Dulcinea Lace stared at me across the sticky, heavily scarred vinyl table of *The Faraday*.
The rapid, continuous tapping of her combat boot against the concrete floor—a persistent blur of kinetic speedster energy—came to an absolute, dead halt. She didn't blink. The ambient hum of the subterranean bar's electromagnetic dampening field suddenly seemed deafeningly loud in the silence that stretched between us.
"You billed Allister McLight," Dulci repeated, her voice dropping to a harsh, disbelieving whisper. "The Dawn Queen's nineteen-year-old, dual-manifesting, emotionally unstable son. You invited him into a room, charged him ten thousand credits, and you lived to walk to a hardware store?"
"I did," I replied, my face a perfect, unreadable mask of clinical boredom. I pulled my cheap plastic lighter from my pocket, struck the flint, and lit my cigarette. I took a slow drag, letting the grey smoke drift up toward the low, acoustic-paneled ceiling. "Though, to be completely accurate, he did melt my front door. Hence the infrastructure deposit."
Dulci leaned back in the booth, shaking her head slowly. She reached across the table, grabbed a heavily salted fry from one of her empty plates, and chewed it with mechanical, rapid-fire speed.
"Doc," she muttered, "I don't know if you're the bravest contractor in Sector Four, or the absolute dumbest man to ever walk the grid. Shayna McLight doesn't pay invoices. She pays in localized kinetic incineration. If her kid had a tantrum and you didn't bow, she is going to send a hit squad to your clinic just to make a point about ecological hierarchy."
*She is entirely correct, Helian,* my Alter noted from the safety of my subconscious, sounding profoundly unbothered by our impending doom. *We have painted a massive target on our bespoke back. However, establishing dominance early in a feudal corporate structure is essential for brand recognition.*
"I will handle the McLight account," I deadpanned, exhaling a plume of smoke. "I am significantly more concerned with the environmental hazards surrounding my practice. I cannot conduct high-yield cognitive integration if my office is constantly subjected to dimensional lacerations."
Dulci scoffed, signaling the heavily scarred bartender for another massive plate of food. "You mean the weather? The anomaly forecast?"
"I mean the vermin," I corrected, tapping my cigarette ash into a dented brass tray. I had to frame this perfectly. I couldn't ask what the monsters were without sounding like a tourist. I had to sound like a disgruntled property manager complaining about a rat problem. "I had a minor... spatial tear open in the alley behind my building yesterday. It disrupted my schedule."
Dulci's eyes narrowed slightly, her professional mercenary instincts engaging. "A Freak Wormhole? In the commercial district?"
"Precisely," I lied smoothly. "Now, I understand that the Anomaly Task Force is responsible for sweeping these events, but I require a comprehensive understanding of the ecological mechanics. Why are they breaching our specific grid? What is the foundational cause of the lacerations?"
Dulci leaned forward, resting her elbows on the sticky table. The bartender arrived, wordlessly sliding a massive, greasy plate of heavily processed meat and carbohydrates in front of her. She began eating with a terrifying, blurred velocity, consuming thousands of calories to fuel her vibrating, Class-C kinetic metabolism.
"It's basic physics, Doc," Dulci explained between rapid bites. "Or at least, cognitive physics. The country is a pressure cooker. You have millions of citizens suppressing their Egos with heavy pharmaceuticals. But when the drugs fail, or when someone like the Dawn Queen's kid throws a tantrum, you get a massive, localized spike of raw emotional radiation."
"A cognitive detonation," I murmured, recalling the terminology the Task Force had used.
"Right," Dulci nodded, wiping grease from her chin. "The veil between our grid and the dimensional void is thin. The constant suppression stretches it tight, and the sudden, violent Ego flares puncture it. The psychic friction literally burns a hole in reality. A Freak Wormhole."
*A fascinating ecosystem,* my Alter mused, pacing his mahogany office. *The psychological trauma of the populace is literally eroding the structural integrity of their universe. It is a macro-level manifestation of a stress ulcer.*
"And the Freaks themselves?" I asked, keeping my tone perfectly flat. "The negative-space entities that crawl out of the tears?"
"Tapeworms of the multiverse," Dulci said with a cynical shrug. "They aren't predators, Doc. Not really. They're parasites. Scavengers. They live in the static between dimensions. When a tear opens, they smell the psychic friction—the trauma, the rage, the panic—and they cross over to feed on the emotional radiation."
"Like moths to a flame," I stated.
