I blink hard.
The room is small.
Bare.
Concrete walls streaked with moisture that beads and slides down in slow, patient rivulets.
A single light strip hums overhead, flickering faintly like it’s thinking about dying.
Four men stand in front of me.
No masks.
No hoods.
No dramatic villain capes.
Just practical clothes and hard eyes and the quiet confidence of people who know exactly how much pain they’re allowed to use without killing me.
One of them pulls a chair out and sits.
He folds his hands.
“Ms. Fierson,” he says pleasantly. “Thank you for coming so promptly.”
I spit blood onto the floor.
“Go fuck yourself.”
He nods.
“That’s about what I expected.”
Two of them grab my arms and haul me upright.
Pain flares down my ribs and thigh where the baton hit me.
My knees wobble.
I don’t give them the satisfaction of falling.
“We know about the transit node,” the seated man continues calmly. “We know about the zoning anomalies. We know about the buried convergence hub under your family’s restaurant.”
My heart tries to punch its way out of my chest.
“We also know,” he adds, “that a Reaper asset has gone off-script to protect you. That’s… inconvenient.”
I lift my chin.
“Good.”
He studies me like a bug under glass.
“We want the node,” he says. “And we want Tur.”
I laugh.
It comes out cracked and ugly.
