The wind didn't cut. It hollowed — long and slow, not violent, just relentless — a cold pressure that pushed into the joints, settled deep in the ribs, then slipped past without apology, dragging silence behind it like a wake. The sky hadn't cleared, not fully, but the smoke had thinned enough to sketch out where the skyline used to be.
Cain stood near the edge of the rooftop, coat heavy with moisture from the night fog, one hand tucked in the pocket, palm of the other cradling the mask.
Not wearing it. Just holding it.
Far beyond the city, past the district walls, the bridges and the ice-choked arteries of the lower sectors, a pale arc rose against the horizon — the broken vertebrae of the megastructure, still etched across the dawn. Too distant to touch, too huge to forget. A ribcage against the sky. A monument to something that never finished being born.
The rooftop door clicked once behind him.
He didn't turn.
"Didn't think I'd find you up here," the Colonel said, stepping into the wind without a blink. "But then again, you've always liked rooftops. Just you and the quiet."
"I'm not Hao."
The pause that followed wasn't tense. Just still — a silence that didn't need to be explained. One that let the words sit where they landed, unanswered.
"Yeah," the Colonel muttered. "Right. Sorry."
He took a few slow steps forward and stopped beside him, coat cinched close, arms folded across his chest like he was trying not to shiver.
"We're bleeding out," he said, voice flat and stripped of weight. "Three cells down in a week. Arms shipments are severed. Fuel's rationed. Comms are ghosting on half the bands. And morale—" He exhaled. "Morale's a matchstick waiting for wind."
The Colonel exhaled, not in frustration — just fatigue. Cain put the mask back on and finally glanced sideways, just enough to acknowledge the thought without granting it voice.
The Colonel reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled paper. It fluttered in the breeze before he snapped it taut with a gloved hand and held it between them. It was a piece of a newspaper.
"Recognize the name?"
Cain glanced at it. Not long. Just enough for MERIT's glyphs to faintly pulse once, overlaying the paper with soft green threadlines. One name blinked.
Valikov.
"No," Cain said.
"The last Prime Minister," the Colonel murmured. "Before surrender. Before Krosa made the rules."
"He is with Krosa now. A traitor."
"Or a double agent."
Cain glanced back at him. "Why are you showing me this?"
"If he truly is a double agent, he can help us, big time. He must have ties to resistance cells in the north."
"And if he doesn't?"
The Colonel shrugged. "Either we pull him out or burn the name. Either way, something changes."
Cain said nothing.
The Colonel lowered the page and tapped one gloved finger against the name again.
"He's supposed to be at the Vandire masquerade tomorrow. Lucrecia's little empire theatre piece."
"It's Lady Vandire we are talking about. Security will be very tight, and I can't exactly show up uninvited."
The blackened surface caught the rising sun. Inside, behind the cracked lens, faint glyphs flickered to life.
"You already have a mask, don't you?"
Inside, the car was too quiet.
No hum from the engine, no roll of tires, no outside world leaking through. Just the whisper of filtered air and the slow pulse of cabin suspension adjusting to the city's uneven skin. It was the kind of quiet that didn't feel like luxury. It felt like insulation — like being packed in the same silence they used for weapons transport.
Outside, the city flowed past in long, distorted bands of light and steel: armored pylons, road barricades, staggered support towers, traffic redirected by embedded signals and hard-coded curfews. Sector beacons blinked beneath every bridge, blue-white pulses syncing with each checkpoint as the vehicle was silently waved through.
Cain sat motionless, gloved fingers laced loosely in his lap. The mask was already on. Glyphs rotated across the inside of the lenses — slow arcs of green logic, unreadable to anyone but MERIT, bleeding into one another, dissolving, re-forming. Not analysis. Not warning. Just awareness.
Beside him, Titania shifted.
The dress didn't sit right on her. It wasn't made for her, and she hadn't made peace with it. Black silk folded over the ribs in tight geometries, a high slit running the length of one thigh — tailored for elegance, but rigged for motion. Beneath the folds, civilian-grade fiberweave laced the seams. Formal enough to be ignored. Flexible enough to kill in.
She wasn't happy wearing it, and it showed.
Her fingers moved to the rifle in her lap. She checked the bolt once, the soft click lost in the muffled hush of the cabin.
Cain didn't look over.
"Put it away."
