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FELIX

I had made it as far as the service junction under the stands before the Academy corrected my heading. Two Board liaisons in dress grays were waiting at the mouth of the players’ tunnel with a garment bag and a schedule. I could have gone through them, but then I would have been the unstable asset who assaulted Board staff an hour after the whistle, sedated by midnight, and every door in this building would have closed on both of us at once. A Rank One at the victory party kept his codes and his access. A Rank One caught forcing a medical door kept nothing. So I let them zip me into a tuxedo, and I went upstairs to be admired, and I told the cold thing in my chest that this was still the fastest route to Sub-level anything. It believed me. It had to.

So I stood in the center of the VIP Lounge, surrounded by a wall of black tuxedos and shimmering evening gowns, but the champagne tasted like acid.

“A magnificent volley, Asset Cento,” a General said, clapping a heavy hand on my shoulder. “Truly. The way you adjusted the angle in mid-air... it was like watching artillery calibration.”

“Thank you, General,” I said. My voice came out smooth, velvet over steel. I stood there, the picture of the Golden Boy, and let them touch me.

The General leaned in, his breath smelling of brandy. “And the grit! The way the team adapted to the loss of the winger? That is the kind of resilience we need for the National Team.”

He squeezed my shoulder.

I smiled. Porcelain, painted on.

They were not here for soccer. Every man in that room wearing medals needed the Sectors to believe the war in the Basin could be won. The Academy was the proof, a national team that kept winning on a feed that never switched off, so that a mother in Sector 9 could hand over her next son and think of a trophy instead of a trench. I was the face they had chosen to make that feel true.

The mask still fit. That was the obscene part. Two hours ago I had let it fail on a live feed in front of the nation, the only true thing I had ever shown them, and two hours later it had gone back on without a seam. Years of training did not care what I had lost.

Inside, I was screaming.

My skin itched. Every place they touched me felt like a burn. I kept looking at the door, hoping for a heavy, limping figure to shoulder through the crowd, smelling of sweat and violence, and tell these parasites to back off. But the door stayed closed.

“Where is your partner?” Madame Koresh asked, appearing at my elbow with a flute of sparkling pink liquid. She looked at me with hungry eyes. “The dark one. He had such... exuberance.”

“He is in recovery,” I lied. “The match was demanding.”

“Pity,” she purred. “I was hoping to discuss his genetic profile in more detail. He seems like a prime candidate for the high-yield program.”

The glass in my hand threatened to shatter under my grip.

“Asset Cento.”

The Director’s assistant cut through the crowd, a severe woman with a tablet grafted to her forearm.

“Director Tegula requires your presence in the Observatory. Alone.”

The crowd parted, they knew the hierarchy. When the owner called, the prize pony trotted. I handed my unfinished champagne to a passing droid and followed her. We left the noise of the party behind, ascending in the silent glass elevator to the Spire. The city sprawled below us, a grid of lights bleeding into the darkness of the outer sectors. Somewhere down there, in the bowels of the medical wing, Leander was hurt. I could feel it. The connection we built was vibrating with pain.

The elevator doors slid open and Tegula was sitting at his desk. The room was dark, lit only by the blue glow of the tactical screens covering the walls. He was watching the replay of my last goal.

I had been reporting to this room since before my voice broke. He had called me the asset since I was small enough to find it flattering. Other boys got fathers. I got this office.

He paused the footage at the exact frame where Leander started running toward me, the Reserve coming in from his blind spot. He had chosen that frame, nothing in this room was ever ambient.

“Impressive,” Tegula said, not looking up. “The Symbiosis rating peaked at 99.1%.”

“We work well together,” I said, stepping into the room. “Regillen creates space. I use it.”

“Used,” Tegula corrected. “Past tense.”

He spun his chair around, looking pleased.

“Regillen served his purpose,” Tegula said. “He was a catalyst. He introduced the necessary volatility into your system to wake you up. You were stagnant, Felix. Too clean. He dragged you into the mud, and you learned how to kill.”

“He isn’t a catalyst,” I said, my voice tight. “He is my partner. He is Tier 1 now. Rank 9.”

“He is broken,” Tegula said coldly. “I saw the medical report. Grade three fracture. Ligament rupture. Even with the Class A Bio-Gel you embezzled from your emergency kit, the joint failed.”