The safe house takes me a few seconds to process. It is not a squat. It is a base. Everything is optimized: cables, screens, gear stacked with intention, not chaos.

  Mara does not talk much, but when she does, it cuts. Ivo drops equipment like this is just another Tuesday. Jax fills the room, sarcasm on standby. Aren stands in the center, pivoting, handing out roles. I can feel he is already two rooms ahead of everyone else.

  Zera is almost background noise. A hood, a slight frame, fingers trembling above the keyboard. She is not looking at us. She is looking at flows.

  “Give me the name of your medic friend,” she says.

  Aren does not bother introducing anyone.

  “Elian… Actually, what’s your full name again?”

  Elian blinks once, like the question glitches in his brain, then lifts an eyebrow.

  “My name is—”

  “No need,” Zera cuts in.

  His mouth closes without protest, but the surprise stays in his eyes.

  Her fingers snap across the keys. The tremor gets worse. Not emotion. Just feedback from whatever she has wired into herself.

  “I can’t shut down your bracelets,” she says. “That’s impossible. And suicidal.”

  She finally looks up at me.

  “I can only tell the system that what its eyes see… is not you.”

  She pulls a small black case closer, pops it open, and takes out a translucent membrane, thin as second skin.

  “Ghost-Sleeve. Model Phant0m-X.”

  She wraps the film around my wrist, just under the Morph-Sync bracelet. It is cool at first, then warms to my skin.

  DEVICE DETECTED

  CALIBRATING LOCAL FIELD…

  MORPH-SYNC:

  “This doesn’t hack the bracelet,” she explains. “If I touch the core, Resonance screams and you get a squad on you. What this does is create a local AR bubble. It intercepts what the bracelet sends to Vyra and injects something else instead.”

  On her screen, my data splits into two streams.

   R: 4.00 — STATUS: STABLE

   OUTGOING IDENTITY STREAM: CLONED

  MASK PROFILE:

  “Result,” she says. “The city still sees your real score. Four point zero. Sorry. But the name, the profile, the job… that I can fake. For the Gala scanners and drones, you become people they already expect.”

  She tilts the screen toward us. Two ghost identities resolve, each tagged to a Ghost-Sleeve.

  “Kai Virek becomes Devon Marsh. Catering, event support.”

  NEW MASK APPLIED

  LEGAL ID: DEVON MARSH

   ROLE:

   ALERT RISK: MODERATE (R: 4.00)

  She keeps typing, too fast for me to follow.

  “And Elian Vesper… score R: 4.8.

  Aren actually stops moving.

  “Four point eight,” he says. “Since when?”

  Elian blinks, as if the question itself is strange.

  “Since always,” he answers. “You just never asked.” He says it like it never mattered.

  Which makes me wonder when it started to matter to everyone else.

  I feel my bracelet pulse once against my skin. Four point eight. The number hangs there between us, and I realize that, to me, Elian is just the guy who stayed. Someone who happened to be there when everything went sideways, and then kept being there.

  About the rest of him, I know absolutely nothing.

  Aren frowns.

  “Honestly, he doesn’t even need to be staff. With that score he could walk in through the main entrance.”

  Elian cuts in, voice cool.

  “I was not invited. That’s the problem.”

  Aren turns to Zera.

  “Check.”

  Her fingers blur over the keys. A guest list scrolls past: names, scores, sectors.

  QUERY: GUEST LIST VY-1 HIGH LEVEL GALA

   SEARCH:

   RESULT:NO MATCH

  “He’s right,” Zera says. “Elian is not on the list. And if he goes in under his real score, the Sentinels will pull his hospital file. He’ll be burned in ten seconds.”

  SENTINEL PROTOCOL:

  RISK WINDOW:

  Elian adjusts his glasses, gaze sharpening.

  “Then make me a Bio-Monitor. Nobody looks at a health tech’s face, but everyone opens the door when his Impact bar starts flashing.”

  For the first time, Zera almost smiles.

  “Sold.”

  She edits the fields again.

  CREATING MASK PROFILE…

  LEGAL ID: JEAN SEVORICH

   ROLE:

   ZONE ACCESS: VIP EAST – MEDICAL GRID

  DATA ACCESS:BIOMETRIC SERVER NODES (LIMITED)

  “Jean Sevorich. Class Four Bio-Monitor. Assigned to health security in the East VIP zone. That gives you full access to biometric data servers. And a lot of places you’re not supposed to be.”

  She hits confirm.

  “And your nice official medical kit,” she adds. “You can hide everything I give you inside. Nobody questions medical hardware.”

