could afford.

Her neuralink chimed again. Government and Corporate press releases across every news outlet in the city, all timestamped within minutes of the CYPHER announcement. All of them were saying the same sanitized hypocritical nothing. "Proud to support humanitarian efforts in this difficult time." "Committed to serving all residents." "Working closely with CYPHER to ensure efficient distribution." The words tasted like poison coming from the same groups that had been price-gouging them into the ground.

QUINN: Distribution points mapped. QUINN: Sending coordinates.

The overlay appeared in Vesper's vision, red markers blooming across a schematic of the Fourth District. Every single point sat at the Third Wall, where the highways met with the metal behemoth.

VESPER: They're making people come to them.

QUINN: Malicious compliance. QUINN: Or minimized costs. QUINN: Take your pick.

ISIA: don't care, want to shoot them ISIA: can we do something about it? ISIA: idunno, cypher? Maybe they'll listen to Bear?

VESPER: I'll throw a ping, but don't expect anything. VESPER: They probably stuck to the letter of the order and not an inch more. VESPER: We'll adapt.

She pulled up route analysis, overlaying the distribution points against what parts of their sector had been cleared of monster activity. Three paths might work with armed escorts. Maybe four if they were willing to risk the collapsed residential blocks where mouthers nested in the basements. Every route required crossing open ground, exposed to anything flying overhead, and Quinn had sighted some flyers recently.

VESPER: New priority. VESPER: Requisition as many vehicles as we can manage. VESPER: Saints become the supply network. We bulk-buy at subsistence rates, escort groups to distribution points, redistribute internally. VESPER: Small operational cut, enough to stay afloat and save for tomorrow.

ISIA: you want to middle-man the corps?

VESPER: Corps made it hard to access cheap food. We make it easy. VESPER: We become essential, it'll let us keep a leash on things. VESPER: The last thing we want is another looting/murder spree.

QUINN: Timeline?

VESPER: Yesterday. VESPER: What's the status on the thugs doing protection rackets?

QUINN: Three confirmed groups. Twelve to fifteen individuals total. QUINN: No unified leadership. QUINN: Yet. QUINN: Axel not being here is a serious blow to legitimacy. If they get some inner-city meguca to join up or think they can establish a territory of their own… QUINN: People will start getting ideas, I don't think we have more than two days.

VESPER: Then we establish a monopoly on the routes, that'll buy us time before anyone gets stupid ideas.

ISIA: if the paws wanted to expand we'd be fucked

Vesper's jaw ached. She'd been clenching it without noticing. They had two days to establish the Saints as the legitimate supply network before opportunism turned their sector into a warzone.

Two days before desperation turned neighbors into gangs.

She had eight separate chats open at the same time, role-calling anything they couldn't spare but needed desperately.

VESPER: Isia, you still on overwatch rotation?

ISIA: pulling a triple, yeah. ISIA: doc's swamped, I'm covering security sweeps, too many trying to snatch something

VESPER: I need eyes on the northern distribution point tomorrow morning. VESPER: We're running our first bulk purchase. Twenty people, armed escort, in and out fast.

ISIA: on it. want me to blow some heads?

VESPER: If they're stupid enough to try stopping a Saints convoy, we'll make an example. VESPER: Otherwise, let them think they're getting away with it.

ISIA: you're going to let them consolidate then hit them all at once

VESPER: If we get control over the food, it won't matter if they consolidate.

Her neuralink pinged. Private message, different sender. Bear's contact info glowed in her peripheral vision, orange text she'd returned to the default years ago, and never bothered to change it.

BEAR: We should coordinate BEAR: Paws have transport and manpower BEAR: Meet?

Vesper stared at the message for five seconds. Then ten.

QUINN: Vesper? You there?

VESPER: Yeah. Thinking.

ISIA: about what?

VESPER: Bear wants to coordinate supply runs.

ISIA: oh

QUINN: That's... actually sensible. Paws have vehicles and fuel reserves. QUINN: We could move twice as many people with half the risk.

All logical things to consider.

