Chapter Text
Firefly stood in front of the bathroom mirror, her shoulders hunched as the thin straps of the sundress dug into her skin. She stared at her reflection, her eyes fixed on the angry, hot-pink lines tracing the curve of her collarbone. She wasn't used to seeing her skin change color like this. Inside the SAM unit, the environment was a series of managed data points—temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure—all filtered through a HUD. Now, there was no data, just a dull, rhythmic throbbing she didn't know how to silence.
She tentatively poked her shoulder with one finger, then pulled back quickly when a sharp sting radiated through her arm. It wasn't a wound, exactly. There was no blood, no mechanical failure. It just felt like she was still standing too close to an engine's exhaust.
"Is it supposed to feel like it’s burning?" Firefly asked the empty room, her voice sounding small against the tiled walls.
She didn't get an answer. She adjusted the brim of the oversized straw hat she was still wearing, even though she was indoors. It felt safer to stay covered, like a makeshift shield against the light pouring in through the villa windows.
In the living room, the atmosphere was heavy with a different kind of irritation. Silver Wolf was slumped so low in a beanbag chair that she was practically part of the floor. She wasn't playing a game or hacking into anything as per usual, she was just staring at her own reflection in the dead screen of her handheld, her face scrunched in a scowl of quiet, concentrated loathing. Her nose was a bright, irritated red.
Silver Wolf didn't say much. She usually didn't. Most things were too boring to warrant the effort of a conversation, but the constant, stinging heat on her face was a unique kind of annoyance that was starting to override her usual apathy.
"This place is actually the worst," Silver Wolf muttered. Her voice was flat, devoid of any real energy, but the bitterness was there. "I’m getting wrecked by a ball of gas. How is the sun this aggressive? It's completely broken."
She didn't look up when Firefly drifted into the room, moving with a stiff, careful gait to avoid letting her dress brush against her skin. Firefly stopped a few feet away, watching Silver Wolf gingerly touch the tip of her nose.
"Silver Wolf? My shoulders... they’re hot," Firefly said, sounding genuinely concerned. "Is this a common occurrence on planets with this much light? I feel like I’m malfunctioning, but my heart rate is stable."
Silver Wolf finally looked up, her eyes scanning Firefly’s pink shoulders for a second before she looked back at her screen.
"It’s a sunburn, Firefly," Silver Wolf sighed, slouching even deeper into the beanbag. Her voice stayed low and monotonous. "And yeah, it’s a thing. A really annoying thing. It’s what happens when the air is trash and you don't have a hoodie to hide in. My face feels like it’s being poked with a thousand needles every time I blink."
Firefly blinked slowly, trying to process the concept. "A sunburn. Does it... stop? I feel very exposed. The material of this dress is very thin. It doesn't provide any defense against the environment."
"It stops eventually," Silver Wolf said, her gaze fixed on the black glass of her console. "But for now, we just have to sit here and wait for it to quit. It’s basically an unskippable cutscene where the only thing to do is stay mad at the sky."
Kafka strolled in from the kitchen, looking entirely untouched by the elements. She was dressed in a wide-brimmed black hat and light, silk sleeves that covered every inch of her skin. She looked like she was heading to a high-end garden party, not a beach house full of miserable strangers. She stopped in the center of the room, looking back and forth between the two of them with a long, bored sigh.
"You both look like you’ve been through a wreck," Kafka noted. Her voice was smooth, carrying that usual blasé edge that suggested she found their suffering more of a minor scheduling conflict than a tragedy.
She walked over to the table and flicked the brim of Firefly’s lopsided hat, straightening it just enough so it didn't cover her eyes. "If you two keep peeling like that, people are going to start staring. It ruins the whole aesthetic I’m going for."
Firefly looked up at her, her expression a mix of confusion and mild alarm. "Kafka, is this a permanent change? I feel strange."
"It’s a sunburn, dear. You’ll live," Kafka replied, though she sounded about as sympathetic as someone talking to a piece of furniture. She reached out and adjusted the strap of Firefly's dress, though she was careful not to let her fingers actually brush the red skin. "I suppose I should have realized you two would forget how the sun works the second you stepped out of your tech. You both have spent too much time behind glass and metal."
