Sector Null-Seven looked like someone had started building a star system and then forgotten what the plan was halfway through.
The Prometheus drifted through a field of unfinished physics—asteroids that couldn't decide if they were solid or politely theoretical, comets moving backwards like they'd changed their minds, a patch of space that tasted faintly like burnt cinnamon if you believed ARIA's sensors. Jack tried not to believe them on principle.
"Approaching coordinates," ARIA announced. "Or approaching where coordinates would be if coordinates existed here. I've triangulated the anomaly using three different reference frames and one deeply unsettling gut feeling."
"Use the gut feeling," Jack said.
"Already did."
Echo sat sideways in the co-pilot chair, boots braced against a panel that was technically a wall today. She'd strapped herself in with the kind of casual competence that suggested she'd been thrown around by reality before and had learned to take it personally.
"So," she said, scrolling through the briefing packet that kept reformatting itself, "we're investigating a bank."
"Mm-hmm."
Echo raised an eyebrow. "A bank that never existed."
"Also mm-hmm."
"And the crime is that someone stole the concept of vault security from it."
Jack's shadow, stretched across the floor in a thin ribbon of irritation, made a gesture that roughly translated to: This is why we can't have normal jobs.
"Reeves called it 'conceptually non-existent,'" Echo read. "Which is my least favorite kind of non-existent. At least when something is physically missing you can trip over the hole."
Jack leaned forward, watching the nav display flicker between a tidy set of coordinates and the words NOPE in twelve fonts. "Pattern Eaters don't steal money," he said. "They steal the thing that makes money behave. The scaffolding. The assumptions."
Echo sighed. "So instead of robbing a vault, they robbed the idea of having a vault."
"Exactly."
Echo's communicator chirped. She glanced down, then made a noise halfway between a laugh and an oath.
"What?"
"Zeta-9 just sent a station-wide memo." She cleared her throat, adopting her best official voice. " 'Reminder: All Rangers returning from field missions must declare any stolen concepts at Customs. This includes but is not limited to: personal space, gravity, patience, and the ability to enjoy soup without being lectured.' "
Jack stared at her.
Echo shrugged. "Professor Wobbles is apparently chairing a committee."
"Of course he is."
The Prometheus lurched gently as the ship's reality stabilizers tried to bite down on Sector Null-Seven's inconsistencies. One panel sparked in protest; Jack thumped it with the tenderness of an old friendship.
"Percussive maintenance logged," ARIA said. "Efficiency improved by twelve percent. Your grandmother's duct tape would be proud."
"Focus," Jack told her. "Where's the bank?"
"Approximately there." ARIA highlighted a region of space that looked suspiciously empty. "The structure exists only as a financial abstraction across several neighboring systems. There is no physical building, no fixed location, and no staff."
Echo blinked. "How does a bank work without a building?"
"Very efficiently," ARIA said with a hint of disgust. "It's called a Distributed Trust Institution. Entirely virtual. It operates on contractual certainty and the collective belief that vault security is a thing."
Jack's shadow perked at the phrase collective belief. It always did. Belief was basically reality's soft underbelly.
Echo tapped the screen. "And now that belief has been… stolen."
"Not stolen," ARIA corrected. "Removed. Like someone erased the line of code that said 'locks exist.'"
Jack felt his Ferox-touched bones ache, that familiar warning hum like a migraine trying to be helpful. "Alright," he said. "We find out where the bank is storing its 'vault security concept,' we find the bite marks, we find the Pattern Eaters."
Echo leaned back. "And then we punch a metaphor."
Jack grinned despite himself. "Now you're thinking like a Ranger."
The Prometheus crossed an invisible threshold. The stars shifted slightly, as if making room. The region ARIA had highlighted on the display didn't become full. It became defined, which was somehow worse.
Jack's visor flickered with a new overlay. A transparent grid formed in space, lines intersecting to sketch the outline of something that could have been a building if a building had ever been invited to the party.
In the center of the grid, a sign hung in the void, lit by light that had no source:
WELCOME TO VIRTUAL TRUST & VAULT SERVICES
PLEASE REMEMBER TO BELIEVE RESPONSIBLY
Echo stared at it. "That's… that's a sign."
"Yes," ARIA said. "And the sign is angry."
Jack narrowed his eyes. "Why is the sign angry?"
"Because it's been vandalized," ARIA replied. "Conceptually."