BEAR: Axel's not dead

That sent a jolt through Vesper.

VESPER: Of course he's not dead.

BEAR: You say that, but rumor's running BEAR: But I know better

VESPER: How?

BEAR: S-E-C-R-E-T xD

There were a billion horrible thoughts going through her head. Had Axel been caught while in his shush-monster form? Contacted Bear for some reason? How could Bear know for sure when they hadn't seen a single sign of him anywhere?

No, wait.

VESPER: He's still in critical care.

BEAR: Thought as much. He was in the Summer Strike radius wasn't he?

She'd been fishing for information. That bitch! Since when had she ever bothered being anything other than a… Vesper shook her head. No, this wasn't the time to dwell on that. Bear knew something, she wouldn't have said anything if she hadn't information of some sort. But whether she did or didn't was secondary.

QUINN: Vesper?

VESPER: We accept full cooperation and we end up merging. VESPER: Guess who'd end up calling the shots then?

ISIA: so we turn them down?

VESPER: I call for vote, limited cooperation, defined boundaries. VESPER: A contract.

ISIA: bear's going to push for more

VESPER: Of course she will, but she's asking, not demanding. VESPER: We use that.

She set out the vote for every core member of the gang, attaching the explanations and chat pictures, waiting for the tally. 89% In favor of a temporary contract. Good enough. She passed the explanation through a lawyer AI and after a quick check sent the document.

VESPER: *attachment* VESPER: Our offer.

BEAR: Bitch BEAR: But reasonable BEAR: When's your first run?

VESPER: Tonight, before anyone else can put anything together. VESPER: Convoy, dozen vehicles, as much food and water as we can load up.

BEAR: We'll be there BEAR: I'll bring the bike brigade, keep you guys safe

Vesper's eyebrow twitched, jaw clenched tight. Of course she'd say that. Of course she'd think the Sewer Saints weren't ready to handle themselves. Vesper forced a slow breath out, if only to calm herself.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

Not the time.

Not the time.

She breathed, turning to focus on the logistics. They needed at least thirty people for the convoy, and the list of available members was zero. She'd need to pull people off of critical things, anything that could be spared for the remainder of the day, or just a few hours.

While her brain was fully preoccupied with too many scheduling and logistic problems, she was also physically helping prime their vehicles for the supply run. There'd been many abandoned cars the gang members were picking up and bringing over, some in worse conditions than others.

She'd been elbow-deep rewiring a battery pack when her neuralink pinged, another DM.

AXEL (CAM): This is CAM, Axel's personal CYPHER-assigned assistant.

The wire made contact. "OUCH! FUCK!" She recoiled, too focused on the DM to care about the burn.

AXEL (CAM): He is currently otherwise occupied, but he wishes to send thanks for your collaboration with his efforts. AXEL (CAM): He also wishes to inform you he will be back tomorrow at the latest. AXEL (CAM): Axel has classified you as a first-point-of-contact with partial-information discretion. AXEL (CAM): I have been authorized to answer some questions in his stead.

He was alive.

The relief was immense and immediate, and she'd been half-way to making a response when she stopped and deleted the message to send something else instead. She'd heard about the CYPHER personal assistants from Bear, but the Polar Paws leader had never really used it.

VESPER: I need proof. AXEL (CAM): Of course.

What followed was a random string of text and numbers, forty digits long, followed by instructions of how to reach CYPHER's main verification page, though no URL. Vesper immediately asked Quinn to verify whether CYPHER even had a "main verification page", and once they confirmed, she followed the steps.

It opened into her profile.

Not her social media profile, not her personal profile, but to a profile that contained everything. Everything. Every credit she'd spent, every minute of geolocation, every bounty claimed, every job she'd worked, every relationship, every takeout, every post, every meme, every chat message she thought she'd deleted. It was a complete, thorough, absolute breakdown of every single thing she had ever done since the day she'd been born up until a few months ago.

AXEL (CAM): The information you will see is a portfolio built by CYPHER-Magubo. AXEL (CAM): I do not have access to that information, nor anyone else but you. AXEL (CAM): Do you believe the information you've been shown is sufficient proof?