"It’s not my fault the sun is this mean," Silver Wolf snapped, though she didn't even bother to look up. She threw one hand up in a small, dismissive gesture before wincing as the movement pulled the skin on her face. "The air is just... too much. There’s too much light. Why did we go to a planet that’s ninety percent UV rays?"
"To build synergy," Kafka said, the word sounding like a private joke. She checked her watch and then looked toward the balcony, where Blade was brooding in the shadows, his silhouette a dark, unmoving pillar against the bright sky. He hadn't moved in an hour, but Kafka knew he was listening.
"Stay in the shade," Kafka commanded, her voice leaving no room for debate. "Silver Wolf, get up. We’re going to the village to find something for those sunburns before you two catch fire. We need supplies, and I’m not spending the next thirty days listening to you complain about the sun."
Silver Wolf groaned, dragging herself out of the beanbag with a sluggish, annoyed slouch. She shoved her console into her pocket, moving like her joints were made of lead. She didn't want to go back out there, but staying here meant listening to Kafka talk, which was a lot worse.
"Fine," Silver Wolf muttered. "But I’m picking the cream. I want the stuff that actually works, not the weird organic stuff you like that smells like a flower shop."
"Whatever makes you move faster," Kafka murmured, already heading for the door.
Firefly remained in the living room, standing stiffly in the center of the floor. She looked down at her red arms, then out at the bright, shimmering ocean through the glass doors. She felt small, and strangely fragile.
"I think I prefer the armor," she whispered to the empty room. "The armor never let the sky touch me like this.”
The shade of the porch was a poor sanctuary, but it was the only defensive line Blade and Firefly had left. Firefly sat in a wooden chair, her back perfectly straight and her hands resting flat on her knees. She remained motionless, as if any sudden movement might trigger a new cascade of stinging pain across her shoulders.
To her, the sunburn was a sensory error instead of an injury. Without the SAM interface to dampen her physical feedback, the heat was overwhelming, a constant, high-priority alert flickering in the back of her mind that she didn't know how to silence. Every time she breathed, the thin linen of the sundress shifted, catching against the sensitized skin like a serrated blade.
Blade stood five feet away, a dark pillar in the corner where the roof met the wall. He was staring at the line where the white sand met the turquoise water, his jaw set in a hard, unyielding line. He looked exactly like he did on a mission: tense, alert, and entirely removed from the concept of relaxation. His heavy combat gear seemed like an absurdity in the tropical heat, but he wore the leather and bandages as a suit of armor he refused to shed.
He watched her from the corner of his eye, noting the way her fingers twitched against her lap and the way her breath hitched whenever the humid breeze grew too heavy. Without a word, Blade turned and walked into the villa. The heavy thud of his boots echoed on the cedar floorboards, a rhythmic sound that Firefly tracked until it vanished into the interior. She didn't ask where he was going, she didn't have the energy to wonder. She simply closed her eyes and tried to imagine the cold, sterile vacuum of space.
A few minutes later, the heavy footsteps returned. Blade reappeared carrying a large, standing electric fan he had unearthed from a storage closet. It was a clunky, utilitarian thing, covered in a thin layer of dust. He set it down three feet away from her with a loud clunk that made the wooden deck vibrate.
Firefly opened her eyes, blinking in confusion. "Blade?"
He didn't look at her. He bent down, his scarred fingers moving with a detached, mechanical precision as he untangled the cord and shoved the plug into an outdoor outlet. He kicked the power switch with the toe of his boot.
"The air is still," Blade rasped, returning to his spot against the wall. "The salt in the atmosphere is an irritant. It makes the skin brittle."
He spoke as if he were reciting a technical manual on equipment maintenance. He wasn't doing this because he cared. Or at least, that was the logic he projected. The fan whirred to life, its blades spinning into a blur. A steady, artificial gust of air hit Firefly’s shoulders, immediately dulling the sharp edge of the stinging. She let out a long, shaky breath, her posture sagging just a fraction of an inch.