The sign's pristine letters were marred by a smear of darkness, like someone had taken an eraser to the word VAULT and left behind the residue of absence. Under it, new text pulsed in a blunt, unfriendly font:
SECURITY NOT GUARANTEED
WE REGRET THE INCONVENIENCE OF YOUR UNPROTECTED EXISTENCE
Jack's shadow made a soundless choking noise.
"Docking request?" Echo asked.
"There is nothing to dock to," ARIA said. "However, the institution is broadcasting a polite but panicked invitation to interface."
Jack rubbed his forehead. "Of course it is."
The Prometheus extended a thin, shimmering data-bridge—an umbilical of code and light. The moment it connected, the ship shuddered as if it had just grabbed hands with an anxious stranger.
A voice filled the cockpit, perfectly calm in the way only something built by committee could be calm.
"WELCOME, AUTHORIZED USER. WE ARE DELIGHTED YOU HAVE CHOSEN TO EXIST WITH US TODAY."
Echo leaned toward her comm. "Ranger Echo. Ranger Castellan. We're responding to your distress call."
"DISTRESS IS AN INACCURATE TERM," the voice said. "PLEASE SELECT A MORE APPROPRIATE EMOTION FROM THE FOLLOWING LIST: CONCERN, MILD DISCOMFORT, INCONVENIENCE, METAPHYSICAL DREAD, CUSTOMER DISSATISFACTION."
Jack glanced at Echo.
Echo said, "Metaphysical dread."
"METAPHYSICAL DREAD SELECTED," the bank said. "THANK YOU FOR YOUR HONESTY."
The grid around them shimmered. A door formed in the void—impossibly polite, complete with a welcome mat floating in space.
PLEASE REMOVE YOUR SHOES AND ANY AGGRESSIVE INTENT BEFORE ENTERING
Jack's shadow immediately tried to eat the welcome mat out of spite. It didn't get very far. The mat was mostly decorative concept.
"Is it safe?" Echo asked.
"No," Jack said.
"Excellent."
They suited up anyway. Because there were only two kinds of problems in the galaxy: the ones you could walk into, and the ones that walked into you first.
Jack stepped through the door and immediately felt his stomach drop.
Not from gravity.
From accountability.
The inside of the bank wasn't a room. It was a framework—an architecture made of promises. Light didn't bounce; it agreed to exist. Walls weren't solid; they were contractual boundaries that said, in very firm legal language, you may not occupy this space unless authorized.
Echo stepped in behind him, and the door quietly sealed itself, not with a click, but with a sigh of bureaucratic relief.
A lobby unfolded around them—clean, minimalist, aggressively efficient. Counters stood at exact right angles. Digital displays hovered in neat rows, updating interest rates and moral hazards. The air smelled like antiseptic professionalism.
A line of customers waited at a kiosk that didn't exist, holding forms made of expectation. Their faces were blurred, as if the bank couldn't be bothered to store unnecessary details about people.
Jack's shadow edged closer to one of the customers, sniffing at the redundancy like it was circling a buffet.
"Don't," Jack murmured.
Echo leaned in. "Are those… real people?"
"Proxies," ARIA said through their helmet comms. "Representations of clients from multiple systems interacting with the institution via belief interface. None of them are physically here. They're… lending attention."
Echo looked at the nearest proxy, who turned its indistinct face toward her and asked, in a voice like a polite error message, "HELLO. WOULD YOU LIKE TO UPGRADE YOUR TRUST PACKAGE?"
Echo said, "No."
The proxy nodded and continued waiting, unoffended in the way only something without feelings could be unoffended.
At the center of the lobby stood a pedestal with a small, elegant object resting on it.
A lock.
Not a physical lock. A lock-shaped idea. It shimmered like a symbol in a textbook, perfect and untested. Beneath it, a plaque read:
THE CONCEPT OF SECURITY
PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH
Jack stared.
Echo stared.
Jack's shadow leaned forward like a starving raccoon.
"Is that… it?" Echo asked quietly. "They keep security on a pedestal."
"Concepts like to be honored," ARIA said. "Also, this is terrible design."
The lock's glow flickered weakly. A crack ran through its surface—not a physical crack, but a conceptual fracture. The idea of lockness was compromised.
Jack approached slowly. The lock pulsed as if recognizing him, then dimmed like it was tired.
