[POV: Nardia]

  —Trainee? Don’t know her. Right now I’m angry. And just a little smarter.

  When my consciousness snapped back, the first thing that hit me wasn’t light.

  It was smell.

  Disinfectant.

  Plastic resin.

  And, faintly, scorched metal.

  Under the hotel’s “clean” scent, the stink of a fight was mixed in.

  That was what made me the angriest—how neatly it had been layered. Like someone had tried to erase what happened and failed.

  “…Miyu.”

  My voice came out.

  And the moment it did, reality locked in.

  She’d been taken.

  Right in front of me.

  Inside Fanark—the research station.

  I tried to sit up—and my body yanked me back down like it weighed a ton.

  Lead-heavy.

  Residual stun numbness.

  My muscles were slow. My nerves were slow. My mind sprinted ahead, and my body just… didn’t keep up.

  “…Tch—damn it…!”

  Then something pricked deep behind my temple.

  A tiny sting, like a needle.

  The next instant, heat flooded through me.

  Blood circulation kicked back in.

  My vision sharpened.

  My ears reclaimed the world.

  The numbness retreated at an absurd speed.

  “…Huh?”

  I clenched my fist. Opened it. Clenched again.

  It moved. It actually moved.

  Sensation returned all the way to my fingertips.

  Too fast.

  —Adventurer-grade nanomachines.

  The emergency bio-assist package GDC pumps into you before training. I’d had a weaker version during treatment after that Witches’ Family incident, but this was the real thing: toxins, paralysis, shock, circulation failure—detect and correct automatically.

  The “automatically” part still pissed me off.

  Right now, though?

  I could kiss whoever invented it.

  “…So it really was in me.”

  Not the time to admire tech.

  Admiration immediately reignited into rage.

  “Give her back…!”

  I stood.

  My knees wobbled.

  But wobbling was a luxury. I only laugh when I’m doing a comeback line.

  I scanned the room.

  A pillow lay on the floor.

  The pillow Miyu had been holding.

  That it was still here made me furious. It screamed of clean execution—extract the person, leave the props.

  On the desk edge, a dusting of fine powder.

  Camouflage coating flakes, maybe.

  I leaned closer. The powder wasn't just dust. It clung to the edge like it wanted to stay there.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  I snapped my terminal’s sensor camera to macro and ran a quick field read.

  “Sample: polymerized photonic mesh residue. Match: optical-camouflage coating (industrial grade). Probability: high.” “Trace marker: GXF-1A microtag fragments detected. Note: common to station supply lots.”

  Shiratori’s AI nodded.

  “Supply lots…” I whispered.

  Not random raiders, then. Someone had pulled this from Fanark’s own inventory.

  On the floor, a scrape so faint it was almost imaginary.

  They hadn’t dragged her. They’d carried her.

  And the one carrying her wasn’t human. The android’s arms had felt too long—just slightly off. Not perfectly human-shaped.

  Then my terminal.

  Comms were still wrong.

  Not dead. Not “no signal.”

  Just… sticky. Like the system didn’t want to connect.

  Residual interference?

  It smelled like the jamming during the pursuit.

  “…Same guys?”

  Heat climbed up the back of my throat.

  Anger is fuel.

  But fuel you don’t control explodes.

  I forced a breath in.

  Out.

  In again—clean air, not dust, all the way to the bottom of my lungs.

  The grit in my chest didn’t leave.

  —Calm down.

  If I rushed in on rage alone, Miyu would die.

  No—maybe she wouldn’t “die” in the strict sense.

  But she could be broken.

  And that was the worst outcome.

  I powered up the terminal and started grabbing what I could.

  Hotel surveillance logs—no access.

  Fanark internal records—not enough privileges.

  Of course. Research station.

  Pretty face, hard locks.

  “Damn it…!”

  Then, for a split second, the ship line blinked alive.

  Shiratori’s voice cut through the static—short, clipped.

  “Abnormal electromagnetic pulse: localized. Estimated origin: supply block side. Confidence: medium.”

  Medium.

  That word made me want to scream.

  But it was direction.

  “Supply block…!”

  At the same time, external signal quality improved—just a little.

  The interference thinned.

  Which meant one thing: they were done moving.

  They jammed until the carry was complete, then stopped caring.

  Meaning Miyu wasn’t here anymore.

  I slammed a call through.

  “Ahmad! Genichiro!”

  It connected in one ring.

  The speed was almost worse than not connecting—proof they already knew something was wrong.

  “Report,” Ahmad said. His voice was cold.

  Cold—and that made me feel safe.

