Seventy-one hours and forty minutes.
That's what the timer said when Milo told Priya about the domain contest. She didn't react the way he expected. No hard expression. No tactical flat. She sat on the floor across from him and put her spear across her knees and said nothing for ten seconds.
"What happens at zero."
"I don't know."
"Does the System tell you."
"No. Resolution required. That's it."
"Resolution could mean a lot of things."
"Yeah."
"Like one of you loses your domain."
"Yeah."
"Or one of you dies."
He didn't answer that one.
The 2811 heartbeat was steady through Watch. Slow. Patient. The man hadn't moved from his chair. Pipe wrench on his knees. Just sitting.
"We talk to him," Priya said.
"He threatened to kill you."
"He said he'd kill a stranger who tried to force his door during the apocalypse. That's not crazy. That's common sense." She stood. "I'll knock. Inside the domain this time. He's behind your walls now."
He felt every step through Watch. Down the stairs. Along Floor 28. Past bloodstains. Past 2804. To 2811.
She knocked.
Through Watch, the man shifted. Weight forward. Wrench moved from knees to right hand.
"My name is Priya Bhat. I was here earlier. Things have changed."
Nothing.
"The warm walls around your apartment belong to a man named Milo Voss. He's upstairs. His domain covers this whole floor now. You're inside it."
Nothing.
"But the System says your domain and his overlap. There's a timer. I don't know what happens at zero. So I think we should talk before the clock decides for us."
Fifteen seconds. Twenty.
Lock turned.
Door opened six inches. Through Watch, the shape of the man. Tall. Not stocky. Wrench behind his back, low where it wouldn't show.
Priya didn't step back.
"Denny," the man said.
"What."
"My name. Denny Cho."
Milo filed the name. Didn't know it. Didn't know what to do with it yet.
Denny opened the door wider. The apartment was clean. Organized. Supplies stacked against the wall. Water. Canned food. Sleeping bag. A duffel in the corner that Watch told him was heavier than clothes.
"You said Milo Voss," Denny said. "The Warden."
Priya went still. The wrong kind of still. "How do you know that word."
Denny looked at the hallway. The Threshold hum. The blue light flickering at the stairwell gap.
"The System told me about him three days ago. It said there was a Warden in this building." He set the wrench against the doorframe. Within reach but not in hand. "And it told me to watch."
Milo was on Floor 29. Both hands on the wall. Watch feeding him everything. Heart going too fast.
The System told him to watch. The scout's nest on Floor 22. The maps. The transmitter.
Denny Cho wasn't just a survivor. He was the scout.
"Tell him to come down," Denny said. "Or use whatever he uses to talk through walls. I know he's listening."
"He can't come down. Can't leave the domain."
"I know. That's the Warden's thing." Denny leaned against the doorframe. Mid-twenties. Dark hair that needed cutting. Tired but not starving. Alert in a way that didn't match hiding behind a locked door. "So talk through her. Because the clock is running and what I have to tell him matters more than he thinks."
"Then start talking."
"Not in the hallway. Things on the stairs can hear."
"They can't get through."
"But they can listen. Some of them are smarter than you think."
He stepped into 2811. Left the door open. Wrench stayed against the frame.
Priya followed.
Both heartbeats through Watch. Hers fast. His slow.
Denny sat on the floor. Cross-legged. Priya stayed standing by the door.
"I'm a Broker's scout," Denny said.
Milo's blood pressure spiked.
"A man named Emmett Cross runs the Financial District. Six blocks west. He calls himself the Merchant. Three hundred people. Armed. Organized. He sent me here to map this building."
Priya's hand went to the kitchen knife.
"I'm not here to fight." Hands up. Palms out. "I was a scout. I'm not anymore. When the Warden's domain covered my apartment, the System gave me a choice."
"What choice."
"Stay with the Broker or stay with the Warden." He looked at the ceiling. At Milo, who he couldn't see but knew was there. "The contest means I choose. If I stay inside the Warden's Threshold at the end of seventy-two hours, my Resonance integrates with his domain. If I leave, it goes back to the Broker."
Priya's knife was in her hand. Not pointed. Just there.
"You're not a Title-holder. You're an asset. The Broker's asset inside our walls."
"Was his asset." Hands still up. "The Broker sent me to map the building and report back. I made the maps. Set up the transmitter on Floor 22 to relay his signals. The SOS broadcast? He made it sound like it came from the east side. Bait. Drawing survivors east, away from his territory."
The SOS. Not a real distress call. A fake. Relayed through Floor 22 to sound like it came from across the city.
Milo felt sick.
"Why tell us this," Priya said.
"Because when the domain hit my apartment I felt safe for the first time. Actually safe. Not Broker-safe where safe means useful." Denny lowered his hands. "The Broker doesn't save people. He collects them."
Priya looked at the knife. At Denny.
"You had food while people starved around you."
Something complicated crossed his face. Guilt and math in the same expression.
"The Broker gave me ten days of supplies. Observe and report. That was the mission." He pulled his knees up. Made himself smaller. "I knew there were survivors on the upper floors. I mapped them on scouting runs. I knew about the woman with the kid on 29. Heard the kid coughing when I passed through on Day 3."
He stopped.
"I didn't help. I told myself it was the mission. The real reason was I didn't want to look at what I was choosing not to do."
Watch fed Milo everything. Denny's heartbeat had sped up for the first time. Priya's grip on the knife had loosened.
The Ledger updated.
[PACT SYSTEM: NOTICE]
Domain Contest: Denny Cho
Designation: The Broker's Scribe
Resonance: Information (Surveillance, Pattern Recognition)
Contest Status: ACTIVE
Choice Window: 68 hours
If Scribe remains in Warden's domain: Resonance integrates.
If Scribe leaves: Resonance returns to Broker.
Note: Scribe abilities include full recall of observed information. All maps, patrol routes, and domain assessments remain accessible to claiming Title-holder.
The Broker's Scribe. A living recording device with perfect memory. Days of mapping Milo's building and the Broker's territory and the third circle east of the river.
All that information went with him. Whoever claimed Denny got everything he knew. Everything about the Broker. Or everything about Milo.
Denny Cho was the most valuable person in Harwick.
And in sixty-eight hours, the Broker was going to want him back.
The Ledger blinked. Red text.
[PACT SYSTEM: WARNING]
External Domain Contact Detected
Origin: West (2.3 miles)
Signature: Title-Holder 3 of 4
Designation: THE MERCHANT
Message Type: Direct Hail
[Accept Communication? Y/N]
The Broker was calling.
Two point three miles west. Financial District. Three hundred people and six blocks and a title that let him buy and sell anything.
Calling Milo. Right now.
Priya was in 2811. Denny was in 2811. The Garcias in 2910. Lena and Sadie in 2909. Josie in 2903. Ten people inside his walls.
And the man who ran the west side of Harwick wanted to talk.
67:58.
67:57.
His left hand was shaking. He grabbed it.
He accepted.