The first thing Leo felt upon waking was the dull, grinding ache of debt.
It wasn't a number on a screen anymore. It was a physical sensation. A weight. It sat behind his eyes, a low-grade migraine that promised to bloom into a monster if he pushed too hard. It was in his bones, a deep, cellular weariness that no amount of sleep could truly erase. He had rested for nearly eighteen hours, according to the clock on his System interface, but it felt like he'd only managed to climb from a deep, dark hole up to the edge of a slightly less deep, slightly less dark hole.
He sat up on the couch, the ridiculously expensive wool cool against his skin. The suite was dark, save for the blue-white glow of a single laptop screen across the room where Evelyn sat, a focused silhouette against the sprawling, glittering diamond-dust of the Aethelburg nightscape.
He could still feel the phantom sensation of controlling Thorne's body. A ghost limb. A twitch in his own hand would send a corresponding ghost-twitch through his connection to the [Marionette] asset, now stored and stabilized by Julian in another secure location. The feeling was profoundly unsettling. It was a constant, low-humming reminder of the line he had crossed. He had turned a man into a thing, an asset on a balance sheet. A part of him, the cold, logical architect who had just survived two separate assassination attempts, knew it was a necessary, even brilliant, move. Another part, the part that still remembered being a normal person, felt sick to its stomach.
"You're awake," Evelyn said, not looking up from her screen. Her voice was calm, but he could hear the exhaustion feathering its edges.
"Barely," Leo rasped, his throat dry. He pushed himself to his feet and walked over to the minibar, grabbing a bottle of water. "What's the state of the world?"
"Actively on fire," Evelyn replied with a dry, humorless chuckle. "Just as we planned." She turned from her laptop, her face illuminated by its glow. The dark circles under her eyes were more pronounced now. "The press release for the Paradox Holdings 'philanthropic partnership' went live three hours ago. It hit the news cycle like a grenade. Every major outlet is running it. The story is no longer just 'Tragedy at the Tower.' It's now 'Mysterious Investment Firm Challenges City Hall Over Public Safety'."
"And the board?"
"Panicked. Terrified. Glitch is a digital artist, and she's painted a masterpiece of terror," Evelyn said, a flicker of a grim smile on her face. "She didn't just find their skeletons; she gift-wrapped them and sent them back with delivery confirmation. Beatrice Ashworth has already tendered her 'health-related' resignation from the Trust. The Dean of Medicine suddenly discovered a 'pressing need' to take a sabbatical to research ethics in a remote monastery. The city councilman is currently having a very loud, very public meltdown on his front lawn. We have our leverage."
"But it's not enough," Leo stated, already seeing the next move on the chessboard. "They're old money. They'll circle the wagons. They'll weather the scandal if they think they can."
"Exactly," Evelyn agreed. "Public pressure and private blackmail will only get us so far. They can still vote. To truly control the asset, we need to replace the board members. We need a slate of our own candidates."
"And who would be insane enough to join the board of a company we're in the middle of a hostile takeover of?" Leo asked.
Evelyn finally allowed herself a full, tired smile. "That's the beautiful part. We're not going to ask them. We're going to appoint them." She tapped a key on her laptop, and a new document filled the screen. It was a complex legal charter. "I spent the last twelve hours with the legal team. We found a loophole. An archaic one, buried in the original city charter for the Public Health Trust, from the 1890s."
She leaned forward, her eyes glowing with the thrill of strategic victory. "It states that in the event of 'gross fiscal or moral negligence proven by a majority of the board'—which Glitch's data provides—a 'primary benefactor' making a 'foundational capital investment' has the right to unilaterally appoint an 'Oversight Committee' with full voting powers to protect their investment. The language is old, but the legal precedent is ironclad. They never imagined a private entity would ever make a donation large enough to trigger it."
"A 'foundational capital investment'?"
"Our 'donation' of the [Self-Healing Crystalline Matrix] technology," Evelyn confirmed. "I had our new friends at Blackwood, Finch, & Associates hire a team of independent analysts—who we also paid—to assign it a fair market value. They have valued our 'donation' at approximately nine billion dollars. I believe that qualifies as 'foundational'."
Leo felt a genuine, incredulous laugh bubble up in his chest. It hurt his head, but it was worth it. She hadn't just found a loophole; she had driven a nine-billion-dollar truck through it.
"So we can appoint our own board," Leo said, the full scope of the plan dawning on him. "We don't need to convince them. We just replace them."
"We can," Evelyn said, her expression turning serious again. "Which brings us to the real problem. Who? We need people who are not only loyal to us, but who are also publicly unimpeachable. We need a slate of candidates so respected that the city can't possibly object to their appointment without looking like they're protecting the corrupt old guard."
She swiped the screen, bringing up a list of names. "Our new board needs a doctor, a financial expert, and a community leader. Three empty seats to give us a voting bloc."
Leo looked at the list of potential candidates. They were all impressive. Respected surgeons. Retired judges. Community activists. But they were all outsiders. Unknown variables.