  She leans back a little.

  “The scores stay. A server at four point zero… that stands out.”

  The words slide under my skin and stay there. Invisible to cameras, not to humans.

  R: 4.00

  SOCIAL VISIBILITY:

  RECOMMENDED BEHAVIOR:

  Mara steps forward and taps the desk, snapping the air back into focus.?

  “Listen up.”

  She spreads a folded map across the table. Thick paper, official print, Vyra?1 stamped in the corner. High Level Gala floor plan. I lock up for a second, like my brain blue-screens.

  “How did you even…?”

  Elian doesn’t flinch. He has seen this level of preparation before.

  “Still surprised by this?” he murmurs.

  Zera just shrugs.

  “Ten minutes to get into their database. They’re polished on the surface, rotten underneath.”

  VY?1 GALA DATABASE

  BREACH TIME:

  If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

   SECURITY RATING: OVERRATED

  Mara uncaps a marker and starts circling zones with quick, economical motions. No hesitation, no extra lines.

  “Here,” she says, looping a section, “Sentinel relay. Patrol shift. Thirty?second window.”

  PATTERN:

   TRANSFER GAP:

  She circles another cluster of corridors.

  “Here, staff entrance. You, Devon and Jean, go in from the back with catering. Service door, quick scan, no one looks at your face as long as your hands are full.”

  ENTRY POINT: SERVICE DOOR S3

  ACCESS LEVEL: STAFF – LOW

  MASK COMPATIBLE: DEVON MARSH – CONFIRMED

  The marker squeaks as she drags a thick cross near the VIP sector.

  “And here, for you, Jean. Bio?Monitor access. Technical side. They’ll wave you through as long as your interface screams louder than their instincts.”

  ENTRY POINT: MEDICAL ACCESS M1

  ACCESS LEVEL: MEDICAL – CLASS 3+

  MASK COMPATIBLE: JEAN SEVORICH – CONFIRMED

  She doesn’t raise her voice, but every word carries weight, like she’s still giving field briefings to people who don’t get second chances. For a heartbeat I can see it: Mara in another uniform, another life, drawing routes for the exact kind of people we’re about to trick.

  Silence presses in.

  “There is no way back after this,” she says.?

  Her marker hangs over the map for a second, then drops.

  “The building will remember you.”

  She does not sell it like a threat or a speech. She says it the way someone recites weather patterns they have watched repeat too many times to still be impressed, just another storm she knows we will not walk out of unchanged.

  Ivo breaks it by dropping a heavy bag onto the table. The sound of fabric and metal zips snaps me back.

  “Uniforms.”

  I reach out and brush the cloth. It is thick, broken-in at the seams, carrying that industrial detergent smell that only comes from thousands of cycles.

  “Authentic,” Ivo says. “And heavy. You’ll feel them.”

  He starts handing them out. One uniform lands in front of me, one in front of Elian, one for Aren.

  “Where do we change?” Elian asks, checking the cut of his jacket.

  Aren is already unbuttoning his shirt, completely unbothered.

  “Right here.”

  Elian stares.

  “Do you actually know what privacy is?”

  Aren gives a short, sharp smile.

  “We don’t have time for modesty.”

  I lift my hands.

  “Hey, wait, we could just—”

  “Toilets, end of the hall,” Ivo cuts in, jerking his chin toward the door. “For anyone who still has principles.”

  Mara clicks her tongue, amused.

  “There is nothing wrong with changing in front of us,” she says. “Unless our med student suddenly turned shy.”

  Her gaze slides over Elian, then lands on me.

  “What are you, sixteen? Yeah, I definitely don’t want to see any of that,” she adds, mock?bored.?

  My mouth is already opening. “I’m eighteen,” almost makes it out, but Jax’s laugh cuts across the room first, a nervous little burst. He grabs his own uniform.

  “Locker room to the right, therapy to the left,” he mutters.

  We peel off one by one toward the toilets. In the corridor, I grip the fabric in my hands. The Sentinel uniform I pull on is a bit too big: shoulders a little too wide, sleeves hanging just past my wrists. In the mirror, I look wrong. Like I borrowed somebody else’s skin.

  VISUAL SELF-CHECK…

  UNIFORM FIT:

  ROLE PERCEPTION:

  I tug on the jacket, trying to make it sit better.

  Server, I remind myself. Devon Marsh. Four point zero.