"Thank you," Firefly whispered, her eyes fixed on the spinning blades.
"Don't," Blade replied. "It’s for the silence. Your breathing was too loud."
Firefly went quiet, the hum of the fan filling the space between them. For a long time, the only movement was the swaying of the palms in the distance. The "vacation" felt like a slow-motion crash, a script they were forced to follow without being given the lines.
"I don't know what to do with the silence," Firefly admitted after a while. Her voice was small, barely carrying over the whir of the motor. "In the suit, there is always a mission objective. There’s always a target. Here, I just... sit. I feel like I'm malfunctioning."
Blade shifted his weight, his leather straps creaking. He finally looked at her, his vacant, haunted eyes scanning her stiff posture. "You are a weapon that has been put back in the rack," he said. "A weapon without a target is just a piece of metal. It has too much time to notice its own rust."
Firefly looked over at him, her expression a mix of curiosity and dread. "Do you feel it? The rust?"
Blade’s hand habitually twitched toward his hip, where his sword usually rested. Finding nothing but empty air, his fingers curled into a fist. "I have felt nothing else for a very long time. This 'vacation' is just another form of confinement. Elio thinks that if we stay in one place long enough, we will become something other than what we are."
"Do you think that's possible?" Firefly asked. "To be something else?"
"Metal doesn't change its nature because the sun is out," Blade rasped. "It only gets hotter."
He walked to the edge of the porch, staring at the ocean with a look of genuine disdain. "Everything here is soft. The sand, the water, the air. It’s a place for people who have never had to hold a blade. Being here is like trying to breathe in a vacuum. There is nothing to push against."
Firefly nodded slowly. She understood that feeling perfectly. the sickening lightness of existing without a purpose. "I feel exposed. Without SAM, the world is too close. I can feel the temperature shifting. I can feel the wind. It’s distracting. It makes it hard to remember the script."
"The script is the only thing that's real," Blade said. "Everything else is just scenery."
He turned his head slightly, watching a small bird land on the railing. The bird chirped, oblivious to the two killers standing a few feet away. Blade watched it with a grim sort of fascination.
"Elio says this break is for synergy," Firefly said, though she sounded like she was trying to convince herself more than him.
"Elio says many things," Blade replied, his voice dropping an octave into something even more gravelly. "Most of them involve us bleeding for a future we won't see. Sitting in the sun is just a different kind of wound."
He leaned back against the post, his gaze returning to the horizon. "Silver Wolf, she thinks this is a game. She looks for a back door in every room. She cannot accept a system she can't override."
Firefly looked toward the glass doors, thinking of the girl who hadn't stopped staring at a screen since they arrived. She didn't know Silver Wolf well, not as a person, only as a set of instructions and a voice in her comms, but she felt a strange, distant pull of empathy.
"Maybe she’s scared," Firefly said softly, more to herself than to him. "Maybe she doesn't know how to exist if she isn't working or winning. And you can't win a vacation."
Blade let out a short, harsh sound that might have been a laugh if it had any humor in it. "No. You can only survive it."
He looked back at Firefly, his gaze lingering on the red skin of her shoulders. The fan was doing its job, the artificial breeze keeping the inflammation from worsening, but she still looked fragile in the oversized straw hat and the flimsy dress.
"When we go back," Firefly started, her voice hesitant, "will we still be the same? Or will the rust be worse?"
"It will be worse," Blade said, his voice dropping into a dangerous, gravelly tone. "But the script will resume. The targets will return. And the metal will forget that it ever felt the sun."
He didn't offer her any comfort. He gave her the only thing he had: the cold, hard truth of their existence. They were the Stellaron Hunters. And no amount of turquoise water could change the fact that they were built for the end of the world.
The walk into the village was a long stretch of silence and heat. Kafka led the way with a steady pace that didn't change despite the humidity. She moved through the thick air without any sign of effort. Silver Wolf trailed a few feet behind her with her hands buried in her hoodie pockets. Her thumbs were twitching against the plastic of her console, but the screen was dark. To her, every step was just a reminder of how slow the world moved when there wasn't a mission to focus on.
