I watch the door, the sealed window, and the water stain rabbit with its one ear. I stop asking questions.
I start watching.
TWO
The Call
RIOT
“The problemwith three a.m. poker is that Mitzy cheats.” I hold my cards close and narrow my gaze at Mitzy, trying to intimidate her, and fail.
"I'm not cheating." She doesn't look up from her monitors, fingers flying across three keyboards simultaneously while her cards sit face-down in front of her, untouched for the last four hands.
“Liar.” I may not be able to intimidate the tech genius, but I will call her out.
Her hair is electric violet this week—last month it was split down the middle, half neon pink, half toxic green. The dye changes with her mood, her missions, or possibly the phase of the moon. No one's brave enough to ask. "I'm utilizing superior observational methodology."
"You've got cameras on us."
"I have cameras on everything." She spins her chair, grabs her Red Bull, drains half of it, and spins back to her screens in one fluid motion. The can joins a growing army of empties arranged in what I'm pretty sure is a scale model of Helm's Deep. "It's called operational security. Also, raise."
She tosses chips into the pot without looking at her cards. Without looking at the table. Her eyes track something on monitor three—satellite feeds, from the look of it—while her left hand pulls data from a separate terminal.
Across the table, Frost folds with a grunt. Smart man. He knows when he's outmatched, and Mitzy outmatches everyone at this table. Probably everyone in the building. Possibly everyone on the continent.
I'm down sixty bucks and my dignity, but walking away means admitting defeat, and Jon "Riot" Jones doesn't admit defeat to a five-foot-two tech goddess with a caffeine addiction and an ungodly poker face.
"Call." I push my chips in. "And when I win, you're explaining how you knew I had the three of hearts before I looked at it."
"When you lose, you're bringing me coffee for a week. The fancy stuff from The Guardian Grind. With the oat milk."
"Fancy coffee for a woman who drinks battery acid by the case. There's a contradiction there, Mitz."
"I contain multitudes." She taps something on her keyboard, frowns at a readout, taps again. "Also, I have a royal flush."
She flips her cards without looking. King, queen, jack, ten, ace. All hearts.
I throw my cards down in disgust.
"That's statistically impossible. You had to have?—"
"Dealt myself a perfect hand while simultaneously running facial recognition on three separate feeds and building a mission package?" She grins, all teeth and manic energy. "Yes. I'm very talented. Coffee. One week. Oat milk."
"You're a menace to society."
"Documented and celebrated." She spins back to her monitors, already forgetting the game exists. That's Mitzy—a hummingbird in human form, moving so fast between tasks thatkeeping up gives most people vertigo. "Hey, you should probably not go to sleep."
I'm halfway out of my chair, reaching for my jacket. "Why?"
"Because CJ's about to call you in." She pulls up something on her center screen—coordinates, terrain maps, a personnel file. "I've been building his briefing package for the last twenty minutes. It's a bad one."
"How bad?"
The ops center door swings open. CJ's frame fills it—six-four, built like someone tried to stuff a tank into tactical gear. His expression kills my next joke mid-formation.
"Riot. My office. Now."
Mitzy catches my eye as I pass her station. The manic energy's still there, but underneath it, something sharper. She's already working, pulling data, and building routes. Whatever's coming, she's three steps ahead of it.