   LEGAL ID:DEVON MARSH

  R: 4.00

   EVENT ROLE:

  The door in the next stall creaks open. Elian steps out first. The uniform fits him perfectly, clean lines, collar sharp, the dark fabric falling just right on his tall frame. His build is lean more than bulky, all long lines and quiet balance, and the glasses he pushes up his nose catch the light in a way that makes him look like he walked out of some corporate med ad.?

  When Aren comes out, it is worse. The uniform settles on him like it was made for his shoulders specifically, broad and solid, the kind that fill out the armor plating without effort. His face is all cut angles and tension, jawline sharp, cheekbones defined, a faint scar drawing a pale line near his temple. The way he stands, chin slightly lifted, turns standard issue into something that looks like a bespoke suit someone would pay stupid money for.

  Next to them, I look like the extra staff kid they dragged out of storage at the last minute. The jacket hangs a little wrong, the sleeves a touch too long, my hair refusing to sit flat no matter how I smooth it down. But for a server, that’s exactly the point. A face nobody scans twice.

  I exhale and clip the ghost badge to my chest. The metal edge bites lightly through the fabric.

  Ivo steps into the doorway, eyes moving over the three of us with a quick, assessing sweep. “It works,” he says. “You look like you belong there.”

  I’m not sure if he’s talking to all of us or being polite to me specifically. My stomach does an uncomfortable flip anyway.

  Apparently it shows, because Aren’s elbow bumps gently against my arm, just enough to jolt me out of my head. I glance at him. He doesn’t look at me, just keeps his eyes on the mirror.

  “Could be worse,” he says. “At least they didn’t stick you in one of the floral vests.”

  I give him a look that’s halfway between offended and incredulous.

  Easy for him to say that, when the uniform treats his body like free advertising.

  He finally turns his head, catching my expression in the reflection, and the corner of his mouth twitches like he is trying not to smile.

  Jax pops his head back into the room, hair a little messy, grin tighter than usual.

  “Car’s ready,” he says. “Last chance to fake food poisoning.”

  Mara checks her watch, then gives Zera a look. Zera pushes her chair back with a small scrape and stands.

  “Before you go play waiters of the apocalypse,” she says, “recap.”

  She points at the map, then at us, one by one.

  “Kai and Aren: servers. You move through the crowd, listen, look, stay boring. You watch for patrol patterns, exits, any sign of Lix or forced movement. Nobody remembers your face, just the tray.”

  Her finger shifts to Elian.

  “Elian: Bio-Monitor. High-tier guests are under so much resonance stress they need personal techs to keep their biology from crashing on live feeds.”

  Jax squints. “In normal words?”

  “His job is to stop rich people from passing out on camera,” Zera says. “You’ll have access to their vitals, their movement, and their panic. Use it.”

  ROLE:

   TASK: LIVE VITAL MONITORING / INCIDENT PREVENTION

  She turns back to me and Elian. The room seems to narrow a little.

  “You have less than three hours from insertion,” she says. “Ghost-Sleeves don’t like long parties.”

  She taps her interface. A schematic of the sleeve wraps around a virtual wrist, glowing in a cold neon blue.

  GHOST-SLEEVE: PHANT0M-X – ACTIVE

   FIELD COLOR:

  STATUS:

  “The sleeve is smooth, almost invisible. Right now, Julian Vane’s data is crystal clear and stable,” she adds, jerking her chin toward my alias. “But at one hundred and eighty minutes, it stops playing nice.”

  Her voice shifts, a little flatter, like she is quoting someone.

  “You have 180 minutes. Not one more. At minute 181, the sleeve will self-destruct to wipe the evidence. Second-degree burns on your arm. And your real score, four point zero, will scream across the tower’s network.”

  COUNTDOWN:

  AT 00:00:00 → SLEEVE SELF-DESTRUCT

  DAMAGE:

   SCORE BROADCAST:

  I look down at the blue band on my arm. Under the neon glow, my skin feels suddenly very thin.

  Three hours to find Lix and get him out. That’s more time than I’ve ever had for anything that mattered. It still doesn’t feel like enough.

  Elian adjusts his glasses, gaze steady.

  “Three hours is also how long it takes some toxins to paralyze a nervous system,” he says softly. “Let’s make sure we’re the poison, not the host.”

   COUNTDOWN:

  Zera closes the window with a flick.

  “I’ll be in your ear the whole time,” she says. “Mara and I will run overwatch from here. Ivo handles extraction routes and contingencies. Jax will stay outside, near the service access with the food drops. When you find Lix, you vector him back to Jax. He gets you to the car, or to whatever isn’t on fire yet.”