The pharmacy was a small building that smelled like old stone and medicine. Inside, the air conditioner was humming in a way that sounded like it was struggling to stay alive.
Kafka walked through the aisles and let her fingers brush against the various glass bottles. She didn't check the price tags once. She finally stopped and picked up a bottle of water, turning it over to watch the light move through the liquid.
"Everything here feels so light," Kafka said quietly. She looked out the window at the locals walking by the shop. "Nobody is in a hurry. Nobody is afraid of anything. It makes the world feel like it's made of paper."
Silver Wolf stopped next to a shelf of sunscreens and scowled. She looked like she wanted to be anywhere else. "It's not just light. It's pointlessly easy," she muttered. She sounded tired. "I looked at the local network while we were walking here. The security is a joke. I could have turned off the lights for this whole planet before you even opened the door."
Kafka turned her head to look at her. "But you didn't do it. You just kept walking."
"Because what’s the point?" Silver Wolf snapped. She finally looked up, her red nose making her look younger and more frustrated than usual. "I could rewrite the logic for this entire planet in less than an hour if I wanted to. I could change the gravity or make the ocean disappear. But once you know you can do that, the whole thing stops being interesting. It’s like playing a game where you already know every single cheat code. You win, and then you're just stuck in an empty room."
She kicked the base of the shelf with the toe of her sneaker. "Everything is just data that hasn't been moved yet. It's boring."
Kafka didn't look away. She actually seemed to be listening for once. She set the water bottle down and stepped into the aisle with Silver Wolf. Her presence felt heavy and cold against the humid air of the shop.
"I know that feeling," Kafka said. Her voice was low. "For me, the world isn't too easy. I just can't feel the weight of it. I allowed Elio to recruit me because I wanted to know how to feel fear. But no one realizes that it makes everything else feel like a dream."
Silver Wolf shifted her weight, her defensive posture dropping a little bit. "What do you mean?"
"When you aren't afraid of what happens next, nothing feels real," Kafka explained. She picked up a sleek silver box from a display and turned it over in her hands. "You watch people react to things and you wonder why they care so much. It's a very quiet way to exist. The whole world is just background noise while you’re floating through it."
Silver Wolf stared at her. She had always seen Kafka as a cold professional who just did what she was told. She hadn't realized that Kafka was trapped in a world that felt as empty as a finished game.
"So we're both just waiting for something to actually happen," Silver Wolf said. She didn't sound like she was arguing anymore.
"Pretty much," Kafka agreed. She held up the silver box. "Which is why I like things like this. It's expensive and flashy. The box says it uses bioluminescent extracts from the deep sea. It's totally unnecessary, but it's at least different."
Silver Wolf leaned in to look at the box. Her curiosity finally started to beat out her boredom. She took the box and read the back of it carefully. "Bioluminescent? Does that mean it actually glows in the dark?"
"That's what the label says," Kafka replied.
Silver Wolf looked at the other options on the shelf. She saw the standard white creams and the sticky bottles of aloe. She poked at a generic tube of ointment and made a face. To her, those were just basic items that didn't have any interesting features.
"All this other stuff is so basic," Silver Wolf said. She handed the silver box back to Kafka. "If my face has to be a mess because I forgot to check the UV index, I might as well use the gel that actually does something cool. This one is the only one that isn't a total snooze."
"I thought you would like the look of it," Kafka said. She walked to the counter and pulled out a credit chip from Silver Wolf that was worth more than the rest of the store combined.
While the clerk slowly processed the payment, Silver Wolf stood a bit too close, her shoulders slumped from the heat. As she leaned over to peer at the receipt, her head accidentally bumped against Kafka’s shoulder. She stayed there for a second, her forehead resting against the cool silk of Kafka’s sleeve, caught in a moment of exhaustion. She realized it almost immediately and straightened up. She looked away, focusing on the bag.
"Elio planned this," Silver Wolf muttered, adjusting her hoodie. "He knew we'd be bored out of our minds."