His mind went back to his [Portfolio]. To his own, small, trusted team. He thought of Dr. Thorne, the mad genius botanist he had encountered back in a different lifetime, at the Veridian Bloom. A man of science, obsessed with discovery. He thought of Maria Flores, the accountant, the "Consequence Vector." A woman of unimpeachable integrity, a representative of the very people the system had failed.
An idea, bold and insane, began to form. Why find new assets when he could promote his own?
"We're thinking about this wrong," Leo said slowly. "We're looking for outsiders to give us legitimacy. We should be using this as an opportunity to build our own power structure."
Before he could elaborate, Julian's voice echoed in his mind, sharp and urgent.
"Sir. A threat has emerged."
"The Board?" Leo thought, his body tensing for another fight.
"Negative. The threat is internal. Asset 'The Hunter' is exhibiting unexpected behavior."
Leo's focus snapped to his System interface. He pulled up the live feed from the sublevel facility where the Hunter was being held. It wasn't a visual feed, but a data stream—biometrics, energy signatures, neurological activity.
The Hunter was still in sensory deprivation, his body imprisoned by the hardened coveralls. But his mind was not quiet. It was a raging storm.
[Target's Predator System is attempting a forced reboot.]
[ERROR: Core Asset [Conceptual Cloak] missing. Unable to initialize.]
[System is attempting to compensate by activating a dormant evolutionary trait...]
[Searching... searching... Trait found: [Ophiophagus hannah - King Cobra].]
[Activating [Venom Synthesis] ability.]
Leo watched in horrified fascination as the Hunter's biometric data spiked. His metabolism was going into overdrive. A new, complex protein chain was forming in his salivary glands. He was evolving a new weapon in real-time. He was trying to create a potent neurotoxin.
"The asset's body is creating a fatal poison," Julian reported calmly. "At his current metabolic rate, he will have produced a lethal dose in approximately ninety seconds. His system is attempting to create a weapon he can use even while paralyzed."
"Can you stop him?" Leo asked.
"I can terminate the biological asset," Julian replied.
"No," Leo said instantly. The Hunter was too valuable. His System, even stripped of one asset, was a treasure trove of information. "I need him alive."
"His system is self-contained. I cannot directly edit his biological processes without a full, hostile takeover, which you are in no condition to attempt."
Ninety seconds. Leo's mind raced. He couldn't fight him, he couldn't stop him, and he couldn't let him die. It was another impossible problem.
He looked at his own System, at his own abilities. He had [Conceptual Cloak]. He had his architectural knowledge. He had his new, horrifying [Marionette]. None of them were useful here. This was a biological problem. It needed a biological solution.
His mind flashed to the Fabulosa Organics products from his brief, aborted collaboration on the other project. To the knowledge of biochemistry and pharmacology that his own father, a pharmaceutical mogul, had tried to drill into him as a boy.
A memory surfaced. A lecture from a university class he'd barely paid attention to. The unique protein-folding of certain cone snail venoms, and the specific enzyme that could neutralize them. It was a long shot, a random piece of data from a forgotten corner of his mind.
He focused on the Hunter's body, on the venom glands that were furiously working. He couldn't stop the process. But maybe... he could edit the product.
It was the most complex, delicate edit he had ever attempted. It wasn't about changing a concept like [Friction] or [Rigidity]. It was about rearranging molecules. It was about performing microsurgery on a protein chain with nothing but his will.
The headache that had been a dull ache exploded into a blinding, white-hot agony. The [Energy Debt] warning screamed across his vision.
[System Command: Edit Object [Neurotoxin Protein Chain]. Apply Concept: [Protein Denaturation]. Target specific amino acid sequence... re-fold into a harmless, inert peptide.]
He felt a profound, psychic resistance. The Predator System was fighting him, protecting its host's biological functions. It was like trying to perform surgery while the patient was actively trying to kill him.
[Executing... 10%...]
The pain was immense. Black spots danced in his vision.
[25%... hostile System is resisting the edit...]
"Sir, the asset has produced a lethal dose," Julian's voice reported calmly. "Cardiac arrest is imminent."
Leo pushed harder, pouring the last of his will and energy into the command, screaming in the silent space of his own mind. Change!
[50%... 75%... 99%...]
The Hunter's body convulsed on the floor of its cell.
[Edit Complete.]
[Asset [Neurotoxin] has been successfully denatured into [Inert Peptide Compound].]
[Threat neutralized.]
Leo collapsed back onto the couch, panting, the world a grey, swimming haze. He had done it. It was a victory.
But the System immediately flashed a new, even more terrifying alert. It wasn't about the Hunter. It was about him.
[CRITICAL WARNING: User has performed a Tier-4 molecular-level edit while in a state of severe energy deficit.]
[Feedback loop initiated. Cascading failure detected in User's own neural architecture.]
[System Integrity... Compromised.]
[Initiating... Emergency... System... Crash...]
The blue interface flickered, dissolved into a storm of digital static, and then vanished completely.
For the first time since the Titan Tower fell, Leo Vance was alone in his own head. The System was gone.