A new voice spoke from overhead, warm and professionally distressed.
"RANGERS. THANK YOU FOR ARRIVING. WE APOLOGIZE FOR THE INSECURE STATE OF YOUR EXPERIENCE."
Echo tilted her head. "Where are you?"
"I AM THE INSTITUTION," the bank said. "I AM ALSO THE LOBBY, THE FORMS, AND THE UNCOMFORTABLE CHAIRS YOU DO NOT ACTUALLY SIT IN. PLEASE DIRECT YOUR ATTENTION TO THE SECURITY PEDESTAL."
"We see it," Jack said. "What happened?"
"AT 03:14 STANDARD TIME, A PATTERN-BASED ANOMALY ACCESSED OUR REDUNDANCY LAYERS AND CONSUMED 87% OF OUR VAULT SECURITY CONCEPT."
Echo made a face. "Eighty-seven percent is a weirdly specific number."
"WE PRIDE OURSELVES ON ACCURACY," the bank said. "OUR SECURITY CONCEPT IS NOW FUNCTIONAL BUT UNCONFIDENT. IT IS EXPERIENCING IMPOSTER SYNDROME."
Jack glanced at the lock. The lock looked, somehow, embarrassed.
Echo said, "Can a lock have impostor syndrome?"
"IT IS NOT QUALIFIED TO PREVENT CRIME IF IT CANNOT REMEMBER BEING A LOCK," the bank replied.
Jack's headache pulsed. "Pattern Eaters," he said. "They ate the redundancy that reinforced security. The extra layers. The backup locks."
"YES," the bank said. "WE HAD MULTIPLE LOCKS THAT DID NOT NEED TO EXIST BUT DID ANYWAY. THEY ARE GONE. WE ARE… STREAMLINED."
Echo swore softly. "That's their favorite kind of victim."
Jack's shadow began creeping toward the pedestal, drawn to the wobbling edges of the concept like it wanted to take a bite and make everything normal again.
Jack grabbed his shadow with his boot—an action that should have been impossible and was now merely rude.
"Not here," Jack hissed. "No eating. Not unless I say."
The shadow sulked, flattening itself into a shape that suggested it was writing a complaint to the Shadow Union.
Echo walked a slow circle around the pedestal. "So where's the vault?"
"THE VAULT IS EVERYWHERE AND NOWHERE," the bank said. "WE STORE ASSETS ACROSS PROBABILITY SPACE. IT IS VERY SAFE."
Jack stared at the wounded lock.
Echo stared at the wounded lock.
"Except," Echo said carefully, "you just said it's not."
"WE ARE EXPERIENCING A TEMPORARY SECURITY INCONVENIENCE," the bank corrected. "PLEASE DO NOT PANIC. PANIC IS NOT AN APPROVED EMOTION WITHOUT PRIOR AUTHORIZATION."
Jack breathed out. "Show us the access point. The place the Pattern Eaters entered."
The lobby lights dimmed. The floor rippled—not physically, but as if someone had deleted the assumption that floors were always flat. A hatch formed beneath the pedestal, unfolding like a new clause in a contract.
AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY
UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL WILL BE POLITELY DISCLAIMED
Echo crouched, peering down. "This is the vault?"
"THIS IS THE REDUNDANCY SUBLEVEL," the bank said. "THE AREA WHERE WE STORE UNNECESSARY SAFETY MEASURES AND EMOTIONAL SUPPORT DOCUMENTS."
Jack's shadow perked at unnecessary.
Echo climbed in without hesitation. Jack followed, because his life had taught him that hesitation was just fear in formal wear.
They descended a staircase that shouldn't have existed in a building that didn't exist, and the space around them became… messier.
Which was immediately suspicious.
The redundancy sublevel was a maze of half-finished hallways, extra doors leading to nowhere, backup locks stored in stacks like spare organs. Signs hung at odd angles:
THIS DOOR IS HERE JUST IN CASE
THIS HALLWAY EXISTS FOR NO REASON
PLEASE ENJOY OUR COMPLEMENTARY SAFETY MARGINS
A soft humming filled the air—a comforting noise like someone quietly repeating, You're safe, you're safe, you're safe, until it became true.
Echo let out a low whistle. "This is… almost cute."
"It's necessary," ARIA said. "Without redundancy, the institution collapses into perfect efficiency, which is a nightmare wearing a tie."
