105 A NEW FACE
Ethen didn't look up. "I checked the cameras. There's nobody in the annex."
Zairgid's grin vanished. "It's coming from inside the vault. There are no cameras in there."
They listened. The noise became clearer—they were soft footsteps, a faint rustle, then the metallic clink of something being set down.
The vault door creaked open.
A shadow slipped out, moving barefoot across the carpet. When the figure stepped into the light, Zairgid nearly cursed out loud.
"Prescott?" he whispered.
It was his cousin who was inside his father's secret vault.
"Of course. Sneaking into his father's study again—probably to "borrow" from the vault," he muttered.
"What do we do now?" Ethen asked silently.
Damen held up a hand: Wait.
They crouched behind the bookcase, their breath held, as Prescott tiptoed toward the hall clutching a handful of Aur slips.
He glanced around, then slipped out quietly, none the wiser of the people in the room.
Only when the sound of his footsteps faded did Damen nod. "Now."
Ethen returned to the vault door, touching the keypad lightly.
Click.
The lock disengaged by itself. The heavy door eased open with a whisper.
Zairgid's eyebrows shot up. He gave Ethen a thumbs-up. "You're a magician."
Inside, the vault gleamed with soft blue light.
Racks of sealed containers lined the walls—antiques, rare serums, stacks of aur cards in polished drawers. A small private server hummed in the corner, its cables glowing like veins.
"Jackpot," Zairgid breathed.
He pulled several empty aur cards from his jacket and slid them into the cash unit. "Let's see… what password would that old fool use? His birthday? Prescott's?"
Before he could guess, the register chimed. Each card blinked green in rapid succession—the credits were loaded.
Zairgid blinked. "I didn't even touch the keypad."
Ethen smiled faintly. "You were too slow."
Zairgid laughed. "This is so cool!" He kept feeding in more cards as Ethen drifted toward the server, his fingers flickering in front of his holo-interface.
Streams of encrypted data poured into his mind. "Found them," Ethen said. "The fake identities. I'm downloading a few…and erasing the originals."
"Won't Arom notice the loss of the fake identities?" Damen asked.
"He'll just think someone updated the archive, he won't remember about the details," Zairgid replied.
Minutes later, they left the vault, sealing it shut behind them.
They slipped through the dark corridors, unseen by any guard or drone, and exited through the service gate where the night air tasted like freedom.
"How much did you take?" Ethen asked as they cruised away.
Zairgid pocketed the aur cards, grinning. "About a hundred million Aurs."
Damen stared. "What? You raided his entire stash? Your greed knows no limits. He'll comb the vault for clues, and we might leave some for him to find."
Zairgid shrugged. "Relax. Prescott was inside right before us. He'll be the prime suspect…. Not us."
Ethen laughed softly. "Poor guy."
"Serves him right," Damen said.
The three of them laughed quietly as they disappeared into the shadows.
-----
The next night, deep beneath the Aukouma Industries' old biotech wing, Zairgid led Damen and Ethen into a restricted laboratory.
The air smelled faintly of antiseptic and ozone. Rows of dormant machines blinked with soft green lights, like mechanical eyes half-asleep.
"This used to be one of our family's private morphing labs," Zairgid explained. "Usually, the lab is not in use, but the system still runs when its needed."
Ethen looked around the sterile room. "So, this is where people become someone else?"
Zairgid keyed a sequence into the console. The wall panels shifted open, revealing a narrow pod with silver conduits and a suspended mask-like apparatus above it.
The machine's interface flickered to life—BIO-RECONSTRUCTION SEQUENCE: OFFLINE.
"Can you bring it online?" Damen asked.
Ethen smiled faintly. "You're asking me?" His fingertips brushed the console. Within seconds, the dormant system surged with light.
The interface changed: SEQUENCE READY.
Zairgid whistled. "You really are something, kid."
Ethen climbed into the pod. "How does this work?"
Zairgid adjusted a control panel nervously. "Nanogel injection combined with cellular imprint mapping. It reprograms your epidermal and skeletal microstructure to match a stored identity template."
"Will it hurt?"
"Yes," Damen and Zairgid said at once.
Ethen chuckled softly. "Figures."
The machine hissed as the lid sealed over him. Tubes slid into the pod, releasing a shimmering blue mist. Data filled the holo-screens—DNA restructuring, neural recalibration, retinal mapping.
Inside, Ethen's body twitched.
The nanogel spread under his skin, glowing faintly. His face pulsed, muscles tightening and shifting. The transformation wasn't smooth—it was violent.
For a few long seconds, it looked like his features were melting and reforming at once.
Damen flinched. "How long does it take?"
"Depends how much of him he's changing," Zairgid said quietly. "The system builds the new structure from within."
Then came the silence. The lights dimmed. Steam hissed out of the pod as it opened.
Ethen sat up slowly, touching his new face. His eyes were a different color now—steel gray instead of brown. His jaw was sharper, his features unfamiliar even to himself.
"Who am I now?" he asked softly.
Zairgid handed him a mirror. "According to the blueprint—your name is Kail Venn. A distant cousin of the Aukouma family."
Ethen studied the reflection. "This feels strange. Like I'm wearing someone else's skin."
Damen put a hand on his shoulder. "You're not someone else. You're still you. This is just camouflage."
Ethen nodded slowly. "Then I'll make it count. From now on, Ethen Lace is dead. I'm Kail Venn"
-----
Kail quickly adapted to his new identity.
Officially, he was Zairgid's distant cousin from another city, visiting for an extended stay. The papers were flawless—authentic visas, clean entry records, even a verifiable family registry.
Everything about him was legally airtight.
To keep up appearances, he stayed in Zairgid's apartment.
Over time, the two became close, especially after Kail unlocked the hidden core of Zairgid's nurse unit and reactivated its original functions.
For the first time in his life, Kail felt free.
He attended parties, met people, and laughed without fear. No one dared to mock or touch him now—his new identity as a wealthy heir from out of town kept everyone respectful, even envious.
Once Damen was sure Kail's cover was secure, he turned his attention back to Lander.
The last he heard, Lander was still detained and awaiting trial.
Then his phone buzzed. It was Dorin.
"Damen," Dorin's voice shook, "Lander's in danger. They've sentenced him to death—execution under the charge of treason."