I carried the forty-pound window air conditioning unit back to the apartment completely manually.
It was a deeply humiliating, physically agonizing procession. My bespoke, ten-thousand-credit Italian silk shirt was plastered to my spine with sweat. My arms, which had spent the last decade lifting nothing heavier than a clipboard and a cup of lukewarm coffee, were trembling so violently I nearly dropped the plastic box down the final flight of wooden stairs.
I kicked the melted remnants of my front door aside, hauled the unit into the living room, and practically threw it into the open bay window. I jammed the accordion panels into the frame, plugged the thick, three-pronged cord into the wall outlet, and slammed my hand against the 'MAX COOL' button.
The heavy compressor whined, shuddered, and finally kicked on with a deafening, industrial roar. A blast of glorious, artificial, sixty-degree freon hit me directly in the face.
I collapsed backward onto the smoking, lightning-singed couch, closed my eyes, and let out a long, shuddering groan of absolute relief.
"Survival," I whispered, my apathy shield relaxing just a fraction of an inch. "I am going to sit here in the cold until my heart stops."
*No, you are not,* my Alter snapped instantly.
He materialized in the center of my mind's eye, standing in his pristine mahogany office, looking down at my exhausted physical form with profound, unyielding disgust.
*You are currently operating on blind, statistical luck, Doctor,* my Alter lectured, pacing back and forth. *You successfully bullshitted a demigod and a mercenary, but you are playing a game without knowing the rules of the board. Lance Cromwell has your face. The Dawn Queen has your invoice. You are completely blind to the geopolitical hierarchy of this city. You do not know who the players are, what the laws are, or how to navigate the criminal underworld you just inserted us into.*
"I bought an air conditioner," I argued weakly. "I showed initiative."
*You bought a plastic box,* my Alter hissed. *We need actionable intelligence. We need an informant. A local asset. Someone deeply entrenched in the mercenary underbelly of Sector Four who is cynical enough to be bought, but professional enough not to ask questions.*
I cracked one eye open, staring at the ceiling. I knew exactly who he was talking about.
"I am not calling my old receptionist to ask her how the mafia works," I muttered.
*She is not your receptionist!* my Alter roared, his voice vibrating with sudden, terrifying authority. *She is a Class-C kinetic speedster who just punted a two-hundred-pound man through reinforced polycarbonate! She operates outside the Task Force! Call her, Helian. Call her right now, or I will take the wheel and do it myself.*
A cold spike of dread pierced through my exhaustion. He wasn't bluffing. The agonizing memory of being trapped in the passenger seat of my own body while he crushed the Dezonic was still entirely fresh.
"Fine," I grunted, sitting up and wiping the sweat from my eyes.
I pulled the matte-black Obsidian phone from my pocket, retrieved the sleek business card from my wallet, and manually dialed the encrypted comm-link number.
The line clicked once. There was no ringing.
"Lace," a sharp, slightly breathless voice answered over the encrypted channel. In the background, I could hear the heavy, concussive thuds of what sounded like an underground fighting ring.
"Ms. Lace," I said, my voice immediately dropping into the flat, deadpan, authoritative drone of Dr. Aristdale. I wrapped the heavy lead blanket of my apathy shield tightly around my prefrontal cortex. "This is the consultant from the hardware store."
There was a brief pause on the line. A sharp *crack* echoed in the background, followed by a man groaning in pain.
"Doc," Dulci said, her tone shifting from aggressive to highly guarded. "You work fast. Didn't think you'd need a retrieval this soon. Who's the target?"
"No targets today," I replied smoothly. "I am currently evaluating the geopolitical landscape of Sector Four to assess the risk factors for my... high-tier clientele. I require a localized intelligence briefing. A consultation. I am willing to pay your standard hourly rate."
"You want to pay me to talk?" Dulci asked, skepticism dripping from her voice.
"I want to pay you to answer questions," I corrected. "I find my time is best spent gathering data from assets on the ground, rather than relying on heavily redacted reports. Name a location."
I heard the sound of a heavy metal door slamming shut on her end of the line, cutting out the background noise.
"There's a dive in the lower industrial district," Dulci said, her mercenary instincts clearly calculating the profit margin of an easy job. "Called The Faraday. It's heavily lead-lined. Kills all external surveillance and dampens Ego flares. Contractors use it to negotiate. Meet me there in thirty. And Doc?"
"Yes?"
"I charge double for consulting. Information is more dangerous than concussions."
"Add it to the invoice," I said flatly, and hung up.
* * *
The Faraday didn't look like a bar. It looked like a subterranean bomb shelter that had been retrofitted to serve alcohol.
It was located three levels below street grade, accessible only through a rusted service elevator. The moment the heavy iron doors slid open, I felt my ears pop. The entire establishment was encased in a thick, active electromagnetic dampening field. It was designed to completely nullify kinetic sparks, telepathic eavesdropping, and Task Force surveillance drones.
It was dark, it smelled like stale beer and gun oil, and the patrons were terrifying.