  She taps a small case on the table. Inside, three tiny earpieces lie in foam, almost invisible.

  “In-ears,” she says. “Behind the ear, low profile. You’ll hear me and Jax. I’ll see any bracelet within range if you focus your HUD, pull up scores, flags, incident history. Use that only when you need it. The less time you spend staring at numbers, the more you look like actual people.”

  COMMS:

   CHANNELS:

   BRACELET SCAN:

  Jax snaps the case shut and scoops it up.

  “Field trip,” he says. “Come on, before I start caring about your feelings.”

  He leads us toward a side door, the kind that looks like it only ever opens for deliveries. Industrial hinges, peeling paint, stale air pressing in from the corridor.

  “Kai.”

  Zera’s voice stops me just as I fall in step behind the others. I turn back. She is still at her station, screens reflected in her eyes, fingers hovering above the keys instead of moving for once.

  “I am guessing Aren told you I pulled something about your brother,” she says. “After this mission, if you want it, I will lay out exactly what he gave me and what I found on top of it. Clearly. No filters.”

  My throat tightens so fast it hurts. For a second my vision narrows around her face and the glow of the monitors behind her. I feel my hand close harder around the edge of the tray I am holding, knuckles going pale.

  “Okay,” I manage. It comes out thinner than I want.

  She gives the smallest nod, as if she has just scheduled another process to run later, then drops her gaze back to the screens.

  I turn away before she can see the way my chest is trying to climb into my throat and hurry to catch up with Jax and Elian in the corridor, the smell of stale dust and cold metal swallowing the rest of the room behind me.

  As we move, Zera’s hand shoots out and catches Aren’s sleeve.

  “Not you,” she says.

  We all slow automatically. Aren half-turns toward her, impatient.

  “What now?”

  “With your fake bracelet, you’re fine as long as you behave,” Zera says. “But listen very carefully: you do not use your static. At all. No sparks, no shorts, no fun tricks. If you light up anything in there, the entire security grid will notice.”

  Her tone doesn’t rise, but it locks the air in place. It is just Zera, Aren, Mara, and Ivo by the door; Jax already left with me and Elian a minute ago, toward the car bay.

  I can’t see Aren from here, but I can hear the silence he makes. In my head, I put the rest together easily: jaw tight, eyes flat, shoulders just a little too still. The kind of still that comes before a hit.

  For a second, I’m sure he is going to argue. My stomach clenches, bracing for it.

  Then, somewhere behind us, his answer comes, low and clipped.

  “Fine. No static.”

  It doesn’t sound like agreement. It sounds like a lid slammed down on something that has teeth.

  Ivo and Mara must trade a look I can’t see. In my head, I can almost picture Ivo weighing the promise like a piece of defective hardware, and Mara quietly moving it from the “risk” column to the “inevitable problem later” one.

  Zera’s fingers are already flying again. New windows bloom on her screen, cold and clinical.

  PARALLEL SCAN:

   DATA STREAMS:

  Lines of text scroll past too fast for me to catch more than fragments.

  School records.

  Internships.

  Score graphs, flat and steady.

  “Elian,” she says. “School history. Stable score. No flags.”

  She leans back a little.

  “He’s clean.”

  There is a beat, just long enough for the word to sink under my skin. Clean, in a room where no one else is.

  Out by the industrial exit, Jax leans against the frame, drumming his fingers on the metal as he waits with me and Elian. When Aren finally joins us, the outside light slices across his uniform, making the fake badge glint like it believes itself.?

  For a heartbeat, with Zera’s warning still echoing in my ears, the badge looks less like a disguise and more like a very thin lock on something I really do not want to see unleashed in the middle of VY?1.?

  For half a second, everything lines up in my head: the safe house, the map, the Ghost?Sleeves, Lix somewhere above all this. It feels like the exact frame you would freeze if you wanted a before picture. My hand twitches once, sharp and useless, like my body is already trying to leave without me.

  Behind my eyes, a timer wakes up.

  GHOST-SLEEVE MISSION TIMER03:00:00 → 02:56:59…

  Three hours before our borrowed identities melt off our skin.

  A second HUD layer fades in under it, cooler, tagged to the city itself.

  TRANSIT:VY?1 HIGH LEVEL GALA

   DEPARTURE:

  ESTIMATED ARRIVAL:

  Thirty minutes until we leave VY?4 behind and step into VY?1’s spotlight.

  Jax straightens, pushes the industrial door all the way open, and cold air rushes in, sharp with exhaust and wet metal.

  “Showtime,” he says. And for once, it does not sound like a joke.