His voice was flat. Not unkind, just flat.
"Just in case—"
"Leave the gun in the car." He said again, and for a moment Titania felt a pressure shift with his words. She sighed, sliding the weapon into a collapse panel at her feet, the seal hissing as it locked. Her fingers lingered on it for half a second longer than necessary.
"You really think they'll let us just waltz in?"
"They won't stop us," Cain said. "We look like a part of the show."
The windows dimmed slightly as they passed beneath an arch of steel and mirrored glass — one of the old ceremonial markers for District One. Most of it had been burned out or repurposed by now, but someone had bothered to replace the gold inlay. Cain's voice dropped lower, as if the car itself could hear him.
"Lucrecia's parties are always a show. Vanity polished into ritual. Power pretending not to care who's watching."
Titania looked out her window, jaw set.
Cain continued. "The only thing sharper than the knives are the smiles."
Outside, the skyline changed. The towers began to lean inward, closer together, overlapping like teeth. Streetlamps gave way to low-altitude drone lights, their beams washing in soft hues meant to simulate ambiance but doing little to hide the surveillance lenses nestled in their cores.
As they approached the upper court perimeter, the asphalt darkened, and the curbstones shifted from armored concrete to pale marble slabs. The streetlights flickered gold. Everything here was too perfect — too clean, too symmetrical, like it had been reconstructed from memory, not left to age.
Cain adjusted the fall of his coat as the vehicle slowed.
The car rolled to a full stop, tires whispering against polished stone. Overhead, a lattice of carbon-filament beams spilled clean white light down across the underground entryway, adorned with red carpet. It was the kind of light used in medical chambers. Surgical, sterile, and utterly without shadow.
Titania reached for her mask — sleek, black, curved only slightly at the temples, just enough to hide her eyes.
She didn't speak.
Cain stepped out first. His boots touched down on the polished stone without a sound, as if the floor had been designed not to remember weight. For a second, he just stood there, letting the sterile light wash across the matte black of his coat, the faint gleam of the cracked lens catching a shimmer of movement above. The air in the garage didn't move, but something about it felt thinner now. As if it had decided to hold its breath.
He turned.
Offered his hand.
Titania took it — barely a touch, barely a pause — and unfolded from the car like she'd never needed an invitation. Her heel met the carpet with a muted tap. Then another. And then she was beside him. A silhouette carved from silk and precision, dressed in black.
The slit of her dress caught the light. For a moment, the garage seemed to fall quieter than it already was, even the guards standing at the entrance stopped to look at her.
At the far wall, two security officers stood flanking a checkpoint node — ceremonial, nominal, but neither of them wore the pose of men assigned to decoration. Their posture was straight. Not stiff. Just... ready. Their armor gleamed faintly under the overhead lattice, gold trim running down across their chestplates and into the cuffs.
As Cain and Titania walked past them, one of them murmured to the other. Nothing formal. Nothing procedural. Just sound, too quiet to travel. But MERIT caught the trace — a lip movement, a vocal vibration, a shape etched into the room's stillness.
"Sick bastard."
The elevator doors ahead slid open without prompt — silent, pristine, as if they'd been waiting the entire time.
Cain stepped in. Titania followed.
The doors closed behind them, sealing the moment away like it hadn't happened at all.
As the elevator slowed, Titania reached for his forearm — not as a gesture of trust, but formality — something rehearsed, something expected. He didn't resist.
The doors opened with the sigh of vacuum release, drowning them in light.
Not bright. Just endless. Chandelier light refracted across a hundred polished surfaces — crystal, marble, mirrored trim — all of it designed to catch the eye and misdirect it. The floor beneath their feet gleamed like water frozen mid-motion, veined with gold that pulsed faintly as they moved.
The ballroom stretched ahead — wide and vaulted, an artificial cathedral of silk and breath and curated sound. At the far end, past the crystal partitions and the spiraling wine fountains, glass doors framed the outer balcony — unguarded, unshuttered, and strangely exposed.
Music unfolded from somewhere overhead — not orchestral, not synthetic, something halfway between tradition and affectation. Soft notes that tried to pretend they weren't looped. The kind of melody that could dissolve into another without anyone noticing.