I walked into the dim, amber-lit room. Mercenaries, smugglers, and rogue Egos sat in heavy vinyl booths, their faces obscured by shadows. No one was glowing. The Faraday cage surrounding the bar forcibly suppressed everyone's auras, forcing the city's most dangerous citizens to rely entirely on dirty looks and concealed weapons.
I maintained my absolute, thermodynamic void. In a room full of suppressed, lethal energy, my total lack of presence made me practically invisible. I moved through the tables like a ghost.
I found Dulci sitting in a circular booth in the far back corner, facing the entrance.
I almost didn't recognize her. On the parallel dimension, Dulci had survived entirely on lukewarm green tea and unseasoned almonds.
The woman sitting in the booth was currently surrounded by three empty plates that looked like they had previously held massive, double-patty cheeseburgers. She was holding a violently pink, high-calorie protein shake in one hand, sucking it down through a thick straw, while her right foot tapped against the concrete floor at a speed that literally blurred the air around her boot.
*Look at her caloric intake,* my Alter analyzed instantly, deeply fascinated. *Her Class-C kinetic speed requires an astronomical metabolic burn rate. She is constantly vibrating. If she doesn't consume ten thousand calories a day, her own Ego will cannibalize her muscle tissue. She is a biological sports car running out of gas.*
"Ms. Lace," I said, sliding into the vinyl booth across from her.
Dulci didn't flinch. Her eyes flicked up to my face, taking in the bespoke suit and my utterly deadpan expression. The rapid, blurred tapping of her foot didn't slow down.
"Doc," she nodded, setting the empty protein shake down among the graveyard of plates. She leaned back, crossing her arms over her matte-black aerogel suit. "You clean up nice for a guy who was hanging outside a shattered hardware store. I was beginning to think you were just a mirage in a nice vest."
"I am remarkably tangible when I need to be," I replied, resting my forearms on the sticky table. I didn't order a drink. I couldn't afford to lower my blood sugar. "I assume the tab is going on my invoice?"
"Speedster metabolism," Dulci shrugged unapologetically, gesturing to the plates. "I burn through a burger in about four minutes. You said you wanted an intel drop. Let's get to it. You're paying for my time, and my time moves a lot faster than yours."
I leaned forward slightly, lacing my fingers together. I had to frame this perfectly. I couldn't ask basic questions, or she would realize I wasn't from this dimension. I had to ask macro-level questions under the guise of corporate risk assessment.
"My practice is expanding," I lied smoothly, letting the arrogant, clinical tone of Dr. Aristdale take the reins. "I am taking on clients with significantly higher threat profiles. To properly integrate their Egos, I need to fully understand the external pressures acting upon them. I need your assessment of the current hierarchy. Who is actually running Sector Four right now?"
Dulci let out a short, cynical laugh. "Who's running it on paper, or who's running it in the dark?"
"Both."
"On paper, the Sector Council," Dulci said, leaning forward, dropping her voice to a low, conspiratorial murmur. "Five bureaucrats sitting in a fortified tower in Sector Four, pretending they control the grid. They dictate the suppression laws, they fund the Anomaly Task Force, and they control the chemical distribution. They make the rules."
"But they don't enforce them," I deduced.
"They can't," Dulci smirked. "You can't police a city where a bad breakup can level a skyscraper. The Task Force is just there to clean up the messes and harvest the kinetic energy when some poor bastard detonates. The real power? The people who actually keep the sector from tearing itself apart?"
She leaned in closer, her dark eyes locking onto mine.
"The Warlords, Doc. The Ranked Egos."
I kept my face perfectly blank, though my heart gave a sharp, terrified thud. "Explain the dynamic."
"The Council recognized years ago that they couldn't suppress the truly powerful Egos," Dulci explained, tracing a circle on the condensation of her empty glass. "The Class-S and Class-SS manifestations. If you try to drug a Class-SS, they'll vaporize the city block in their sleep. So, the Council made a deal. They legalized them."
*A localized feudal system,* my Alter whispered in my mind, absolutely thrilled by the political machinations. *They gave the monsters badges.*
"They created the Ranking system," Dulci continued. "If your Ego is powerful enough, you aren't suppressed. You're licensed. You become a Warlord. You get territory. You get immunity from the Task Force. In exchange, you enforce the peace in your sector. If a rogue Ego flares up and the Task Force can't handle it, the local Warlord steps in and crushes them."
"A delicate ecosystem," I murmured, thinking of the human strobe light who had melted my door. "And the Dawn Queen?"
Dulci's rapid foot-tapping abruptly stopped. A flash of genuine, unadulterated caution crossed her face.
"Shayna McLight," Dulci whispered, glancing around the dimly lit, heavily shielded bar. "Rank Number Three in Sector Four. Class-SS Photonic. She doesn't just run the commercial district, Doc. She owns it. Why are you asking about her?"
I looked at Dulci, my face a perfect, unreadable mask of clinical boredom.
"Because," I deadpanned, pulling my unlit cigarette from my pocket. "I just billed her son ten thousand credits for a therapy session, and I need to know if she's the type of woman to pay the invoice, or burn my apartment building to the ground."
Dulci stared at me, her jaw slowly dropping open in absolute, horrified disbelief.