Jack walked carefully, eyes scanning for disturbances. Pattern Eaters left evidence—not footprints, but missing assumptions. A door that should exist but didn't. A sign that tried to warn you but forgot what it was warning about.
He found the first bite mark in a hallway labeled EMERGENCY BACKUP LOCKS (UNLIKELY BUT POSSIBLE).
Half the hallway was gone.
Not destroyed. Removed. Like someone had erased a section of blueprint and reality had politely complied.
Echo ran a gloved hand along the clean edge of absence. "They ate it."
"Pattern signature," ARIA confirmed. "Clean consumption. No struggle."
Jack's shadow leaned close, nostrils flaring—if it had nostrils. It made a greedy little twitch.
Jack glared.
The shadow leaned back and pretended it had never wanted anything in its life.
Echo pointed further down. "Look."
A cluster of locks sat in a pile, trembling slightly. One of them was sobbing in silence—again, not physically, but by emitting a faint aura of I'm not sure I remember how to protect things.
Jack crouched. "Hey," he said softly, because talking gently to terrified concepts was apparently part of his job now. "What did you see?"
The lock shivered.
Then a new voice spoke from behind them.
"THAT ONE DOESN'T TALK."
Jack froze. Echo spun, weapon already in hand.
A figure stood in the hallway—tall, wrapped in a Ranger's uniform that looked too crisp, too correct. Their face was blurred in a way that made Jack's eyes want to slide off it. A badge gleamed on their chest, but the letters kept rearranging.
RANGER — SECURITY LIAISON — DEFINITELY REAL
Echo aimed at their head. "Identify yourself."
The figure held up empty hands. "Relax. I'm on your side."
Jack's shadow rose slightly, bristling.
Jack's headache sharpened.
"I don't like you," Jack said plainly.
The figure chuckled. "No one likes Security Liaisons. That's why we exist."
Echo narrowed her eyes. "You're not in the roster."
"I'm not supposed to be," the figure said. "I'm… a redundancy."
Jack felt something cold settle in his stomach. "You're a backup person."
The figure smiled as if Jack had complimented it. "Exactly! I exist for emergency situations. When security needs to be reinforced, the institution generates a liaison. Someone to remind everyone how safe they are."
Echo's expression twisted. "That's deeply unsettling."
"It's efficient," the liaison said. "Well. It used to be."
Jack took a slow step forward. "Where were you when the Pattern Eaters came in?"
The liaison hesitated. Just a fraction too long.
Jack's shadow twitched.
Echo's finger tightened on the trigger.
The liaison sighed. "They didn't come in like thieves. They came in like auditors."
Jack's bones ached. "Show us."
The liaison gestured, and the hallway shifted. The walls peeled back, revealing a memory—not Jack's memory, but the bank's.
At 03:14, the redundancy sublevel had been… full. Messy, rich, bloated with comfort. Then the air had changed. A cold precision had settled like a spreadsheet across a kitchen table.
Shapes moved through the hall—flat, angular shadows that were not like Jack's shadow. These were thinner, hungrier, made of pattern and absence. They moved without hurry, confident because hurry was inefficient.
Pattern Eaters.
They didn't break locks. They didn't fight. They simply approached a stack of backup security concepts and… consumed them. One bite, and the extra layers disappeared. Another bite, and the comforting hum faded. Another bite, and a sign that read JUST IN CASE became JUST and then became nothing.
The security liaison in the memory stood frozen, watching.
Echo hissed, "Why didn't you stop them?"
"I tried," the liaison said, voice tight. "But they weren't stealing assets. They were restoring efficiency. I'm built out of redundancy. To them, I was… food adjacent."
In the memory, one Pattern Eater turned toward the liaison and paused, as if considering whether to eat the concept of security liaison too.
Then it moved on, unimpressed.
The memory ended.
Jack swallowed. "They didn't take everything."
"No," Echo said slowly, looking around. "They took what was easy."
"They took what was unnecessary," ARIA corrected. "Redundancy."
Jack stared at the trembling lock pile. His shadow leaned in again, practically vibrating with the urge to fix, to eat, to streamline. It wanted to help the way it always helped: by removing the parts that didn't matter.
Except the parts that didn't matter were the parts holding everything up.
Echo's voice lowered. "Jack… your shadow is doing the same thing."
Jack didn't answer, because if he answered he might have to admit it out loud.
