Location: Tunaro Portside — Erickson and Wilder's Private Residence — Industrial District Loft
---
The silence after Elijah's declaration stretched like wire under tension.
"My agenda is to not die."
Erickson's stare did not waver. His arms remained crossed. His weight remained balanced on the balls of his feet. But something in his posture had shifted—almost imperceptibly, like a door that had been pushed ajar and then held still.
Wilder had stopped pacing entirely. He stood near the window now, his back to the gray light, his glasses catching the overcast glow in opaque white lenses. His expression was unreadable behind the reflection, but his hands had curled into loose fists at his sides.
Elijah did not move from the rolling chair.
Behind the Azaqor mask—that sharp-jawed, smug-faced disguise that made him look like someone you wanted to punch in a bar parking lot—his eyes moved between the two brothers. Calculating. Cataloging. Waiting.
They don't trust me, he thought. Good. Trust would make this easier, but suspicion makes it safer. Suspicion means they're thinking. Thinking means they're not reaching for weapons.
He had done his homework before walking into this loft.
Not the kind of homework that involved books or files or any of the traditional methods. This was the other kind. The kind that left no traces if you knew what you were doing. The kind that the Halcyon base's security systems had never detected because Elijah had learned, somewhere along the way, that the best way to breach a server was to make it think you belonged there.
He had slipped into the Tonaro network three days ago.
Not through the front door. Through a maintenance access port that had been left open since the system was installed—a backdoor that the original architects had forgotten to close and no one had thought to look for since. From there, he had drifted through the data streams like smoke, reading what he needed, leaving nothing behind.
The Tonaro turf was not what it appeared to be on paper.
On paper, it was a conglomeration of families. A holding company with multiple stakeholders, each one holding a percentage of the whole. The Halverns had forty-four percent. Another faction held fifty-six. The numbers were precise, deliberate, engineered to create a permanent state of negotiated tension.
But the real story was buried deeper.
Elena Tuner Sae'thar.
The name had appeared in exactly three documents across the entire network. Each mention was brief, almost casual—a signature on a transfer authorization, a name in a board meeting minutes file, a single line in a personnel database marked "inactive."
Sae'thar, Elijah had thought when he first saw it. That's not a Tunaro name. That's not a local name at all.
He had filed it away. And then Erickson had spoken it aloud in the warehouse—"By Elena"—and Wilder's face had cracked open for just a moment, and Elijah had understood that he was looking at the missing piece of the puzzle.
---
He began to spin the chair again.
Slowly. Thoughtfully. The wheels whispered against the concrete floor as he turned, keeping his eyes on Erickson, letting the movement fill the silence.
"Look, pal," Elijah said.
The Australian accent was back. Thick. Obnoxious. The kind of voice that made people underestimate you because they assumed anyone who sounded like that couldn't possibly be dangerous.
"I heard from a little birdy that you folks have been having some trouble."
Erickson's eyebrow twitched. Not much. Just enough.
"Trouble," he repeated.
"Yeah. Trouble. The kind that shows up in ledgers and incident reports. The kind that makes money disappear and leaves questions in its place."
Elijah let the chair complete another rotation before continuing.
"Shipping transportation. That's your thing, right? Trucks. Routes. Timing. The whole ballet." He gestured vaguely with one hand. "Except someone keeps interrupting the dance. Robberies. Hijackings. Shipments that leave the warehouse and never arrive at their destination."
Wilder shifted his weight. The movement was small, but Elijah caught it.
"And if my guess isn't wrong," Elijah continued, "you have foes. Other turf factions. Ones that work for either the Saiyan, the Wycliffe, or the Halverns."
He paused.
"Thing is, you're not family. Not in the mafia sense. That's not what the Tonaro are. The Tonaro are a front—a shell, a service provider. You move things for people. You don't answer to a capo or a don. You answer to..."
He let the word hang.
"...contracts."
Erickson's expression did not change. But his arms uncrossed. Just slightly. Just enough to let his hands rest at his sides.
"You've done your homework," he said.
"I do my homework."