Guests drifted in clusters — no sudden movements, no raised voices. The women were dressed in mirror-sheen fabrics and genetically dyed silks. The men in old uniforms updated for comfort — dress cuffs unbuttoned just enough to feel dangerous, ribbons hung at careless angles. None of it meant anything anymore. But they wore it like it still did.
A woman in rose approached from the left — tall, masked, gown tailored like it had never been touched by human hands. Her smile flickered the second she saw Cain.
"Ah. Welcome, honored guests."
She dipped her head — shallow, practiced.
Her eyes stopped on the mask. The cracked lens. The absence of insignia. The weight.
She faltered.
Only slightly.
"Very... striking," she said. "House Vandire is thrilled to receive such bold artistry."
Cain didn't answer.
Titania met her gaze without blinking, the kind of look that dared a woman to hold it too long. She didn't smile either.
They stepped past, instantly shifting the attention.
Heads turned without turning. Conversations stuttered without breaking. Glances flicked and recoiled and flicked again, unable to decide whether to pretend they hadn't noticed or admit they already had.
"Just like on the wanted poster—"
"Do you think it's really him?"
"Bold. So bold."
"He's making a statement."
The crowd didn't part out of fear. No one was scared of Nobody — no one expected him to be here. Everyone parted out of curiosity.
Cain moved through them like a shadow framed by floodlight — his presence sharp, not loud, not fast, but calibrated. The mask made him more visible, not less. He was supposed to be myth. He showed up as fact.
Titania walked beside him, one step behind, one hand lightly skimming the slit in her dress on pure instinct, without breaking her balance.
They moved together through the current of silk and whispers and synth-stitched conversation. Mentions of embargoes. Of orbital yacht scandals. Of neural grafts gone rogue. High above, one of the tiered balconies cast a shadow against the chandeliers. For just a breath, a silver-haired man leaned into the rail, watching the ballroom below.
He wasn't holding a drink. He wasn't speaking.
Just watching.
Cain tilted his head toward her.
"They don't believe I exist."
Her voice stayed low. "Do you regret it? You wanted to be Nobody."
"True," he gave her a nod.
They passed beneath a vertical banner unfurling from the ballroom's vaulted crown — a serpent coiled around a dying sun, cast in thinlight and edged in mirrored gold. House Vandire's crest, rendered too large for subtlety, pulsed faintly as it turned above them. Cain's eyes traced it upward.
Titania's gaze, however, was already elsewhere.
Trim. Silver-haired. Impeccably balanced. His posture suggested retired authority, but his movement still carried weight. He wore no mask, no medals, no entourage. Just an open collar, tailored cuffs, and the unmistakable stillness of someone who had once brokered ceasefires while pretending to sip coffee.
He gave one look toward Cain. Or rather, toward Nobody.
A long, calm, assertive look. Something that didn't belong in the middle of a ballroom, yet made perfect sense anyway.
"That him?" Titania's voice edged to Cain's ear.
The confirmation blinked once inside Cain's lens, but he didn't need it.
"Yes."
"Do we follow?"
Cain looked across the room — the soft arc of music overhead, the shifting weight of glances around them, the choreography of surveillance woven beneath the party's glimmer.
Before he could answer, almost on a cue, a waiter approached. He stopped beside Cain with a practiced stillness and raised a silver tray.
No drinks. No crystal.
Just a single object resting in the center: a business card.
Stark white. Unadorned. Edges clean, razor-cut. Letters black, ink real.
Cain picked it up between two fingers.
No logo. No title.
Just the name, printed in elegant serif type:
Mikhail Valikov
Cain turned it once, felt the texture — not paper. Something harder. Foldproof. Trace-resistant. The kind of card not meant to be discarded. The kind meant to be remembered if lost.
The waiter nodded once — no smile — and vanished, fading into the crowd without a ripple. Cain slipped the card into the seam of his inner sleeve.
"Wait here," he said, trying to find Valikov with his eyes, but he was already gone. Titania said nothing. She moved two steps back, folded into the edge of a curtain spill near the base of an artificial column.
Cain's eyes followed the trail Valikov had left behind — faint thermal footprints lit up across the floor in MERIT's feed, curving toward the outer balcony doors.
Titania didn't move at first.
She watched Cain disappear into the crowd — coat brushing like ink through water, the mask turning glances into second guesses. And then he was gone, swallowed by silk and chandeliers.
She exhaled once. Too quick. Too sharp.