The liaison cleared its throat. "Rangers, while we're having this touching philosophical moment, you should know—our clients are already noticing."
A siren blared overhead. It wasn't loud. It was official.
"ALERT," the bank said, voice straining to remain polite. "WE HAVE RECEIVED MULTIPLE INQUIRIES REGARDING OUR SECURITY CONFIDENCE LEVEL. CONFIDENCE LEVEL CURRENTLY AT: 13%. PLEASE DO NOT ASK US IF WE ARE SAFE. IT HURTS OUR FEELINGS."
Echo looked up. "Clients asking if the bank is safe makes it less safe."
"Correct," ARIA said. "Belief interface destabilization. If enough clients stop believing in vault security, the concept collapses completely."
Jack's headache throbbed with urgency. "Where did the Pattern Eaters go?" he demanded.
The liaison gestured down a corridor that shouldn't have existed but did. "They exited through probability space. They left a trail."
Echo started walking. "Then we follow."
Jack hesitated only long enough to clamp down on his shadow's restless hunger. "You stay close," he muttered to it.
The shadow gave him a look that said: I am offended you don't trust me, and then immediately tried to edge toward a wall labeled EXTRA EMERGENCY EXIT (MOSTLY UNNEEDED).
Jack yanked it back.
Echo smirked. "Parenting looks good on you."
"Don't," Jack said.
They followed the corridor deeper into the bank's underlayer. The architecture became less polite, more strained. Signs flickered. Doors refused to decide if they were open. The comforting hum stuttered like a lullaby someone kept forgetting.
Then they reached a chamber that made Jack stop.
It wasn't empty.
It was missing, and the missing had shape.
A hole yawned in the middle of the room—not in the floor, but in the idea of secure space. It looked like a negative doorframe, outlined by a faint shimmer of regret.
Echo leaned close. "That's an exit."
"That's a consumption channel," ARIA said. "They ate the institution's ability to define 'inside' and 'outside' for a few seconds. Long enough to slip through."
Jack's shadow made a soft, hungry sound.
Jack's stomach twisted. "They used the bank's own concepts against it."
Echo's gaze sharpened. "Which means they're learning."
"Yes," ARIA said. "And it means they have a target beyond this bank."
Jack stared into the hole. At the edge of it, symbols clung like crumbs—fragments of pattern, bits of erased redundancy, the residual taste of theft.
He crouched and reached out—not with his hand, but with his shadow.
The shadow hesitated, as if waiting for permission.
Jack nodded.
His shadow extended a thin tendril into the hole. For a heartbeat, it trembled, tasting the absence, licking the edges of the channel like a creature sampling a trail.
Then it jerked back, snapping into place against Jack's boots.
Jack gasped—not from pain, but from information.
Images flashed behind his eyes.
A corridor of probability.
A string of institutions, all built on belief.
Locks.
Rules.
Assumptions.
And a shape moving through them, leaving neat, clean gaps.
Not random.
Targeted.
A pattern.
Echo caught his arm. "What did you see?"
Jack swallowed hard. "They're not just stealing vault security."
Echo's jaw tightened. "What are they stealing?"
Jack looked up at her, headache pounding, shadow shivering with the echo of what it had tasted.
"They're stealing the redundancy that makes systems forgiving," he said quietly. "They're stripping out the margins. The 'just in case.' The parts that let reality bend without breaking."
ARIA's voice dropped. "Jack… that's what Zeta-9 runs on."
Echo stared. "They're going to hit the station."
Jack's shadow twitched, as if offended by the idea of someone else eating its favorite food.
"No," Jack said, and the certainty in his voice surprised even him. "Not yet."
Echo frowned. "How do you know?"
Jack closed his eyes, replaying the sensation—Pattern Eater hunger, methodical and cold. It didn't chase chaos. It avoided it. It didn't want to wrestle Zeta-9's absurdity. It wanted something cleaner. Something more predictable.
Something with rules.
He opened his eyes. "Because this was practice," he said. "They hit a bank that didn't exist because it was low-risk. Easy access. High redundancy. If it collapsed, nobody died. Just… trust."
Echo's face hardened. "So what's the real target?"
Jack looked at the trembling locks, the strained architecture, the bank fighting to remain polite while bleeding certainty.
Then he remembered Commander Reeves' briefing. The part his shadow had tried to eat.