"Shit!" She leaned against the wall, combing greasy fingers through her hair, the garage suddenly felt tiny. "Shit, shit shit," she muttered, looking for a chair to sit in. She'd known CYPHER could see everything, but this… this hit at an entirely different level.

VESPER: Why show me this? What's the point?

AXEL (CAM): I do not have access to CYPHER-Magubo's line of reasoning.

Then was this a warning? A threat of some kind? This was exactly why she hated having to deal with anything that far up her paygrade.

VESPER: What can you tell me?

AXEL (CAM): His condition has improved significantly. AXEL (CAM): He can resume normal functions. AXEL (CAM): He is currently undergoing a capability integration test.

Vesper breathed in.

VESPER: Was he somehow involved with the district reclassification?

AXEL (CAM): He wishes to inform you that the reclassification was due to several elder megucas pressuring the government.

What?

He'd talked to the elders?

Before she could form a response, a message had come through from a verified meguca account.

SHADOW: *picture attached*

Vesper choked.

It was the picture of Axel, human Axel, looking like he'd been thrown into a sac of bricks and then put into a washing machine set to "maximum tumble", naked save some shredded pieces of tarp, his fist inches away from the face of a very recognizable old woman.

Elder Fulton.

Everyone knew who Elder Fulton was, the Bulwark of New Francisco, the meguca whose face was synonymous with the Third Wall. Vesper remembered from the countless video essays and podcasts she'd watched as a child. The Goddess of Iron. The Immovable Shield. The strongest meguca born in New Los Angeles who'd spearheaded the construction of the Third Wall when the megacity had fallen.

There were hundreds of tiny shrines in her name near the base of the wall.

And she had a picture of Axel mid-swing.

Sent by the meguca who'd tried to murder him.

"The fuck did you do, Axel?"

Toughness Mode (1): * -1 AP / Second * * +9 Durability / Second *

I counted five seconds and stopped the mode before it could consume more AP (being able to stop it was a very welcome upgrade), feeling myself expanding in a way that was almost like coming home. The transformation felt different from the last time, as if taking off shoes that were a size too tight.

"You ready?" Shadow asked from across the room. She didn't wait for my response, the practice blade whistled as it came down straight for my head.

Scrambling to the side, the attack smacked my shoulder instead, hard enough my knee bent violently, leaving a solid thud against the floor. I snarled, looking at her and immediately regretting it, the sparkles were an assault on my brain, like driving nails into my retinas with malicious precision that forced me to look away.

The sparkling was getting old.

I'd thought it would be funny. A harmless prank, just some sparkles. I'd wanted to make the meguca assassin look like she'd walked through a craft store explosion. What I hadn't accounted for was shimmer interacting with some other enhancements she already processed, turning the sparkles into a visual pain.

"Sssstop." The word scraped out of my transformed throat.

"You can talk in this form too?" She looked genuinely surprised. "That's good, improvement." Shadow tilted her head. Adjusted her grip on the practice blade. Then hit me again faster than before. "Do you plan to block?"

Easier said than done, especially when she was going out of her way to smack me wherever my arms weren't. Was this revenge for not dying? Or the sparkles? Both? I tried to track her position by sound, by the faint displacement of air, by literally anything that wasn't my eyes. The sparkling made it impossible. She circled left. I followed, squinting. Her blade still caught me across the ribs.

Damage Feedback Triggered: [+1 AP]

The notification vibrated in my vision, practically wiggling with excitement. Like a puppy that had just learned a new trick, moving across my vision to position itself over the image of Shadow, blocking her from view.

"Gottt it," I said.

Shadow let out a disappointed sound. "In conclusion, we've confirmed the trigger condition is based on the strength of the attacks received within a 5-second window, not on the damage done," Shadow said, lowering her blade. The sparkling stopped after a second or so, instantly replaced by her usual shadow-wreathed form that was somehow easier to look at despite being objectively unnerving. "The two-hour timer on Inheritance Protocol is accurate to the second… shame."