"Then you know that Elena Tuner disappeared."
Elijah's chair stopped spinning.
"I know that Elena Tuner Sae'thar disappeared," he said carefully. "And I know that when she left, she left you two holding the bag. No protection. No backing. Just a transportation network and a target on your backs."
The name landed differently this time.
Sae'thar.
Wilder flinched. Not dramatically—a micro-movement, a tightening around his eyes. But Erickson...
Erickson went still.
Not the stillness of calm. The stillness of a man who had just heard something he did not expect to hear from a stranger wearing a punchable mask.
---
"Sae'thar," Erickson said.
The word came out flat. Neutral. But his eyes had sharpened behind his glasses.
"You know that name."
"I know a lot of names."
"That one isn't common knowledge."
Elijah shrugged. The gesture was theatrical, exaggerated—the mask demanded performance.
"I'm not common."
Inside his skull, a different conversation was happening.
"Wonko," Elijah thought, keeping his face neutral, his breathing steady. "Elena Tuner Sae'thar. Tell me you recognize that name."
Silence.
Not the silence of Wonko ignoring him. The silence of Wonko processing.
"Wonko."
Still nothing.
And then—
"Did you say Sae'thar?"
Wonko's mental voice was different. The usual sardonic edge was gone. In its place was something Elijah had never heard from him before.
Caution.
"Yeah. Sae'thar. Why? Who are they? Are they like the Halverns? The Saiyan? The Wycliffe?"
A long pause.
Then Wonko sneered—but the sneer was forced, a mask over something else.
"Heavens," he said. "That's what the Sae'thar are to the earth. Compared to the Halverns and the Saiyan, the Sae'thar are..."
He stopped.
"Are what?"
"Not a conversation for this moment. But know this—if Elena Tuner carried that name, her disappearance was not a retirement. It was not a choice. It was a statement."
Elijah's internal thoughts churned.
Rael, he remembered. The one who attacked me. She called herself Vehl'arim. One of the eight subclans.
If the Sae'thar were among those eight—if they moved in the same circles as the people who had sent a Radiant Vestige user to kill him—then Elena's disappearance was not just a local mystery.
It was a thread connecting to something much larger.
But I can't get answers from Erickson, Elijah thought. Not yet. I need his trust first. Or at least enough of his suspicion to keep him talking.
---
He refocused on the room.
Erickson was watching him with an expression that had shifted from hostile to something more complicated. Not trust. Not yet. But the edge had dulled.
"So here's my question," Elijah said, letting the Australian accent drawl through the words. "Your shipments keep getting hit. Your routes keep getting compromised. And you're sitting here, in this loft, with no backup and no clear path forward."
He leaned forward in the rolling chair. The mesh creaked.
"Am I wrong?"
Erickson's jaw tightened.
"You're not wrong."
"Didn't think so."
"But knowing our problems and solving them are two different things." Erickson raised one hand and adjusted his glasses—a slow, deliberate motion. The kind of gesture people made when they were buying time to think. "So let me ask you something, Nathan Drayke, or whatever your real name is."
His tone shifted. The guard was still up—visible now in the set of his shoulders, the angle of his chin.
"What exactly do you need with our troubles? Let me guess."
He paused.
"You're here to offer a solution."
Wilder's internal monologue—if Elijah could have heard it—would have sounded something like this:
Wait. Did a fox just lure me into a trap?
He stared at Nathan Drayke's face. That sharp jaw. Those smug, vacant eyes. The kind of face that belonged on a recruitment poster for bad decisions. He had thought the guy was cool. Had thought they vibed. Had thought—
Is this what being played feels like?
His hand crept toward his pocket. Not for a weapon. Just... reassurance. Something to hold onto while his understanding of the situation rearranged itself.
---
Elijah spread his arms wide.
The gesture was theatrical. Almost musical. As if he were presenting himself to an audience that hadn't asked for a performance but was getting one anyway.
"Look, guys," he said, drawing out the vowels, letting the mask do its work. "I'm not here to sell you anything. I'm not here to recruit you. I'm not here to do anything except maybe—"
"Get to the point," Erickson cut in.
