I type the prompt phrase, hands steady because I refuse to give fear the satisfaction of making me clumsy.
“Shift ends when the lights stop lying.”
There’s a beat of silence that feels like standing on a ledge.
Then the response hits, immediate and sharp:
“Lights always lie. Check the breaker.”
My lungs let go of air like they’ve been holding it since Yatori.
It’s him.
The holo feed resolves into a shipboard camera—tight angle, slightly off-kilter, like it was bolted to a bulkhead by someone who hates aesthetics. Clint fills the frame in a way that makes my brain do a tiny double-take. He’s younger than I’d built him in my head and rougher in the way soldiers get rough—black hair grown out just enough to be annoying, blue eyes that look like they’ve seen too much and decided to keep living anyway, posture loose but ready like his muscles never fully unclench.
He’s wearing a plain shirt with sleeves pulled down, but the edges of ink peek at his wrists—tattoos he tries to keep covered,like memories he doesn’t want strangers reading. There’s a faint sheen of sweat at his temples, and even through the holo I can see the telltale tension behind his eyes—headache, probably. Cybernetics backlash, the doc said. Frequent.
He looks like he’s in the galley of a working ship: scuffed metal walls, a strapped-down chair, a table with a half-empty mug that might be coffee or might be something worse. In the background, somewhere off-frame, I hear a muffled voice—deep and enthusiastic—and a tinny burst of ancient Earth music.
“Is that—” I start, then stop because Clint is already scowling at the sound.
He snaps his head slightly to the side and barks, “Honeybear, if you crank Bon Jovi any louder I’m going to eject the speakers into space.”
A booming voice answers, cheerful and offended. “You can’t eject the speakers, Clint! They’re part of the vibe!”
Clint rolls his eyes back toward me. “Jordan?” he says, and his voice is laid-back in that practiced way people get when they’re trying not to show they’re worried. “Tell me this is a prank, because if it’s a prank, it’s the funniest thing you’ve ever done.”
“It’s not a prank,” I say, and my voice cracks on the second word like my body wants to betray me.
His expression shifts—not dramatic, not soft, but precise. Marine reflex. He leans closer to the camera, lowering his voice.
“Okay,” he says. “Then talk. Fast. What’s your status?”
Alive. Not safe. Never safe.
“I’m alive,” I say. “I escaped Yatori Operations Station with a full archive. The station got hit. Tech crews executed. I have evidence.”
Clint’s jaw tightens. “Yatori got hit by who?”
“Troops in Vakutan-marked armor,” I say, and force myself not to spiral as I say it. “But the signatures don’t match.Something’s off. They jammed comms, overwrote docking logs in real time, and then started shooting like they were doing drills.”
Clint’s eyes flick, likely to a screen off-camera. “Where are you calling from?”
I swallow. “Gur. I’m… inside the Defrocked Nun.”
Clint goes very still. Then he exhales through his nose, a short sound that isn’t quite a laugh but has the shape of one. “You always did have a talent for landing in the worst possible places.”
“Hi, Clint,” I mutter.
“Hi, kid,” he shoots back, and the warmth underneath the snark hits me harder than I expect. “Don’t say your exact location out loud again. Assume every wall is a microphone and every microphone is a cop.”
“Already handled,” I say, and I angle my compad slightly to show the network map hovering around me. “I built a secure pocket inside the Nun’s server spine. Booted entertainment off security backbone, rerouted bandwidth through a maintenance tunnel relay, and physically unplugged a bunch of Kaijen listening pucks.”
“Of course you did,” Clint says, and there’s grudging admiration in it. “You unplugged them?”
“With my hands,” I confirm. “Felt therapeutic.”
Behind him, the off-frame voice—Honeybear—says loudly, “Is that Jordan? Tell her I say hi!”