"He knew we needed to stop looking at the script and look at each other for a change," Kafka said. She took the bag from the clerk and turned toward the door. "But don't worry. I'm sure the script has a very nice ending waiting for us. We just have to get through the rest of it first."
"Whatever," Silver Wolf huffed. She pulled her hoodie back over her head as they stepped back out into the heat. "But if that gel doesn't actually glow, I'm going to be even more annoyed."
Kafka laughed, and for once, it sounded like a natural reaction instead of a practiced one. "We'll see. Let's go check on the others. I imagine Blade is currently staring at a tree like it's an enemy."
Silver Wolf followed her back toward the villa. The world was still boring and slow, but the walk back didn't feel quite as long as the walk in.
The sun had finally dropped below the horizon, and the only light in the living room came from a few dim floor lanterns and the neon-blue glow radiating from Silver Wolf’s face and Firefly’s collarbone. They were sitting on the floor in a wide, uneven circle, the air thick with the sharp, medicinal scent of menthol.
Blade sat on a low stool in the corner, his presence a dark, unmoving shadow. He didn't have a single mark on him, any redness the sun had tried to carve into his skin throughout the afternoon had already been purged by his own body, leaving him as pale and scarred as ever. He watched the others with a look of silent, simmering boredom, his arms crossed over his chest.
"I still don't get why you aren't glowing," Silver Wolf said. Her voice was flat and monotonous, drained of any real energy. The radioactive blue light illuminated her bored expression. "It’s actually cheating. Your cells just... auto-patch."
"My body does not retain damage of that nature," Blade rasped. He looked like he was waiting for a bus that was three decades late. "It is a waste of energy to remain burned."
"Tell that to my face," Silver Wolf muttered. She looked over at Firefly, who was sitting with her back to the wall, carefully applying a cooling patch to the sensitive skin just below her throat.
Firefly was moving with extreme caution. Every time her fingers brushed the red skin, she went perfectly still, her eyes widening slightly until the stinging subsided. The pain was just a series of system alerts she had to manage on her own.
"The gel is very bright," Firefly said, looking at Silver Wolf. She was trying to bridge the silence, though the words felt heavy and forced. "Does it help with the burning sensation?"
Silver Wolf paused, her finger hovering over her cheek. "A little. It feels like a cold sink. Better than the air, anyway." She looked at Firefly's collar area. "You missed a spot. Towards the left."
Firefly reached up, her fingers fumbling blindly until she found the area Silver Wolf was pointing at. "Here?"
"Yeah. There." Silver Wolf looked away quickly, back to the screen of her handheld. "It’s whatever. Just don't let it get on the dress Kafka got you. She’ll probably make us go shopping or something."
Kafka leaned back against the sofa, watching them with a look of slight amusement. She was the only one who looked even remotely comfortable, her wine glass resting on her knee.
"You two look like deep-sea fish," Kafka noted, her voice smooth and entirely unbothered. "It's a bit of an eyesore, really. But I suppose if it stops the complaining, I can live with it."
"I'm not complaining," Firefly said quickly. "I'm just... recalibrating. The environment was more aggressive than I anticipated."
"The sky is a griefer, Firefly. Just say it," Silver Wolf muttered. She tapped a few icons on her screen, but nothing changed. "I can't believe I fell for it. Elio didn't even touch a keyboard. He just sat there with that cat and told me he needed a 'Safety Defense Protocol' for the station. He said it had to be a total blackout: no backdoors, no remote overrides, complete isolation from the database and the weapon vaults for thirty-one days. I made it perfect. I made it so secure that not even I could break back in once the timer started."
She let the handheld drop into her lap with a dull thud. "He just had to press one button. That's all he did. He pressed a button, and now I'm locked in my own cage. I didn't even see it coming because I was too busy making sure the code was impenetrable."
"The weapon vault is sealed," Blade added, his voice a low growl from the shadows. "I tried the biometric override before we left. It rejected my signature. It told me I was 'on leave'."
The word 'leave' sounded like a curse in his mouth. He looked at his empty hands, his fingers curling into a fist.