Her face was completely blank, professional. But I knew. She'd enjoyed that. The sparkle-torture had been educational, sure, but she'd definitely taken some personal satisfaction from whacking me around while I couldn't look directly at her.

My prank. My consequences.

At least I could see again.

I took a breath, shaking out my shoulders and settling into a sitting position.

"Axel, CYPHER has an information request," CAM's voice rang out from the speakers in the training room. "According to the description you provided regarding your powers, you can absorb traits from monsters. They would like to observe the process in action for a modest information fee."

Shadow became still as she turned to look elsewhere, which I took to mean she didn't want to pressure an answer out of me. It was… I'm not sure what to call it. Amusing?

"Yessss," I said.

"Very well, then a contained specimen will be brought."

Wait what.

The floor near the center of the room let out a pneumatic hiss, splitting open as a platform began to rise, my eyes widened in realization of what I was looking at.

Its shape was reminiscent of an arthropod, something close to a scorpion, only it was the size of a car. The translucent shell showed things moving inside that shouldn't move that way. Wrong angles, impossible joints, organs that pulsed with bioluminescence in colors that made my brain itch.

Everything on the monster had been ripped and broken. There were hand-shaped imprints on its body, points where the carapace had shattered and broken. Most of its limbs had been ripped off, save for the tail that was kept pinned in place by foot thick metal bands, its blood oozing from every freshly cracked part. It was barely alive.

"Kulttton," I growled. This had to be the elder, those hand prints looked like something with infinite mass had bore down on the monster until it had cracked like a walnut.

"She did assist-"

The monster twitched.

Oozing eyes turned to fix on me, and it spasmed.

Power Mode (2):

* -1 AP / Second * * +9 Strength / Second *

I rushed the monster, brought my claws down on its head. The chitin cracked, but the thing spasmed harder, letting out a shrill sound that split the air. Its body fought against the restraints despite the damage.

The cracks started closing.

I hit it again. The damage reversed before my eyes. Regeneration.

"Tail!" I roared.

Shadow moved. The practice blade that had been dull as rock sliced clean through the limb, suddenly sharp enough to part chitin like paper.

The arthropod thrashed harder. I grabbed the severed stinger and thrust it straight through the monster's clustered eyes. The sharp edge punched through. I pulled it out, drove it back in. Again. Again. Each impact made the body convulse, limbs jerking against the restraints with wet crunching sounds.

Until it stopped.

E-class monster "Glass Stinger" defeated! +5 AP

Pick your Reward! +10 AP / 'Stinger' / 'Pincer'

"Is this… normal?" Shadow asked, eyeing the corpse warily as it began to froth and bubble into the putrid steam.

"A similar event happened during his first transformation." CAM declared through the speakers. "It appears he can empower monsters as well."

"It didn't feel like that," the meguca said warily. "It was like the monster was… scared. Scared badly enough it was willing to burn its remaining life for the chance to fight."

Scared?

The system prompt shrugged at me, and I agreed with the sentiment. Maybe it was related to how the monsters had started running away while I was in that weird transformed state. But it felt like one of those questions that was more philosophical than useful, so I turned to the actually useful things.

I picked 'Stinger'.

The itch started immediately. Not on my skin, it ran all the way down my spine and focused at the base where vertebrae ended. Bone that shouldn't exist began growing anyway as I cringed at the feeling. It extended segment by segment like someone was adding vertebrae in real-time. The weight distribution shifted. My center of balance moved slightly further back as the tail grew, a meter long, then two, then three. It segmented like the arthropod's, slightly disproportional compared to my frame but still smaller than the original. The stinger at the tip gleamed under the chamber's harsh lights.

[Monster Traits: 9 / 10]

The notification appeared with what I could only describe as an apologetic little wobble. I blinked a few times at it. I counted the traits from my profile. Stomach, Unbreakable Bones, Prickly, Blade, Shimmer, Corrosion, Obsidian, Webbing, and Stinger now.

