Luca stared at the hotel ceiling, wide awake at 1:30 in the morning. The massive king-sized bed was ridiculously comfortable, sheets soft and expensive against his skin. Emily lay curled against his side, naked and warm, her blonde hair spilled across his chest. She'd fallen asleep an hour ago, but Luca couldn't stop his mind from racing.

  Tomorrow was the gala, and they'd be walking into a room full of politicians and power players who wanted to control them, use them, or potentially eliminate them as a threat.

  They were walking into that gala blind. No intel, no plan. Just seven kids from Sandworth expected to smile and shake hands while political vultures circled, and Karen wasn't sharing much.

  Fuck that.

  Luca shifted, trying not to wake Emily. She made a soft sound, her arm tightening around his waist.

  "You're tossing and turning," she murmured. "What's wrong?"

  "Can't sleep," Luca said quietly. "Too much going through my head."

  Emily lifted her head, green eyes blinking open in the darkness. "Tomorrow?"

  "Yeah." Luca ran his hand through her hair. "I hate walking into situations blind. We don't know what we're dealing with. Don't know who's watching us, what they want, how what the fuck is going on."

  Emily propped herself up on one elbow. "What are you thinking?"

  "Going to take a look around," Luca said. "Scout the perimeter. See who's watching us and what they're planning."

  "Now? It's almost two in the morning."

  "Best time for it. Fewer people around. Easier to spot surveillance." Luca sat up, the hotel's climate control cool against his skin. "I'll take Zoe. We'll be careful."

  Emily studied his face, then sighed. "You're not going to be able to sleep until you do this, are you?"

  "Probably not."

  She reached up, pulled him down for a kiss. "Be careful. Please."

  "Always am." He leaned down and kissed her. "Get Zoe?"

  "Already awake," Zoe's voice came from the suite's sitting room. "Heard you moving around."

  Luca found her standing by the window, looking out at the Washington Monument lit up against the night sky.

  "Couldn't sleep either?" Luca asked.

  Zoe turned towards him. "You going to get dressed?"

  "I'm wearing pants, aren't I?" Luca said.

  She rolled her eyes. "Something feels off. Too many players moving around out there. I can feel it."

  "Yeah." Luca moved to the [Stasis Case] they'd stashed in the closet. "Let's find out who's watching the watchers."

  He opened the case and pulled out the TL9 Nanoweave Concealed Undersuits. Luca held one up, examining the sleek black fabric. Lightweight and flexible, meant to be worn under regular clothes.

  Emily appeared in the doorway, wrapped in one of the hotel robes. She looked at the undersuit and smiled. "Those are actually kind of cute. They remind me of your first scout suit."

  Luca grinned. "You remember that thing? So embarrassing."

  "You looked good in yours," Emily said, her smile turning mischievous.

  "I look good in everything."

  Zoe snorted. "Your humility is inspiring, Rossi."

  The undersuit slid on, and the fabric adjusted automatically, conforming to his body. The passive systems activated, and Luca watched his reflection in the window shimmer slightly before stabilizing. Not invisible, but hard to focus on. His outline blurred at the edges.

  Zoe pulled on her own undersuit, then reached into the case for the Phantom Cloaks. The fabric was a black, light-bending metamaterial that clipped onto the undersuit.

  "Feels like we're suiting up for a delve," Zoe said, attaching her cloak.

  "DC's crawling with mobs," Luca said. "Haven't you seen them? Black suits and sunglasses, everywhere." He pulled out a case of TL9 Personal Communicators. Small badges that looked unremarkable but contained would connect them to encrypted networks. The integrated earpieces were designed to sit invisibly inside the ear canal. "Let's at least be able to talk to each other."

  He handed one to Zoe, then clipped his own to his belt. The earpiece felt strange sliding into place, then his communicator pinged with confirmation. The network initialized, creating an encrypted channel between them.

  "Testing," Zoe's voice came through crystal clear, even though she stood right next to him.

  "Works," Luca replied, squinting his eyes at her. He grabbed two plasma pistols from the case and checked the power cells. He handed the other to Zoe.

  The TL9 Tactical Glasses came last. Lightweight frames that looked like regular glasses but packed EM pulse sensors and NIR Light Ladar. Luca slipped his on, and the world shifted into enhanced clarity. Thermal signatures, motion tracking, and EM pings. They brought to bear an integrated overview at the expense of excessive energy usage.

  "Okay, that's actually incredible," Zoe said, adjusting her own visor. "I can see heat signatures through the wall."

  Emily watched them gear up, growing more concerned by the moment. "You're really doing this."

