The Velocity of Betrayal
(3rd person pov!)
The silence in the room wasn't empty; it was heavy, pressurized by the sheer volume of credits sitting between them. Rainier looked at the briefcase, then back at Vricksen.
The transition from the frantic, sweat-soaked adrenaline where he'd been scraping his way through the ventilation shafts of the Lower Sector—to this sterile, silent luxury was jarring. His body still hummed with the phantom vibration of the pulse-fire that had nearly taken his head off an hour ago.
"You're asking for a ghost, Vricksen," Rainier whispered, his voice rasping against the dry air of the sanctum.
"But ghosts don't have bank accounts. If I take this, I'm not just fleeing the Syndicate. I'm erasing the only version of myself that knows how to survive."
Vricksen leaned back, the leather of his chair creaking like a warning. "That version of you is already dead, Rainier. He died the moment the Syndicate traced your signature to the orbital heist. Right now, you're just a corpse that hasn't stopped moving yet."
Vricksen flipped the latches on the case. It didn't click; it hissed, releasing a thin mist of pressurized coolant designed to keep the drive-cores stable. Inside weren't just physical credits, but Encrypted Carrier Slugs black-market currency that bypassed the central banks.
Enough to buy a new identity, a mid-range hauler, and a lifetime of silence on a fringe colony.
A hard-coded tracking geas. If Rainier took the money, he was tethered to Vricksen's own escape trajectory.
"Look at the math," Vricksen urged, his cybernetic eye spinning in a tight, agitated circle.
"The Syndicate has a 98% recovery rate on debt-slaves. The 2% who survive? They're the ones who had the god-complex to leave everyone behind. You're sister Vicky was under Devillione's control"
Rainier felt a cold stone settle in his gut. He could still see the soot on her face as she covered his retreat. Taking this money meant the promise was a lie. It meant the "Zero Sum Game" was real for him to live, they had to be left to the wolves.
"Why the Outer Reach?" Rainier asked, his hand finally moving toward the case. "It's a graveyard. No atmosphere, no law, just ice and rock."
"Exactly," Vricksen replied, a thin, predatory smile stretching his face.
"Law is just a set of variables we can't control. Out there, we define the variables. I have the coordinates for a dormant relay station. We jump there, we scrub our biometrics, and we vanish into the black. But I need your hands on the console, Rainier. My nervous system is too fried from the implants to handle the manual override during a cold-start launch."
Rainier's fingers brushed the cold metal of the carrier slugs. The weight of it was staggering. It wasn't just money; it was the physical manifestation of his cowardice. He thought of the Syndicate's enforcers, the way their shadows had looked against the neon rain of the slums. He thought of the sound of a lung-shot—wet and final.
"If I do this," Rainier said, his gaze locking onto Vricksen's artificial eye, "I want it in writing. Not a contract. A suicide note. Because if we get caught, I'm not going back to a cage."
"Spoken like a man who finally understands the stakes," Vricksen muttered. He pushed the case across the table.
Rainier gripped the handle. The weight nearly pulled his arm out of its socket—not because of the physical mass, but because of what it represented. Every credit was a brick in a wall he was building between himself and his past.
"The shuttle is in Bay 7," Vricksen said, rising with a mechanical stiffness. "We leave in twenty minutes. If you aren't there, I'll assume you've chosen to die with your sister. And Rainier? Don't try to spend a single credit before we clear the atmosphere. The moment one of those slugs hits a scanner, every bounty hunter in the sector will have a lock on your pulse."
Rainier didn't answer. He turned and walked toward the heavy blast doors, the briefcase banging against his knee. He was rich, he was safe, and as he stepped out into the hall, he had never felt more like a dead man.
---
Rainier stepped out of the sanctum and into the pressurized corridor, the heavy thrum of the station's life-support systems vibrating through the soles of his boots.
The briefcase was a leaden weight in his hand, a physical anchor to the betrayal he had just signed. Behind him, Vricksen was already barking commands into a secure comms-link, his voice muffled by the closing blast doors.
The corridor narrowed as it approached the docking ring. The lighting here was flicking, a rhythmic amber pulse that signaled a brownout in the Lower Sector—likely a result of the Syndicate's interference with the power grids Rainier had sabotaged before.
Suddenly, a shadow detached itself from the alcove near the maintenance lift. Rainier's hand flew to the holster at his hip, his heart hammering against his bruised ribs, but he stopped mid-draw.
"Going somewhere, Rain?"
The voice was like velvet dipped in glass. Rainier froze. Standing there, leaning against a rusted conduit with a deceptive casualness, was Devillione
Devillione didn't look like a man who had spent the last three hours dodging Syndicate hit squads.
His long, dark coat was pristine, and his eyes—sharp, observant, and perpetually judgmental—were fixed directly on the black briefcase in Rainier's hand.
"Vricksen's been busy," Devillione said, pushing off the wall. He moved with a predatory grace, closing the distance until he was standing well within Rainier's personal space.
"I heard rumors in the vents. A ghost-flight to the Outer Reach. A 'clean slate' for a runner with a heavy tab. I just didn't think you were the type to buy into a fairytale."
"It's not a fairytale, Devillione" Rainier hissed, trying to push past, but Devillione stepped into his path, his chest nearly brushing Rainier's shoulder. "It's survival. You saw what happened in the tunnels. They almost had us. If I stay, I'm a target. If I'm a target, you're collateral."
"Is that what you're telling yourself?" Devillione's voice dropped an octave, turning dangerous. He reached out, his gloved fingers gripping the lapel of Rainier's jacket, pulling him slightly closer. "You think Vricksen wants you for your piloting? He wants you because you're a tether. He knows I won't burn the ship if you're on it."
The air between them grew thick, charged with the kind of friction that only comes from years of shared danger and unspoken tension. Rainier could see the reflection of the amber warning lights in Devillione's pupils.
The jealousy was palpable—not just for the money, but for the fact that Rainier was willing to let someone else dictate his destiny.
"Why can't you just let me? Are you... bothered or should I say... jealous?" Rainier asked, a bitter laugh escaping his throat. "You're not mad that I'm leaving. You're mad that I'm leaving with him."
Devillione's grip tightened, his knuckles turning white. "He's a scavenger, Rainier. He'll use you until your lungs give out in the vacuum, and then he'll trade your organs for fuel. I'm the only one who actually knows what you're worth."
"Then you should have outbid him," Rainier snapped, the pressure of the day finally boiling over. He tried to shove Devillione back, but the other man was a mountain.
They were chest-to-chest now, the briefcase forgotten on the floor between them. The sound of distant sirens began to wail—the Syndicate had breached the outer ring. Time was running out. The logic of the 'Zero Sum Game' was screaming in Rainier's head Save yourself. Leave him. Take the money.
But Devillione's gaze was an anchor. It was a look of possessive fury, the kind that preceded a storm.
He wasn't going to let Rainier walk onto that shuttle—not without making sure Rainier knew exactly what he was throwing away.
"You think you can just vanish?" Devillione whispered, his breath hot against Rainier's ear. "You think I'll just let you become a ghost?"
Rainier opened his mouth to retort, to tell him to go to hell, but the words died in his throat as Devillione's hand moved from his lapel to the back of his neck, forcing his head up.
The jealousy had reached its tipping point, transitioning from a cold simmer to a violent, desperate flame.