Ten traits maximum. Could I even replace traits? The system gave an affirming sound and I relaxed marginally. I'd have to start choosing which ones mattered, which ones to drop when I found something that fit better. Though there were some uncomfortable questions about what would happen if I got rid of unbreakable bones since they were tied into Trait Evolution, was it even possible?

The system's little wriggle seemed to indicate that no, it wasn't possible to remove.

Meaning I really had 8 traits I could potentially move around.

"Can you control your tail?" Shadow broke me out of the speculation, appearing curious in that 'I want to use it as an excuse to smack you' kind of way.

The tail twitched. Moved left, then right. Operating on instinct that shouldn't exist, muscle memory from a body part I'd had for approximately thirty seconds. I coiled it, having to change my stance to accommodate for the shift in my center of gravity.

"Think fast."

She flung a metal plate at me, and I struck. The stinger moved impossibly fast, with enough force it nearly caused me to stumble. It struck the metal plate and tore cleanly through, sinking a good eight inches before I pulled it free.

"No venom," she commented as she observed the plate.

I nodded. "Empty." There was no better way to describe it, the stinger felt somewhat hollow.

"Physical structure only," Shadow said, matter-of-fact. "Not the chemistry." She straightened.

The System window shifted slightly in my vision. Not quite a shrug, but close. Like it was saying 'hey, I'm doing my best here.' I got it. The System operated on its own logic, sometimes doing exactly what you'd expect with the given definitions, other times surprising you completely. We were both learning this together, figuring out the rules as we went.

"CYPHER thanks you for the data, Axel," CAM commented. "Could you return to your base form? Communicating in this form does not appear to be comfortable for you."

I nodded, not exactly eager to stay transformed any longer than necessary.

The change back took longer than I wanted. Bones shifting, shrinking, muscles reconfiguring like I was putting on a straightjacket. The tail dissolved last, vertebrae withdrawing segment by segment until my spine ended where it was supposed to. Until I was left naked and shivering. "Food," I muttered, pulling out my clothes from the bag I'd left at the edge of the room.

As if my word had been a wish, the door opened to a trolley being pulled by a logistics bot. I began to gorge myself on the protein paste and chugging the water before the hunger could take hold too deeply.

"What did you want to talk about?" I managed in between mouthfuls of barely chewed factory-grown meat-imitation.

"To be able to properly determine your full combat capabilities." CAM answered. "Fighting a meguca at full force is inadvisable, therefore CYPHER recommends a field test. They are willing to pay substantial quotas for Magubo combat data."

I rolled my shoulders, working feeling back into normal limbs, though not answering just yet.

"In your estimation, how many low class monsters would you need to reach your maximum potential?" they asked.

"About two-hundred E-class monsters, if I don't pick any traits and just focus on AP," I answered after washing down a mouthful with some water. "Twice that if it's F's, and five times that if it's G's."

Pause. "And would you be able to handle such a load?"

"Maybe? I've never pushed that far. The closest I got was with…" I glanced at Shadow, who shrunk a little and glanced away. "But the upper boundary has moved since then."

CAM considered this for a long moment. "There's a monster surge five hundred kilometers south of the third wall, moving towards New Francisco, and expected to be within the wall's defenses in twenty hours," it said. "CYPHER is offering to take you to it before it reaches engagement range."

"What's the catch? Aside from the recording thing."

"It's a surge." Shadow's tone was perfectly deadpan. "The catch is in the name."

Right. Surges meant unpredictable monster behavior. Concentrations that could shift without warning, potentially higher class monsters that had not been detected yet. The kind of tactical chaos that got people killed even with proper support.

The System window vibrated impatiently in my vision. Bouncing slightly. Like it was saying 'come on, let's go already.'

"Transport can be arranged immediately," CAM offered. "Departure in thirty minutes."

I hesitated.

"What about…" I bit my lip as I thought to ask about the Sewer Saints. "Fine, tonight, then," I said instead. I needed this, to test how far I could push, it wasn't an opportunity I should pass up.

Also, maybe a little bit of the choice was because I wasn't sure how I'd face Vesper when I got back.

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