  A knock at the suite door interrupted them. Luca glanced at the clock. 1:47 AM. Who the hell was knocking at this hour?

  Ryan and Chris stood in the hallway, both in pajamas. Ryan's hair stuck up at odd angles.

  "Heard you moving around," Ryan said, walking in. "What are we doing?"

  "Scouting the perimeter," Luca said. "Zoe and I are going out."

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  "Then we're setting up overwatch," Chris said, moving to the Stasis Case.

  Ryan cleared space on the sitting room table. Chris pulled out the portable comms hacking station. The matte black container expanded to normal size, about the size of a large briefcase. He set it down and opened it with a soft hiss.

  The holographic display flickered to life, projecting a three-dimensional map of the surrounding blocks.

  "Good thinking," Luca said.

  Chris looked up from the interface. "Be careful out there. We don't know how many players are in this game."

  "That's what we're going to find out," Luca said.

  ---

  They slipped out of the suite using the service stairwell. The hotel was quiet at this hour, hallways empty and soft with expensive carpet. Luca activated [Silent Step] as he moved, the ability suppressing his footsteps completely for ten seconds. Enough to get them past the entrance hall.

  The service entrance opened onto an alley behind the hotel. Cold January air hit Luca right in the face. His breath fogged in the darkness.

  The city looked different at two in the morning. Quieter. More honest, somehow.

  Luca activated [Heightened Awareness], feeling the ability kick in, and for a moment, his perception expanded. Every movement, every sound, and potential threat within range snapped into focus with perfect clarity.

  Three security cameras covered the alley, but behind them, tucked into the shadows of the adjacent building, Luca spotted something else. A surveillance van. IFC logos on the side, but the equipment inside was active. Thermal signatures showed two people monitoring screens.

  "IFC surveillance and they're not being subtle," Luca murmured into his comm. "Half a block east. Watching the hotel entrance."

  "Got them," Zoe said. She'd moved to the opposite corner, scanning the street. "Standard corporate security. Cameras, agents in parked cars. Karen's people keeping an eye on us."

  That made sense. Karen wouldn't leave them unprotected, even if she couldn't be here personally. But why would she announce it?

  They moved through the shadows, keeping to the edges of the surveillance zones.

  "Zoe, another vehicle."

  She turned as she spotted it. "UER markings. Light combat vehicle. Strategos-class."

  "They're watching the IFC," Luca said. Counter-intelligence. The UER didn't trust Karen's people, so they'd set up their own surveillance net. Made sense, given the political situation. "This is getting complicated."

  His jaw tightened.

  The UER vehicle sat four blocks from the hotel, tucked into a parking garage with clear sightlines to both the hotel and the IFC surveillance positions. The UER position was visible to the IFC van, and vice versa. Neither side was hiding. This was deliberate, transparent counter-surveillance. Both factions watching each other watch the hotel.

  Luca crouched behind a concrete pillar, studying the vehicle through his visor. They had energy weapons and were alert but not twitchy.

  "Professional setup," Zoe whispered beside him. "UER's taking this seriously."

  "Yeah." Luca was about to suggest they circle around for a better angle when his visor pinged.

  Movement signature. But his eyes saw nothing.

  Luca blinked, double-checked the reading. His TL9 visor was picking up a heat signature near the UER vehicle's entrance. Human-sized. Moving with purpose. But when he looked directly at that spot, he saw empty air.

  Active camouflage. TL8. Invisible to normal eyes, but the Ladar cut right through it.

  "Zoe," Luca breathed. "You seeing this?"

  "Holy shit," Zoe whispered. Her visor had caught it too. "Someone's approaching the UER vehicle. Active cammo."

  Luca studied the UER sensor array. The vehicle's detection systems were oriented outward, focused on the hotel and the IFC positions. The saboteur was approaching from the blind spot between parked cars, using the structure's concrete pillars for cover. Smart. The UER was watching everyone else and missing the threat at their own doorstep.

  Luca activated [Predictive Modeling], burning the five-second ability to analyze the approaching figure. The interface fed him tactical data at accelerated speed. Equipment profile: data injection kit, compact breaching tools, something that looked disturbingly like explosives.

  Someone was about to sabotage the UER command vehicle and make it look like an attack.

  "Oh, this is going to be fun."

  Zoe glanced at him, and he saw the same expression reflected on her face. Anticipation.

  "We're intervening, right?" Zoe asked, her tone eager.

  "Absolutely," Luca said. "Can't let them frame Karen. Plus, look at this guy. He has no idea we're here. No idea what's about to happen."

