It makes Gnotz’s nostrils flare.
“Welcome back,” he says, oily-smooth. “No parade, but you made enough noise on Kaerva that the flags are metaphorical.”
I don’t smile.
“Where’s the sitrep?”
“Eager. That’s new.” He half-turns and gestures toward the lift. “Debrief upstairs. You’ll want it all at once.”
The ride up is silent except for the creak of the lift and the buzz of a neon sign flickering halfway through a vulgar slang for “muscle” in three languages. Syfer doesn’t bother to clean up its image anymore. It sells itself as the place where everything’s negotiable. Truth, loyalty, blood.
We step into the war room—low ceiling, long table, and a wall of projected maps showing economic traffic, syndicate movement, and a few blood-red tags that make my stomach tighten.
Gnotz doesn’t sit. He taps a node on the table and brings up a digital overlay. Marj’s territory, shrinking. Some outposts dark. Others repainted under new logos, same structure underneath.
“She pulled out,” Gnotz says. “Visibly. Loudly. Like she meant it. But she left the skeleton intact. Communication dead zones in old outposts. Reduced personnel. Resource shifts into black route logistics.”
“She’s going underground,” I murmur.
“She never left,” Vrok says beside me.
Gnotz nods. “She repositioned. Consolidated. Maybe lost a few ego-driven limbs, but the brain’s intact. She’s running leaner now. And angrier.”
I cross my arms and stare at the map.
“And?”
“And,” Gnotz drawls, “that leaves a gap.”
He looks between us, then to Vrok specifically.
“The Butcher came back from the dead. People noticed. Syndicates don’t have long memories, but they respect ghost stories—especially ones that spill blood. Yours, in particular, hit just the right note of poetic.”
“I’m not interested in legacy,” Vrok says flatly.
“Didn’t say you were,” Gnotz says. “But you both made a myth. Might as well profit from it.”
He flicks the node again, and a contract projection blossoms across the table.
“Joint bounty operations. Intel requisitions. Tactical hits. Asset reclamation. With your clearance and her profile, you’d clear mid-six figures per run. More, if you let us license the image.”
“Absolutely not,” I say.
Gnotz doesn’t blink. “Knew that’d be a no. Just seeing how fast you’d say it.”
I step closer to the table, voice even. “If this is a partnership, it doesn’t run on borrowed names. We’re not mascots. We’re not sabers to rattle. And we don’t run on your timetable.”
Gnotz gives a little smile. “You came in hot.”
“I'm still cooling off,” I say. “So here’s the deal.”
I swipe the contract aside and open a blank slate on the interface. My fingers move fast. I’m not guessing—I’ve been drafting this in my head since the shuttle left orbit.
“We work as a unit. Equal say. Joint op veto rights. Location override authority. No separation clauses without mutual agreement. Mission vetoes on the table, including kill or no-kill protocols.”
Gnotz starts to interrupt, but I don’t slow.
“We don’t report to you directly. We report to mission control. Autonomy in strategy. Asset shares divided based oncontribution, not name weight. And we both get hard exit options if the game shifts and we need out clean.”