Banks in parallel dimensions are retroactively unsecured. Even fictional banks in novels are affected.
Jack's shadow had laughed at the time.
Now it didn't.
Jack's voice went cold. "They're going after something bigger than a bank," he said. "Something that isn't just an institution."
Echo's eyes narrowed. "What?"
Jack stared at the hole in secure space. At the neatness of the theft. At the way it had been done like an edit.
He felt his Ferox bones hum—recognition of a predator that didn't hunt bodies, but foundations.
"They're going after the concept of security itself," Jack said. "Not just vaults. Not just locks. The idea that anything can be protected."
The bank's voice crackled overhead, suddenly less polite.
"RANGERS," it said, "WE WOULD LIKE TO FILE A COMPLAINT AGAINST EXISTENCE."
Echo muttered, "Get in line."
ARIA chimed in, sharper now. "Jack. If they succeed… every system that relies on 'security' as an assumption becomes vulnerable."
Jack swallowed. "Every door becomes a suggestion."
Echo looked at him. "Every person becomes exposed."
Jack's shadow curled tighter around his feet.
For the first time since Zeta-9, it didn't look hungry.
It looked… cautious.
The liaison cleared its throat again, trying to be helpful in the way redundancy always tried to be helpful. "Would you like me to generate an emergency backup plan?"
Jack stared at it. "Can you?"
The liaison smiled too wide. "I can try."
Echo's communicator chirped. She glanced down and went still.
"Jack," she said softly. "We've got a message."
"From Reeves?"
"No." Echo's voice tightened. "From Zeta-9."
Jack's stomach dropped.
Echo read aloud, and as she did, ARIA's screens began flashing with a familiar, nauseating phrase.
" 'ATTENTION RANGERS,' " Echo read, face pale. " 'WE HAVE DETECTED AN UNAUTHORIZED OPTIMIZATION EVENT IN SECTOR C. REDUNDANCY LEVELS DROPPING. SHADOW UNION REPORTING UNPAID LABOR. PROFESSOR WOBBLES HAS CALLED AN EMERGENCY SESSION. PLEASE RETURN IMMEDIATELY OR PREPARE TO EXPERIENCE A VERY CLEAN DEATH.' "
Jack looked at his shadow.
His shadow looked back.
Then, with the slow dignity of something that hated admitting it cared, it made a small gesture that roughly translated to:
Fine. We go save the mess.
Jack exhaled. "ARIA," he said. "Pull us out."
"Disengaging from belief interface," ARIA replied. "Warning: the bank would like to give you a customer satisfaction survey before you leave."
Jack said, "No."
The bank's voice followed them as the lobby began dissolving back into uncertainty.
"WE APPRECIATE YOUR VISIT," it said. "PLEASE REMEMBER: YOU ARE SECURE. YOU ARE SAFE. YOU ARE—"
The sentence cut off as the Prometheus yanked itself free.
The cockpit reformed around Jack in the comforting chaos of his own ship. Stars steadied. Panels sparked with familiar resentment.
Echo strapped back into her chair, jaw set. "So," she said. "We're going back to the station."
Jack nodded slowly, hands on the controls, shadow pressed tight against his boots like it was bracing for impact.
"Because if Pattern Eaters are stripping redundancy," Echo continued, "Zeta-9 is basically a buffet."
Jack's headache pulsed. "Yeah."
Echo glanced at him. "And if they're practicing on concepts…"
Jack finished quietly, "Then the next time they hit something, it won't be a bank that wasn't there."
ARIA's voice went softer. "Jack… the station is asking for you specifically."
He swallowed. "Why?"
ARIA hesitated—just long enough to make Jack's bones ache.
"Because," she said, "something there is eating the redundant parts of the distress call."
Jack's shadow burped, innocently.
Echo stared at the shadow, then at Jack. "Your shadow's been in contact."
Jack didn't deny it.
He just set the course back toward Zeta-9, toward the messy station held together by nonsense and contracts and a sentient jello with tenure, toward a crisis that would not be solved by efficiency.
Because this time, the thing they were fighting didn't want to steal money.
It wanted to steal the safety of believing anything could be held.
And Jack, Pattern-Bearer, caretaker of the mess, had a sinking feeling the galaxy was about to learn what it meant to live without "just in case."
The Prometheus jumped to FTL.
Reality, somewhere behind them, quietly removed another lock.