"It’s the most boring horror movie I’ve ever seen," Silver Wolf said. She looked at Kafka. "Day two, and I’m already stuck in an unskippable cutscene. No data, no logs, no star maps. Just us."
The silence returned, but it was a heavy, collective exhaustion this time.
"Elio is remarkably thorough," Kafka said, swirling the liquid in her glass. She looked at the blue-tinted girls on the floor. "He knew that if he left us even a sliver of a connection to the outside world, you would be back on a ship within the hour. He wants us here. He wants us to be... whatever this is."
"Human, probably," Silver Wolf muttered.
Firefly looked at her glowing skin, then at Blade. She felt a slight, strange sense of comfort being near him after their talk on the porch. "I think Elio is just tired of us being tools," Firefly said softly. "He said synergy, but I think he meant... we don't know how to be a team if we aren't being told how to move. We’re four separate units in the same army."
"I'm not a ‘unit’. I'm a person who wants her high-speed internet back," Silver Wolf muttered. But she didn't move away. She stayed in her beanbag, her shoulder vaguely oriented toward Kafka. "I didn't even there was a blue gel until tonight. Mostly because I never had a reason to buy it."
"It is a very vibrant choice," Firefly agreed, a tiny, almost invisible smile touching her lips as she looked at Silver Wolf’s nose.
Silver Wolf caught the look and scowled, though it was low-energy and lacked any real heat. "Shut up. It had a high cooling rating. It was a logical purchase."
"Whatever you need to tell yourself, dear," Kafka said, finally standing up. She walked toward the balcony, her silk robe fluttering in the humid breeze. She stopped at the glass doors and looked back at the three of them.
"Thirty days," Kafka said. "That’s a lot of time to fill when you aren't allowed to kill anyone."
"I'm going to spend twenty-nine of them trying to find a loophole in my own security," Silver Wolf promised, though she sounded like she was already too bored to try. She didn't move from her spot, though. The central air conditioning vent was positioned directly over the beanbag, and the blast of cold air was the only thing making her face feel like it wasn't on fire.
"And I will spend them waiting for the sun to go down," Blade rasped. He remained on his stool, his silhouette a jagged line against the wall. He didn't seem to care about the heat, but he also didn't seem interested in the soft bed in his room. He sat there like a statue, staring at nothing in particular.
Firefly leaned her head back against the wall, watching the ceiling fan. She was waiting for the patches on her collarbone to fully dry, if she laid down now, the fabric of the pillows would just smear the gel and pull the medicine away from the burn.
The silence that followed was stilted and awkward, the conversation of four people who were only beginning to realize they were sharing a life now, not just a mission. But as they sat in the dim, blue light of the villa, the distance between them felt just a few inches shorter than it had that morning.
"The cat really was a more dignified assignment," Blade muttered again, breaking the silence one last time.
"Go to sleep, Blade," Silver Wolf groaned, burying her glowing face in a cushion.
Eventually, once the gel had set and the exhaustion of the heat finally outweighed the boredom, they began to drift off. Firefly stood up first, moving with a stiff, careful gait toward the hallway to avoid jarring her shoulders. Silver Wolf followed a few minutes later, dragging her handheld behind her like a discarded toy.
They didn't say goodnight. They just retreated into their separate rooms, leaving the living room empty. The blue light faded, leaving the villa to the sound of the ocean and the humid, tropical night. Day two was over. There were twenty-nine more to go, and the sky was still there, waiting for the morning.
Extras!!
Elio stood in the center of a high-end corporate suite for an online meeting with the planet Orizon that Silver Wolf set up for him before she left. He wasn't Elio today, he was Arthur Vance, a high-level logistics consultant for a trans-galactic freight syndicate. He wore a crisp, tailored suit and a pair of rimless glasses that made him look exactly like the kind of man who enjoyed filing taxes. He was supposed to secure the docking codes for a planetary defense hub on the neighboring world of Cyrillus, a planet the Hunters were scheduled to "invade" in six months to retrieve a hidden Stellaron. He would normally send Kafka to do this, but that clearly wasn’t possible right now.
