The transition from the damp, lightless utility tunnels beneath the city to the polished, pressurized air of the Orion Tower was enough to give Roman a case of the bends. He adjusted the set of his shoulders, feeling the expensive fabric of the bespoke suit stretch across his back. He wasn't Roman Blackwood, the grieving thief, anymore. He was Alex Rourke—a man who lived for spreadsheets, security protocols, and the quiet superiority of the elite.
Beside him, Anya smoothed the skirt of her dark dress. She looked pale in the harsh LED lighting of the service elevator, her eyes darting to the floor indicator as it climbed toward thirty-two.
"Heart rate is up, Mr. Rourke," she whispered, her voice barely a breath. "You're gripping the equipment case too tight."
Roman forced his fingers to loosen around the handle of the professional-looking briefcase that held their digital payload.
"I'm in character, Eliza. Arrogant consultants are always high-strung when they're on a deadline. Just make sure your terminal bypass is ready. I'm not spending a second longer in this glass cage than I have to."
The elevator hissed open. The 32nd floor was a hive of controlled chaos. Waiters in white gloves moved with the synchronized grace of a ballet, carrying empty silver trays and testing the acoustics of the massive dining hall. The floor-to-ceiling windows revealed a city that looked like a carpet of diamonds, but to Roman, it looked like a battlefield.
"Mr. Rourke! Ms. Thorne! So glad you could make the final walkthrough," a man with a frantic expression and a headset scurried toward them. This was Thomas, the catering manager Anya had identified. He looked like a man one minor inconvenience away from a nervous breakdown.
"The Wi-Fi in the alcove is still spotty, Thomas," Roman barked, leaning into the 'Alex' persona with a cold, jagged edge. He didn't wait for a greeting. He went straight for the jugular. "My firm isn't paid to work in a dead zone. If the digital menu specialists can't sync with the wine cellar inventory, your 'flawless' gala is going to look like a high school prom."
Thomas blanched, his eyes wide. "I—I apologize. The Cerberus team assured me the frequencies were clear."
"Cerberus are thugs in suits, Thomas. They know how to stand at a door; they don't know how to manage a high-density data stream," Roman stepped into the manager's personal space, looming over him. "Ms. Thorne needs access to the terminal alcove. Now. And I need you to explain why the guest-list encryption hasn't been hand-shaked with our server yet."
Anya slipped past them, moving toward the kitchen terminal with the practiced indifference of a tech specialist who was bored by the conversation. Roman watched her out of the corner of his eye. She reached the alcove and opened her kit.
"I'm on it, Alex," she called out, her voice flat.
She turned her back to the room, shielding the terminal with her body. Roman knew the clock was ticking. Sixty seconds. That was all the time the Ghost hardware needed to graft itself onto the Orion's nervous system.
"Now, Thomas," Roman said, pivoting to block the view of any passing Cerberus guards. "The Wi-Fi. Show me the router placement for this sector. I want to see the physical hardware. If I find a single bent antenna, I'm calling Sterling and telling him the catering contract is a liability."
"Of course, of course! It's just behind the bar," Thomas stammered, leading Roman away.
Roman followed him, his eyes scanning the room. Two guards were stationed near the elevators. Another was roaming the perimeter. He checked his watch.
Ten seconds.
Anya's hands were moving with surgical precision inside the terminal's maintenance port. She slid the Ghost implant—a sliver of black glass and silicon—into the fiber-optic housing.
Twenty seconds.
A Cerberus guard stopped his patrol. He turned his head, squinting toward the kitchen alcove. He saw Anya's silhouette. He began to walk toward her, his hand resting on the radio at his belt.
Roman didn't panic. He leaned against the bar, cutting off Thomas's rambling explanation about signal repeaters.
"Thomas, is that a smudge on that flute?" Roman pointed to a champagne glass sitting on the bar top.
"What? Where?" Thomas leaned in, horrified.
"There. And there," Roman said, moving a step to his left, effectively becoming a wall of wool and muscle between the roaming guard and Anya. "If the crystal isn't perfect, the lighting in this room will highlight every fingerprint. It's amateur, Thomas. Truly."
The guard reached the edge of the alcove.
"Ma'am? Access is restricted to authorized personnel."
Anya didn't flinch. She tapped a final key on her handheld. "Calibration complete, Officer," she said, turning around with a look of pure, icy boredom. "I was just verifying the port integrity. You might want to tell your tech lead that the shielding on these cables is substandard."
The guard blinked, thrown off by her confidence. "I... I'll report it."
"See that you do," Anya said, snapping her kit shut.
Roman felt the tension in his spine snap like a dry twig. He turned back to Thomas, who was currently polishing a glass with a frantic hand.
"We're done here, Thomas. Ms. Thorne has the bridge stabilized. We'll monitor the feed from our remote site. Don't touch the terminal. If a single waiter plugs a phone in there to charge, I'll know."
"Yes, Mr. Rourke. Thank you, Mr. Rourke," Thomas chirped, looking relieved to see them leaving.
They walked toward the elevator, maintaining the slow, arrogant pace of people who owned the building. It wasn't until the doors hissed shut and the lift began its descent that Roman allowed himself to exhale. He leaned his head against the cool metal wall, the suit jacket feeling like a straightjacket.
"Did it take?" he asked, his voice returning to its natural, gravelly depth.
Anya pulled her handheld from her clutch. The screen showed a single, pulsing green light. "The Ghost is live, Roman. We have a backdoor into the 32nd-floor server. We're in."
Roman looked at his reflection in the bronze panel. He looked successful. He looked powerful. But he felt like a man walking a tightrope over a pit of fire. The implant was in, but the real war—the one that required them to survive the gala itself—was only forty-eight hours away.
"Get the Bug," Roman said as they hit the garage level. "We need a new place to crash. The Obsidian is gone. From here on out, we're ghosts."