Chapter 5: COMPLICATIONS
The security job should have been simple.
Dock 23-A at 0200, two parties exchanging goods, me standing in the middle making sure nobody got creative. Hasina had described it as "standard work"—the kind of thing she hired out a dozen times a week.
She hadn't mentioned the OPA.
The first sign of trouble was the crates themselves. Standard shipping containers, properly sealed, correctly labeled—but the weight was wrong. I'd spent enough time on the docks to know how different cargo settled, how containers shifted during loading. These were too heavy for medical supplies, too light for machine parts.
The second sign was the buyers. Three Belters with the hard eyes of people who'd done violence and expected to do more. OPA tattoos visible at collar and cuff. Weapons badly concealed under loose jackets.
The seller—a nervous Earther in expensive clothes—completed his scan of the credit transfer and stepped back. "It's all there. We're done."
One of the OPA men moved toward the crates. He popped a seal, looked inside, and nodded to his companions.
I caught a glimpse of the contents. Not medical supplies. Not machine parts.
Weapons. Military-grade sidearms, the kind the MCRN issued to its marine corps.
The Earther was already retreating toward his ship. The OPA men were focused on their prize. Nobody was paying attention to the hired muscle standing in the shadows.
I should have walked away. The job was done—stand around, look dangerous, don't let anyone start shooting. Mission accomplished. Whatever these people were buying or selling was none of my business.
But I didn't walk away.
Instead, I watched the OPA men load the weapons crates onto a cargo hauler. Watched them drive toward the maintenance access tunnels that led deeper into the station. Watched until they disappeared from sight.
Then I followed.
The warehouse was three levels down, in a section of Ceres that didn't appear on any official map. The OPA men had disappeared inside, their cargo hauler parked near a loading dock that looked like it hadn't been used in years.
I found an access point—a ventilation shaft barely wide enough for Kwame's narrow frame—and worked my way inside.
The interior was larger than I'd expected. Crates stacked against every wall, most bearing the same military-grade seals I'd seen at the dock. Workbenches covered with half-assembled weapons. A communications array that probably reached every OPA cell in the Belt.
This wasn't a simple weapons cache. This was an armory.
I was halfway across the main floor when the lights came on.
"Don't move."
Three guns. Three faces I didn't recognize. The OPA men from the dock, plus two more who'd been waiting in the shadows.
"Hands up. Slow."
I raised my hands.
"Who are you?" The speaker was older than the others, gray threading through his hair, OPA tattoos covering both arms to the elbow. "Who sent you?"
"Nobody sent me. Wrong place, wrong time."
"Bullshit." He stepped closer, gun steady. "You followed us from the dock. I saw you watching. Who do you work for? Star Helix? Mars? Earth?"
"I'm a dock worker. I was on security detail for the exchange. I got curious."
"Curious." He said the word like it tasted rotten. "Curious gets people killed, kopeng. Search him."
Hands pulled at my clothes, finding the data chip from Hasina, my hand terminal, the credits in Kwame's account. One of them paused at my side—the bandage from Gregor's knife, still spotted with dried blood.
"He's hurt. Recent."
"Recent how?" The gray-haired man studied my face. "You've been in a fight tonight. Multiple fights, from the look of it. Just a dock worker, you say?"
"Just a dock worker."
He didn't believe me. His eyes said he was calculating—how much I'd seen, what I might tell others, whether it was worth the risk to let me live.
Then something changed in his expression. He holstered his weapon and stepped closer, close enough that I could smell the recycled air on his breath.
"Tell me what you saw."
The question hit me wrong. Not the words—the weight behind them. Pressure building in my skull, like someone pushing against a door. My vision blurred at the edges. Thoughts scattered, reformed, scattered again.
He was trying to break me. Not physically—mentally. Some kind of interrogation technique, or maybe something else. Something that shouldn't work on a normal person.
I wasn't normal.
The pressure built. I felt my mind resist—layers of something, walls I didn't know I had, pushing back against the intrusion. The gray-haired man's face tightened. He pushed harder. My walls held.
"What—" He stepped back, genuine surprise in his eyes. "What are you?"
I didn't answer. I was too busy fighting down the urge to vomit.
"Kill him." The words came out flat, angry. "Whatever he is, we can't—"
I moved.
The first man went down with a throat strike—windpipe compressed, not crushed, he'd live but he wouldn't be talking for a while. The second raised his gun; I was inside his reach before he could aim, elbow to the temple, knee to the gut. He folded.
The gray-haired man fired. The shot went wide—I'd shoved his arm at the last second, pain flaring in my ribs as the movement tore at Gregor's knife wound. I hit him twice, fast and precise, and he collapsed.
Silence. Five bodies on the ground, all breathing. I hadn't killed anyone.
But I'd seen too much.
The data chip sat on a nearby workbench—whoever had searched me had tossed it there with the rest of my belongings. I grabbed it, then grabbed something else: a smaller chip plugged into the communications array. Intel, maybe. Something valuable.
Then I ran.
The maintenance alcove was three sectors away, far enough that pursuit seemed unlikely. I collapsed against the wall, spitting blood, and assessed the damage.
Broken rib. The fight had shifted it—Gregor's earlier wound plus the new strain. Every breath sent fire through my chest. The knife wound had reopened, blood seeping through the bandage.
I found an emergency medical kit bolted to the wall—standard station safety equipment—and patched myself as best I could. Painkillers, bandages, a brief moment of relief as the drugs kicked in.
My hands were shaking again. Not from adrenaline this time. From something else.
That man had tried to break into my mind. I didn't know how, didn't know what technique he'd used, but I'd felt it—pressure against my thoughts, pushing for cracks. And my mind had resisted. Walls I didn't know existed had held against an assault I didn't understand.
Another ability. Another piece of whatever had changed when I woke up in Kwame's body.
Physical enhancement. Mental shielding. What else was I becoming?
The OPA would be looking for me now. A dock worker who'd seen their armory, who'd fought off five armed men, who'd resisted interrogation that should have broken him. They'd want answers.
I couldn't give them any.
I checked the data chip I'd stolen—still sealed, contents unknown. Something to examine later, when I wasn't bleeding in a maintenance corridor.
First priority: pay Semi. Get that debt off my back before everything else collapsed.
Second priority: disappear for a while. Let the heat die down, let the OPA's search fade to background noise.
Third priority: figure out what I was becoming, and how to use it.
Dawn shift started in two hours. I had 582 credits in my account—enough for Semi's 500, enough for a black market clinic visit, enough to survive another day.
I pulled myself upright, gritting my teeth against the pain, and started walking.
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