The planetary governor, a woman who looked like she hadn't slept since the last fiscal quarter, paced the room.
"The codes are encrypted, Mr. Vance," she said, her voice tight. "If I hand them over to a third-party consultant, my head will be on a platter by morning."
"On the contrary, Governor," Elio said, his voice smooth and reassuringly dull. "By routing the maintenance through our syndicate, you create a legal buffer. If the hub is breached, the liability falls on us, not you. You are giving me the responsibility."
He leaned forward, holding out a data-slate with a practiced, corporate smile.
Behind him, on a decorative marble pedestal, the cat was waking up. It spotted the silk necktie dangling from Elio’s collar, a strip of fabric that was currently swaying as he spoke. With a sudden mrp, the cat launched itself off the pedestal, catching the tie in its claws and swinging its full weight downward.
Elio’s head jerked toward the desk, his chin nearly hitting the wood. He stiffened, his hand flying to his throat to keep from being throttled.
"Is... is everything alright?" the Governor asked, jumping at the sudden, violent twitch.
"Just a minor cervical spasm," Elio managed, his voice strained. "The gravity on this station is improperly calibrated."
He felt the cat begin its ascent. Claws dug into his expensive suit jacket, moving up his shoulder blades with agonizing slowness. Elio couldn't reach back and grab it, he had to maintain the image of a man who was the human embodiment of a spreadsheet.
The cat reached his shoulder and, finding the top of his head to be the highest vantage point, stepped onto his hair. It began to knead its paws into his scalp, purring with the intensity of a jet engine.
The Governor’s jaw dropped. "Mr. Vance... there is a feline on your cranium."
Elio didn't blink. He stared the Governor down, his expression cold and professional, even as a black tail began to swish rhythmically across his glasses.
"It is a bio-neurological stress-limiter," Elio said, his voice as calm as a frozen lake. "It is a proprietary technology from the core systems. It monitors my cortisol levels during high-stakes negotiations to ensure I remain objective. If it has moved to my head, it means my patience for this discussion has reached its structural limit. Its purring indicates that your signature is the only path to a stable future."
On top of his head, the cat yawned and began to nibble on Elio’s ear.
"It’s... it’s biting you," the Governor whispered, horrified by core-system "technology."
"It is an… alert," Elio replied. "It means we are wasting time. Sign the release, Governor. The monitor is getting impatient."
Terrified of the strange bio-monitor and its sharp teeth, the Governor scribbled her signature and left the meeting. As soon as the meeting ended, Elio grabbed the cat and slumped into a chair. "I am never doing the consultant bit again," he muttered. The cat just jumped down and started chasing a stray pen.
The village pharmacy was small, but it was stocked with the kind of high-end, overpriced inventory that catered to the summer crowd. Kafka moved through the aisles like she was touring a gallery, her fingers trailing over glass jars with a detached, rhythmic grace.
Silver Wolf stood by the door, her hoodie pulled up and her arms crossed. Her nose was starting to peel even more, and the fluorescent lights were making her head ache. "We’ve been here for forty minutes, Kafka. The blue stuff is in the basket. Let’s just buy it and go."
"Patience is an advantage, Silver Wolf," Kafka murmured, picking up a tester bottle of rose-scented toner. She sprayed a mist onto her wrist, closed her eyes, and inhaled. "Besides, if I'm going to be stuck on a rock for thirty days, I refuse to do it with subpar hydration."
Kafka proceeded to move to the cosmetics counter. She spent the next hour systematically testing every serum, primer, and "rejuvenating" mask in the store. She applied a smear of gold-flecked cream to her cheek, then a dab of charcoal mud to the back of her hand, evaluating each one with the same intensity she used to plan a planetary heist.
"This one feels... dishonest," Kafka said, holding up a tube of luxury eye cream.
"It’s soap, Kafka! It’s all just soap!" Silver Wolf groaned, sliding down the wall to sit on the floor. She pulled out her handheld, but without a signal, all she could do was play a low-res tile-matching game. "I’m losing my mind. My skin is literally falling off my face and you’re debating the honesty of a moisturizer."