His voice was flat. Final. The kind of tone that said I have run out of patience for theater.
Elijah's arms dropped.
"Fine."
He let the silence stretch. One beat. Two.
Then he spoke again—and this time, the accent was still there, but the performance had dimmed. Just slightly. Just enough to suggest that what came next was real.
"Fellows. You two. Have you heard of the Yaldabaoth?"
The name landed like a stone in still water.
Wilder went rigid.
His hand stopped moving toward his pocket. His entire body locked into place—shoulders up, spine straight, the casual slouch replaced by something much closer to fight-or-flight.
"Yaldabaoth," he repeated.
His voice was different. Higher. Tighter.
He stared at Nathan Drayke's face. That punchable face. The sharp jaw that looked like it had been designed by someone who hated jawlines. The smug expression that made you want to introduce it to a closed fist. The eyes—empty and arrogant and somehow still watching, always watching.
"Don't tell me," Wilder said, pointing at Elijah with a trembling finger, "don't you dare tell me that you're a—"
---
Inside Elijah's skull, Wonko's voice erupted.
"Quick thinking, brat. I'll give you that. But of all the excuses you could have chosen—of all the covers, all the alibis, all the plausible deniability in the world—you just had to pick the one brand of terrorists that every government and criminal organization on the continent wants dead?"
Elijah screamed inwardly.
"I'M LITERALLY A WANTED CRIMINAL UNDER THREE SEPARATE GOVERNMENT DATABASES! WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE?"
"The difference is that the Yaldabaoth blow up civilian infrastructure! The difference is that people don't hire the Yaldabaoth—they run from them! The difference is that you just associated yourself with the most hunted organization in the eastern hemisphere, and you expect these two to—"
"I'M IMPROVISING!"
"YOU'RE IMPROVISING YOUR WAY INTO A GRAVE!"
---
Outwardly, Elijah remained calm.
He raised one hand—palm out, fingers spread—in a gesture that was meant to be reassuring but probably looked more like a traffic cop stopping a car.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," he said, the Australian accent drawling through the words. "Nobody said I was anything. I asked if you'd heard of them. There's a difference between asking a question and making a confession."
Wilder's pointing finger did not lower.
"Then why bring them up?"
"Because—"
Elijah paused.
He spread his hands again. This time the gesture was smaller. More contained. Less performance, more... presentation.
"Let me introduce myself properly."
He stood up from the rolling chair.
The motion was smooth. Unhurried. He rose to his full height—not tall, not short, just there—and placed one hand over his chest in a gesture that might have been mocking and might have been sincere.
"You can call me Nathan. I'm a man who has problems with some of the same people who have problems with you. And I believe that, sometimes, mutual problems create mutual opportunities."
He let his hand drop.
"That's all. That's the pitch. No recruitment. No sales. Just... alignment of interests."
---
Erickson's expression had changed.
The hostility was still there. Buried, but present. The guard was still up—visible in the way he held himself, the way his eyes tracked Elijah's every micro-movement.
But something else had joined it.
Puzzlement.
He looked at Elijah—really looked at him—as if seeing him for the first time. The mask. The posture. The words that danced around answers without ever quite landing on them.
"The Yaldabaoth," Erickson said slowly, "are enemies of the congramulate families. Enemies of the governments. Enemies of the criminal underworld. They attack everyone."
"I know."
"So if you're connected to them—"
"I didn't say I was connected to them. I asked if you'd heard of them."
"And why would that be relevant?"
Elijah smiled behind the mask. Not that they could see it. But they could hear it in his voice.
"Because," he said, "if you know who your enemy's enemies are, you know who might be willing to help you. Even if that help comes from an unexpected direction."
Erickson was quiet for a long moment.
Wilder's pointing finger had lowered. His expression was still suspicious, still uncertain, but the panic had faded.
"Did it work?" Elijah thought.
He didn't know.
But Erickson was no longer looking at him like he wanted to throw him out the window.
Now he was looking at him like he wanted to understand him.
And that, Elijah knew, was a start.
---