A waiter passed near the curtain spill where she stood, silver tray held steady with mechanical grace. Without looking up, she reached out — not abruptly, but not quite elegantly either — and plucked a glass from the tray.
The stem clinked lightly against another, and the waiter's eyes flicked toward her just long enough to register the tension. He said nothing. Just moved on.
Titania brought the glass to her lips but didn't drink. Her gaze swept the ballroom — polished masks, curated laughter, predator smiles dressed in couture. The kind of people who could kill a cause and call it style.
Her fingers tightened around the stem.
She still hadn't blinked.
And she didn't notice that her other hand, the one not holding the glass, had drifted instinctively to her thigh — brushing the slit of the dress like she could still feel the weapon that wasn't there.
There were no guards.
No surveillance domes tucked into the corners, no security drones humming overhead, no assistants standing at the edge pretending not to watch.
Cain stepped out.
The balcony was broad, semicircular, bordered in wrought black iron that hadn't been reinforced or shielded. A man standing here was visible from a dozen sightlines across the skyline. The towers opposite weren't tall enough to offer cover, but they were tall enough for a rifle. And still — it was open. Unprotected.
Exposed.
By design.
Valikov stood at the outer edge, one hand resting lightly on the railing, the other lifting a glass to his lips in a slow, practiced sip.
"It's not secure," Cain said finally.
Valikov let the words hang there for a beat. Then: "Good."
He took another sip, watching the lights of Amaranth stretch across the horizon like veins under thin skin — flickering, fracturing, and rearranging themselves every second as the city rerouted its power to pretend it was still whole.
"They've grown used to safety," Valikov said. "You learn the wrong things under glass domes."
He set the glass down on the railing with a soft clink and turned slightly, just enough for Cain to see his eyes under the silver of his hair — sharp, tired, amused in the way only survivors are.
"I've stood on enough stages," he said. "Sometimes the only way to know who's aiming at you... is to give them the shot."
The silence between them had weight now — not trust, not alliance, just the shared understanding that neither man would waste breath pretending to feel fear when they had already outlived it.
Valikov glanced at the mask, the crack running along its left lens, and nodded once.
"I was hoping your words were true. Now I know you really mean what you said."
The wind pushed through the balcony again, sharp across the railing. Valikov turned to it.
"They told us surrender would preserve something," he said. "That survival was wiser than pride. That a voice inside the system was worth more than a dead resistance."
He let that hang.
Then:
"It was a lie."
Valikov continued, softer now, but steadier.
"I told myself we were buying time. I told others. Held the line. Signed the papers. And still watched it all rot from the inside." He exhaled through his nose. "We didn't buy time. We sold the future."
He gestured out across the skyline — the flickering grid, the patchwork lighting, the invisible scars where old districts had been erased and rewritten.
"They rebuilt this world in ash and called it peace. And now, when the last spark finally shows up, they're terrified it might catch."
Cain's voice was low, almost flat. "Then why meet with the flame?"
Valikov turned toward him fully — no bravado, no posing.
"Because I'm done pretending. And because I still know where they buried the matches."
From inside his coat, he drew a flat, slate-colored card — thin metal, unmarked except for the faint shimmer of microtext etched across the surface.
Cain took it.
No emblem. No name. Just a coordinate string.
Valikov spoke before he could ask.
"A facility in the Ural Defense Belt. Last initiative before surrender — an answer to planetary assault walkers. The minds they gathered there... some of the sharpest Earth had left. But we never gave them time to finish."
Cain turned the card once between his fingers. Felt its weight. Real. Deliberate.
"They're still there?" Cain asked.
"No idea. It's been a while, and we have no eyes there to check. "
A pause.
"I was wrong then. About surrender."
He looked down at his empty glass, then back at Cain.
"You claim to be nobody of consequence. You are wrong too."
Cain didn't flinch. But somewhere under the mask, a weight shifted. Not regret. Not hope. Just the old ache of being seen — and not being able to turn away.
"How so?"
"You're not nobody. You're the consequence."
Cain said nothing.
He slid the card into his coat.
Valikov gave a small nod, almost to himself, and stepped back into the room, leaving the wind behind him.
Cain remained a moment longer.
He didn't move.
Somewhere below, the city adjusted its breathing.
The future wasn't a fire yet. But it had found dry kindling.