  "Poor bastard," Zoe said, not sounding sympathetic at all. "How do you want to do this?"

  Luca studied the approaching operative. "You go high, I'll go low. Drop him before he even knows what happened. Then we scatter his equipment and trigger his comm device to alert the UER guards."

  "Make it look like he got taken down by an unknown party," Zoe said, nodding. "I like it. Very mysterious."

  "We're ghosts," Luca said. "Might as well act like it."

  Zoe's smile was sharp. "Good. I was hoping you'd say that."

  They activated Ghost Protocol simultaneously. The Phantom Cloaks engaged, light-bending metamaterial wrapping them in active camouflage. Luca felt the familiar sensation of the ability extending the cloak's duration, stretching their active camouflage.

  They moved.

  The cloaked infiltrator was good, Luca could appreciate that. Professional movements and minimal noise. But they didn't have a TL9 sensor package watching them, and they didn't expect intervention from an entirely different set of invisible operators.

  Luca and Zoe flanked the target, moving into position.

  The infiltrator reached the UER vehicle's side entrance. Their hands moved to the access panel, some kind of bypass tool materializing.

  Luca activated [Phantom Strike], the micro-disruption field kicking in to mask kinetic noise and neural signatures for eight seconds. He gave Zoe the signal.

  She moved like liquid shadow.

  Zoe sprinted forward, still invisible, and launched herself into the air. A front flip brought her above the infiltrator's head, her body rotating with perfect control. The operative never even twitched. Couldn't see her, couldn't hear her, had no idea death was somersaulting over their skull.

  Zoe's legs snapped out mid-rotation, catching the infiltrator's head between her thighs. Her momentum carried them both forward and down. She twisted, using the operative's own body weight against him, and slammed him face-first into the concrete with a move that made Luca wonder where she was placing all her attribute points.

  The impact was brutal. Silent, but brutal.

  The infiltrator went limp instantly, unconscious before they even registered the attack.

  Zoe caught him before he hit the ground, her movements smooth and controlled. She secured the data injection kit and incendiaries before they could scatter.

  Luca checked the infiltrator's pulse. Alive, yet unconscious. No ID or insignia, no obvious affiliation.

  "Corporate?" Zoe whispered. "Rival faction?"

  "Don't know," Luca said. He glanced at the UER guards. They hadn't noticed anything yet, but their patrol pattern would bring them around this corner in about thirty seconds.

  Ryan's voice crackled through the comm. "Got clean reads on all local frequencies. You guys clear?"

  "Yeah," Luca whispered. "Took down a saboteur. About to leave him for the UER."

  "Wait," Emily's voice cut in. "Don't ditch him yet. Put him somewhere. Erik can pick him up later for questioning."

  Luca looked around the parking garage for a good place to hide him. "Somewhere?!"

  "I don't know," Emily said. "A dumpster? An alley? Just not where the UER will find him immediately."

  "Fuck," Luca muttered. "Okay."

  He and Zoe grabbed the unconscious operative and moved quickly through the garage, deeper into the shadows. A service alley ran between two buildings, dark and narrow, filled with commercial dumpsters and loading equipment. Perfect.

  They dragged the infiltrator behind a large dumpster, tucking him out of sight. Luca secured his hands with zip ties from his own kit and disabled the operative's comm device.

  "Wait," Ryan's voice came through the comm. "He could wake up any moment. You need to keep him down longer."

  "How?" Luca whispered.

  "I'm pretty sure he has a concussion," Zoe murmured.

  "What's that?" Ryan asked. "Luca, listen. We have to trigger a power cell discharge. Use it like a taser. A low voltage pulse to the nervous system will induce extended unconsciousness."

  Luca pulled out one of the plasma pistol power cells. "Won't that fry his brain?"

  After a pause, Ryan replied. "You're right. It will if you do it." Ryan said. "Zoe's better with the delicate work."

  Zoe took the power cell and examined their prisoner. "You sure about this?"

  "Ninety percent," Ryan said.

  "Good enough," Zoe muttered. She positioned the power cell against the base of the guy's neck, found the right spot, and triggered a discharge.

  The operative's body went rigid for a second, then relaxed completely. His breathing deepened, steady and slow.

  "He'll be out for at least four hours," Ryan said. "Maybe six."

  "Location tagged," Zoe replied. "Marking it on the map. Erik can retrieve him later."

  "Good," Luca said. He took the data injection kit and incendiaries, stuffing them into his pack as evidence. Karen would want to see what this guy was planning to plant.