"The blue gel is at the end of the moisturizing list for a reason," Kafka replied, now testing a set of velvet-finish lipsticks on her forearm. "If we rush the foundation of the routine, the rest is just a patch-kit. Now, tell me... does this shade suggest vacation or resignation?"
"It suggests I'm going to hack your bank account the second we get home to get back all the credits this is costing me," Silver Wolf muttered.
Two hours later, they finally reached the end. Kafka picked up a final lipstick, gave it a single, approving nod, and added it to a basket overflowing with expensive oils and exfoliating beads. Silver Wolf just stood up and walked to the counter without a word, defeated by the sheer power of Kafka's shopping stamina.
The base hummed with the low, ominous vibration of the Safety Defense Protocol countdown. Elio had already pressed the master switch, and the internal systems were flickering as they purged their connections to the outside world.
Silver Wolf sat at her terminal, watching the lights go red. She had mentioned the account offhandedly after a particularly grueling mission, one where she had to infiltrate the central node of a dead civilization's digital afterlife and somehow ended up "inheriting" a ghost account from a long-extinct executive. Since the account was hosted on a server that didn't technically exist in this dimension, it was the only thing the protocol couldn't touch.
The others had remembered. Now, with their own Hunter accounts frozen for the next thirty-one days, they were lined up behind her like kids at a concession stand.
"I am not a bank," Silver Wolf droned. "And I'm definitely not your personal shopper."
"You said it was untraceable, Silver Wolf," Kafka said, leaning over her shoulder and sliding a digital catalog onto the screen. "It would be a waste of resources not to use it. I need these authorized."
Item: Designer Sunglasses (Moonstone Polarized). Amount: $4,200.
Silver Wolf stared at the price. "Four thousand dollars for sunglasses? You're going to lose them in the ocean in two days."
"I'll be very careful," Kafka promised. Silver Wolf hit Approve with a heavy sigh. "Fine. But if we run out of credits because of your face-jewelry, we’re eating seaweed."
Blade stepped forward next. He didn't say anything, he just tapped the screen, highlighting a specific item in a heavy-duty hardware catalog.
Item: Reinforced Titanium Trench-Digger (Serrated).
"A combat shovel?" Silver Wolf looked at Blade. "Blade, it's a beach. You don't need to dig a trench."
"The sand needs to be... managed," Blade rasped. He didn't blink until Silver Wolf hit Approve. At least it was cheaper than the sunglasses.
Firefly was the most polite, showing her handheld with a small, apologetic smile.
Item: Hand-painted Ceramic Knight Figurines (Set of 12).
"For the villa's mantle," Firefly explained. "To make it feel less empty." Silver Wolf hit Approve without even complaining. Compared to the others, Firefly was a saint.
Finally, a notification popped up from the base's local bridge. It was Elio. Since Elio didn't have a bank account, and likely thought a credit card was a tiny, useless mirror, he had funneled his requests through the system Silver Wolf had built for him.
Silver Wolf’s eyes widened as the items scrolled past:
1. A Guide to Basic Computing: For Absolute Beginners and Senior Citizens.
2. 1,000-Piece Jigsaw Puzzle: "A Single Sliced Piece of White Toast."
3. How to Take Care of a Cat: An in Depth Guide to the Maintenance of Felines
4. A Decorative Rock that "Looks Like a Potato."
"He's doing it on purpose," Silver Wolf whispered, her voice trembling. "He knows I’m the only one with a tech-link that works, so he’s making me pay for his 'How to Use a Mouse' book with my ghost credits."
She looked at the potato-rock. It was $50. Plus shipping.
"I'm hitting deny," she muttered.
"The script requires him to be entertained, Silver Wolf," Kafka noted dryly.
Silver Wolf let out a jagged breath and hit Approve. "Thirty-one days," she muttered, slamming her forehead onto the desk. "We just cashed in that bounty from turning Blade in last week, and I'm already the only one paying for anything. I hope that rock is a high-level Curio, because if it's just a rock, I'm throwing it at the cat.”