  His cold wasn’t anger. It was control.

  “Miyu was taken! Android with optical camouflage! I got stunned out! There was jamming—same stink as the pursuit!”

  “…Understood.” Ahmad didn’t waste a syllable. “Your position?”

  “Hotel section. But Shiratori estimates the source was toward the supply block!”

  “We’re returning. Do not act alone.”

  “…I will,” I snapped, then corrected through gritted teeth, “but I won’t die doing it!”

  “Don’t die,” Ahmad said.

  Short orders were always the heaviest.

  Genichiro cut in next.

  “You alive?”

  “I’m alive! And I’m angry!”

  “Good. Where?”

  “Hotel. She was carried out. There are carry marks and camo flakes. Supply block is suspicious.”

  “Copy.” A beat. “Nanomachines pulled you back?”

  “Yeah. So I can move.”

  “Don’t run,” Genichiro said immediately. “Run and you fall. Fall and you die.”

  “That’s what you told Thomas before!”

  “Not Thomas. You.”

  “Ugh!”

  “If you’re mad, live,” he said flatly.

  The worst kind of correct.

  I tightened my grip on the terminal, threw on my adventurer suit, snapped the visor into place, and opened my emergency permissions—adventurer registration authority. I was a trainee, but it still worked.

  It was useful.

  And it made me mad that it was useful.

  “…Emergency distress code. Engage.”

  A portion of the hotel section locks loosened—not fully released, but enough to create gaps.

  Gaps were all I needed.

  I slipped into the corridor.

  A pair of technicians rounded the corner ahead of me—white coats, eyes hollow. They froze when they saw my visor.

  One of them started to speak, then swallowed it and stepped aside without meeting my gaze.

  Fear. Not of me.

  Of the station.

  The wall screens cycled through cheerful safety posters, but the fine print underneath flashed something else:

  ROUTE FOR MAINTENANCE — AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY

  Fanark smiled with its front teeth while it sharpened knives behind the curtain.

  The hallway was pristine, so my footsteps echoed.

  For once, the echo was a friend.

  On my way to the supply block, a wall monitor flickered with a burst of noise.

  A sign the jammer was closer.

  Confidence rising.

  “…This way.”

  I didn’t run. I fast-walked.

  Run and you fall. Fall and you die.

  Infuriating. True.

  At the supply block entrance, an old pressure door waited—industrial, ugly, honest.

  I tried to override it.

  The station’s “backside” security was tougher than its pretty front.

  “Open…!”

  I punched in emergency authority again.

  The lock loosened one stage.

  A crack.

  I jammed my hand into the gap, felt for the inner lever by touch.

  My fingertips nearly sliced on the edge.

  Still worth it.

  —It opened.

  Inside was dark.

  Cargo. Refrigerated containers. Pipes and ductwork. The smell of cold metal.

  And beneath all that—

  A faint weight.

  I couldn’t see anything.

  But something was here.

  Optical camouflage can lie to your eyes.

  It can’t erase mass.

  It can’t stop air from shifting around a body.

  “…Show yourself.”

  My voice came out low.

  No tremble.

  That lack of tremble scared me more than any shaking would’ve.

  Rage was eating the fear.

  “Give Miyu back. Right now… and I won’t break you.”

  Not negotiation.

  A threat.

  And I hated how naturally it came.

  The air moved.

  Footsteps retreated—light, controlled.

  “Running?”

  I moved after it and threw updates over comms.

  “I’m in the supply block! They’re close! Camouflage—can’t see them, but I can track footfalls!”

  Then, behind me—

  metal scraped.

  Not the harmless scrape of ventilation.

  The kind that meant someone with a suit and a gun had just arrived.

  Ahmad.

  Genichiro would be right behind.

  I could hear it. I could trust it.

  But even so—

  Right now, I was the only one in position.

  So I clenched my teeth and pushed deeper into the dark.

  “I’ll find you,” I muttered. “And I’ll take her back. No matter what.”

  Rage painted my vision red.

  But inside that red, the direction was clear.

  —Miyu.

  Before I moved, I crouched and scraped a pinch of the photonic residue into a sterile strip.

  The terminal beeped once—soft, satisfied.

  “Microtag: GXF-1A. Source class: Fanark Supply Block. Distribution: restricted.” “Estimated carrier profile from air displacement + footfall timing: height 1.9–2.1 m. Limb ratio: long-armed. Gait: controlled, no limp.”

  A profile. A thread.

  It wasn’t Miyu.

  It was the thing that took her.

  I’m not letting anyone leave her behind again.