111 BIG CAT COSPLAY BAR
The bodyguards at Six O'Clock diner weren't pleased with customers who don't order after being seated.
"What are we going to do? Are they going to beat us?" Kail whispered nervously.
Damen stayed cool.
He rose from his seat and called the waiter, his tone casual as usual. "Excuse me, sir. We don't really know how to use this menu."
The waiter exchanged a glance with the nearby bodyguards, then signaled them to stand down before walking over.
"It's simple," he said curtly, tapping through the options and explaining the interface with clear irritation.
Damen nodded politely. "Got it. Thanks."
Then he whispered to Kail, "Guess we couldn't escape from the meal here."
They quietly ordered their food. When it arrived, they ate without saying much, pretending everything was normal.
Once outside, Kail let out a long breath. "Whew… that was close. I finished my food so quickly that I didn't have time to swallow properly."
Damen smirked. "That was nothing. You need to learn to stay calm no matter what. Panic only gets you caught. Keep your cool, and you'll always find a way out."
"Yes, Big Brother. I'll learn," Kail said, nodding earnestly.
-----
The Tesla coil that received the aur from Six O'Clock Diner sat inside a hulking warehouse. Cameras stared from every angle, drone-dogs patrolled the perimeter, and autocannons tracked the sky.
"This looks more like a military facility than an old warehouse," Kail said.
"We came to the right place. This is the Order of the Cockerel's hideout," Damen said, calm as ever.
"What do we do now?" Kail whispered.
Damen clipped on a comm. "You stay in the café. Help me with the cameras and drones."
"Got it."
Damen slid a black cloak over his shoulders, buckled a mask, and stepped toward the warehouse. To his surprise, a drone-dog trotted up and stopped at his feet.
"Dammit, Kail — the dog spotted me," he muttered into the comms.
"Don't worry, Big Brother," Kail's voice crackled back. "He's here to guide you."
The dog led the way.
As Damen followed, the expected alarms didn't scream — cameras pivoted to blank walls, other drones ignored him, and the route stayed clear.
Every sensor seemed to be cooperating with his passage ensuring nothing could see him.
"Is this the real power of a Quantum mind," he thought.
At the secured entrance a panel beeped. Before Damen could request a password, the door slid open. Inside, row upon row of drone guards loomed like frozen sentries.
"There are so many guards here," he said under his breath.
Kail's tone was matter-of-fact. "They're machines. They won't bite you if I have a say in it."
Damen realized, with an uneasy admiration, that the facility was entirely autonomous. There were no humans or meta guards or handlers in the facility.
He couldn't help but admire their precision.
Everything — the ordering, payment, transfer, even the contract's execution — was handled entirely by code and hardware.
The Order had perfected automation. There were no middlemen. No leaks. No humans to betray them.
"I'm starting to think this whole Order of the Cockerel might be run by just one person," Damen said, his tone half in awe, half suspicion.
"I have the same feeling," Kail replied quietly.
Damen's expression hardened. "An operation this complex needs a Quantum Mind to coordinate it. You think there's another one in town… running the Order?"
The thought lingered like static in his mind — cold, unsettling. Then he shook his head.
"Forget it," he muttered. "Let's not jump to conclusions so early."
But even as he dismissed it, the unease stayed with him.
He moved to a vaulted container beneath a towering Tesla coil. The coil hummed, feeding the aur bank below; the Order was using wireless transfer to receive payment and store funds offsite.
Technology has allowed the meta particles from aur cards to be transferred across distance through a machine called Tesla Coil. A Tesla Coil was used here to siphon money from the Six O'Clock diner without anyone noticing.
"It's clever," Damen said. "If the SIA raids this place, they'll find only drones and fried servers. Any useful data would most probably self-destruct."
"I'll overwrite the self-destruct now," Kail replied.
Damen raised an eyebrow. "You did that already?"
"Everything's set."
The vault door opened.
Inside, rows of aur banks glowed like coffered hearts.
Damen laid down empty aur cards. Instantly, the cards pulsed — they were automatically refilled by the aur banks. Kail had already begun to route the transfers and siphon the funds.
When the aur bank finished draining, Damen pocketed roughly fifty million aurs.
"Shall I let the facility go through with the self-destruct to clear our traces?" Kail asked.
Damen hesitated. "Yes — but not everything should be destroyed. Those drones cost a fortune and it's a waste to destroy them."
"I could rewire them for our use," Kail offered.
"That's better." Damen smiled.
"But we can't keep them in the apartment."
"We'll find space," Damen said. "Hide them somewhere no one'll look…in the meantime."
Damen exited just as the warehouse detonated — a controlled cascade that erased the facility and any chance of a forensic trail.
The explosion painted the night with fire, then left only a smoking hole where the Order had once transferred billions.
Back at the café, Kail was waiting and jittery. "Did you get everything, Big Brother?"
"We did," Damen said, counting the numbers in his head. Fifty million. "I just hope it will be enough."
-----
[Somewhere in a Cosplay bar]
The room was thick with perfume and vaporized stimulants, the air shimmering like a mirage. Rose petals blanketed the bed where a woman reclined, cat ears perched on her head, her fur coat slipping from one shoulder. Every movement she made was slow, deliberate part of a private ritual.
A man entered.
He was tall, his body encased in a seamless black suit that gleamed beneath the crimson lights. Only his eyes were visible: cold, watchful, and precise.
"Come closer," the woman purred making fake cat paws.
He approached, a slender whip coiled in his hand, his voice low and commanding. "Kneel. Show me obedience."
She obeyed, smiling faintly as the whip sliced the air—a sound meant more for the mind than for pain.
A knock broke through the haze.
His tone hardened. "Who dares disturb me while I'm working?"
The cat woman laughed softly. "It must be important. Go, but remember—you owe me the minutes you're gone."
He sighed, fastening his coat. "At the Big Cat Cosplay Bar, we never cheat clients of their time."
Outside, a line of attendants waited—sleek androids with handsome faces. Among them stood a real woman in a gray coat, her eyes sharp as glass.
"Coracle," she began, irritation edging her voice, "why do you still entertain customers yourself when you've got a full roster of androids for that?"
He dismissed the machines with a flick of his wrist. "Liorea, it's because I enjoy it—and the pay's good. There's no reason to refuse either."
Liorea smirked. "Enjoy it while you can. We've got a problem. Our aur vault near Six O'Clock diner has been destroyed."
His expression froze. "No…that is Impossible. Even the best hackers from SIA couldn't breach your firewall."
"The hacking is beyond human ability, nobody in SIA have that kind of talent and technology," she said.
Coracle was silent for a long moment. "There's only one mind in the world who could do that."
"Who is it?"