"Exactly," Dulci agreed, pointing a French fry at me. "Which is why the Task Force tells everyone to suppress their Egos during a weather event. If you don't broadcast an emotion, the Freaks can't see you. You're invisible to them."
*Hence why your pathetic, soul-crushing apathy makes you practically imperceptible to them,* my Alter noted, a smug, satisfied smirk evident in his voice. *You are an empty plate at a buffet.*
I took another drag of my cigarette, letting the nicotine settle my nerves. My apathy shield had protected me from the Freak in the café. It had saved my life. But the Freak wasn't the only thing that had crawled out of the sky yesterday.
I needed to know about the dog.
"I am aware of the Freaks," I said, my voice dropping an octave, slipping into a cold, clinical sharpness. "I am more concerned about the secondary biologicals. The ones that do not feed on cognitive radiation."
Dulci's rapid chewing abruptly stopped.
The blur of her hands froze. She slowly lowered her food, her dark eyes locking onto mine with a sudden, piercing intensity. The casual, cynical mercenary demeanor vanished, instantly replaced by a cold, hardened caution.
"You saw a Dezonic?" she whispered, her voice barely carrying over the hum of the Faraday cage.
I didn't blink. I didn't break eye contact. "One breached my alleyway."
Dulci stared at me, her eyes tracking the immaculate tailoring of my grey suit, the complete lack of physical injuries, and the terrifying, absolute void of my emotional presence.
"And you're sitting here?" she asked, genuine disbelief cracking her composure. "Doc, a Dezonic is a high Class-C biological apex predator. They don't scavenge. They don't care about Egos or psychic friction. They are invasive multiversal carnivores. They use the wormholes created by the Freaks as transit tunnels to hunt for physical biomass."
"I am aware of their dietary preferences," I deadpanned, remembering the corrosive saliva burning holes in the wet asphalt of my alley.
*Fascinating,* my Alter whispered in awe, piecing the biological puzzle together with terrifying speed. *The Freaks are the scavengers that dig the tunnels to reach the psychic radiation. But the Dezonics are the big-game hunters. They follow the scavengers through the tears to harvest the physical meat. It is a perfect, symbiotic nightmare.*
"How are you alive?" Dulci demanded, leaning across the table, her yellow aura violently trying to flare but being instantly smothered by the bar's dampening field. "Your cognitive blankness won't hide you from a Dezonic! It hunts by thermal output and olfactory markers! It would have smelled your blood from three blocks away!"
I leaned back in the vinyl booth, crossing my legs with an air of absolute, unbothered aristocracy. I couldn't tell her that my Alter had seized control of my nervous system and crushed the monster into the pavement with a telekinetic shockwave of pure, weaponized narcissism.
I had to maintain the illusion of the out-of-network consultant.
"I have a very firm cancellation policy," I said smoothly, taking a final drag of my cigarette before crushing it out in the brass ashtray. "And I do not tolerate unannounced walk-ins. The biological freak of nature was... handled."
Dulci stared at me. Her mind was racing, trying to calculate exactly what kind of terrifying, hidden power I possessed. In Sector Four, a man who could kill a Dezonic without leaving a psychic footprint, and who actively billed a Warlord's son for therapy, wasn't just a consultant. He was a monster in a tailored suit.
"You're out of your mind," Dulci breathed, leaning back and shaking her head. "You're a dead man walking, Doc. The Task Force sweeps the grid for biological carcasses. If they find a crushed Dezonic in your alley, they are going to lock down the entire commercial district."
"They already swept it," I replied, my voice a monotonous drone. "I informed them it was a localized dispute over a security deposit. They left."
Dulci's jaw actually dropped. She looked at me as if I had just casually admitted to defying the laws of gravity.
"You lied to a breach squad?" she whispered. "And they bought it?"
"I am a licensed professional, Ms. Lace," I lied, adjusting the cuffs of my bespoke shirt. "I am highly persuasive when I need to be. Now, let us move on to the next item on my invoice. If the Task Force is harvesting the kinetic energy of the citizens, and the Warlords are controlling the territory... who is manufacturing the chemical suppressants?"
I watched her face carefully. I needed to understand the pharmaceutical leash that was choking this city.
Dulci swallowed hard, her mercenary confidence not entirely shaken by my deadpan admissions. She looked around the dim, subterranean bar, suddenly looking very small in her high-tech aerogel suit.
"The Guilds," Dulci muttered, dropping her voice even lower. "The Pharmacological Guilds. And Doc... if you think the Task Force or the Warlords are dangerous... the Guilds are the ones who actually own the air we breathe."