he board ticked up while he watched.
LISSA RANER — 14 DAYS
Jay's latest transfer clearing. Small climb. Not enough to make what he was about to say feel less stupid.
"You look like you're going to confess to a crime," Lissa said through her mask.
Barry realized he'd just been standing there at the foot of her bed, hands in pockets, not talking.
"That's profiling," he said.
"Accurate profiling," she said. "Spit it out."
He pulled the chair closer. Sat. The Tower lights buzzed overhead.
"You know about the load test," he said.
Her eyes narrowed. "Barry."
"They posted it," he went on. "Higher rewards. Sterilizations. NEXUS fun-run."
"Barry."
"Lena and Kade are in if the math works," he said. "Riggs will be. He's circling. Jay's helping us plan a route."
She stared at him like she could freeze him in place by will.
"Say the part you're dodging," she said.
"They pinged me," he admitted. "Personal advisory. 'Participation data valuable.'"
"Barry, no," she said.
He tried for a grin. It didn't stick. "C'mon, being a lab rat has to pay sometime."
"I'm serious," she said. "You have two weeks. Real ones. Meds stacked. For once we're not a day away from the edge. And you want to run into the one thing literally called a sterilization exercise?"
"It's not just that," he said. "Riggs is using my name. Camping meds. Killing your maybe-future neighbors. If he walks out of that test fat on hardware and fear—"
"So you make it your job to stop him?" she snapped. It came out harsher than the mask liked; she coughed.
He waited until she settled.
"He painted our door," Barry said quietly. "He's buying my ammo slots. He's not going to stop."
"So avoid him," she said. "You're good at that now. You have a cluster. Act like it."
"In normal Rounds? Sure," he said. "But the test is where everything bends. Bigger rewards, bigger weapons, bigger stories. If he comes out the other side as the guy who farmed the event, half the Stacks starts listening when he says 'Barry's a rat.'"
"And if you don't come out at all?" Lissa asked.
He had an answer lined up. It died somewhere between his chest and his throat.
She watched his silence.
"I'm not your excuse," she said, softer. "Don't turn me into the reason you pick the biggest fire."
"You're not," he said. "You're the reason I care where the fire lands."
"That's worse," she muttered.
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
"You asked me to pick Rounds," he said. "Not run every gate, not chase every payout. I'm picking. This one matters."
"I asked you not to die to buy fractions," she said. "You already got me days. Real days. You don't owe me a heroic end."
"No heroic end," he said. "Just… correction. One idiot with a smiley and a god complex, less loose."
She searched his face, looking for something she could move.
"Promise me two things," she said finally.
"Pricey," he said.
"Promise," she repeated.
He nodded once. "Okay."
"One," she said. "If you get in there and it feels wrong—wrong like NEXUS isn't just watching but… shaping— you walk away. I don't care about Riggs. I care about you not playing pet anomaly."
"Yeah," he said. "Jay said the same."
"Good," she said. "Two: If you can't come back, don't drag them with you."
He closed his eyes for a second.
"Lena and Kade aren't my—"
"They're there because of you," she said. "Because you make their numbers better. That means if you misread it, they pay with you. Don't."
He swallowed. "I'm not planning on misreading anything."
"Promise me," she said again.
He forced himself to meet her eyes.
"If it goes bad," he said slowly, "I tell them to cut. I don't ask anyone to die for my bugged-out collar."
"And for you?" she asked.
He thought of the advisory. PARTICIPATION DATA VALUABLE.
"Still non-terminal," he said, trying to make it a joke.
She didn't smile.
"Come back or don't," she said. "But don't come back somebody else."
"That one I can't sign," he said. "But I'll try."
"Idiot," she said.
"Runs in the family," he answered, stood, and left before his resolve got talked all the way down.
The Stack felt like it was holding its breath.
Every conversation near a gate curled around the test.
"Rewards are x3, man, you can't skip that.""Sterilization clause, are you blind?""Bet Riggs clears a crate easy.""Bet he gets wiped. I'll watch either way."
Barry didn't have to go looking to find Riggs.
He heard him first: that lazy, oily voice spilling out of a crowd near Gate 3.
"—told you, it's content, boys. NEXUS wants a show, we give them one."
Barry stopped at the edge of the knot.
Riggs stood on a crate like a bargain messiah, bandaged from some recent scrape, fresh armor plates gleaming. Two goons flanked him, both masked, both loaded.
Spraypaint rat-and-crosshair on the column behind him.
He was using Barry's symbol.
"Load test ain't for rats," Riggs was saying. "It's for predators. For people who know extracts, who know how to make 'sterilize' spell 'clean profit.'"
Laughter.
"People like you?" someone called.
Riggs flashed teeth. "People exactly like me."
Barry met his eyes, just for a second, over the crowd.
Riggs' grin sharpened. He tapped his temple in a mock salute, then drew a little invisible circle around Barry with his finger.
Found you.
Barry walked away.
Not because he was scared.
Because killing Riggs here, in the Stack, with this many eyes and NEXUS cams, would cost too much for too little.
Let him come inside, Jay had said.
Fine.
Workshop.
Jay had three Field maps layered on the slab: 3, 4, and 5 tangling together in red and blue lines.
Lena and Kade were already there.
Lena perched on a crate, arms crossed, jaw set. Kade leaned against the wall, rifle within arm's reach.
"You tell her?" Jay asked without looking up.
"Yeah," Barry said.
"How mad?" Lena said.
"Accurate levels," Barry said.
"She right," Kade said.
"Helpful," Barry muttered.
Jay tapped a block on the map.
"Okay. Here's where I'd sterilize if I were an overclocked fascist mainframe," he said. "High red-eye density. Corrupt bot signatures. Bad data clusters."
Several blocks glowed a faint, angry orange.
"Here's where Riggs likes to play," he added, highlighting a stretch of multi-level lots and tight alleys near a common extract.
Same zone.
"Of course," Lena said.
"Of course," Kade echoed.
"And here," Jay circled another path, "is a route with multiple extracts, decent cover, and historically lower corruption flags. Boring. That's your starting plan."
"Starting," Barry said.
"Because you're not going to stick to it," Jay said. "I'm just giving you a baseline so when you deviate you know exactly how stupid it is."
"Appreciated," Lena said dryly.
Kade studied the map.
"We enter here," he said, finger landing on a side gate. "Sweep up, check signals. If Riggs is in the orange, we let NEXUS have him."
"And if he's in our lane?" Lena asked.
"We adjust," Kade said. "Fast."
"We only take the fight if the terrain favors us," Barry said, hearing Jay's voice in his own.
"And if it's chaos?" Jay said. "If bots are full rabid, red-eyes aren't playing patterns, NEXUS decides to drop a hammer?"
Barry thought of Lissa's eyes. Her terms.
"Then we leave," he said. "Alive is the win. Riggs is gravy."
Lena's shoulders loosened half a centimeter. "Acceptable answer."
Kade gave the smallest nod.
Jay still looked unconvinced.
"You get one shot at a dumb heroic run with my sign-off," he said. "This isn't it. This is controlled. You see a hint—one hint—of a real sterilization sweep queuing, you run."
"Define hint," Barry said.
"Bots pulling back, drones going high, system messages out of sync, hard light forming anywhere it shouldn't," Jay snapped. "You'll know. That sort of thing isn't subtle."
"Non-terminal," Barry muttered.
Jay leaned on the bench, met his eyes.
"That tag is not armor," he said. "That tag is a note. Don't you dare trust it over a wall."
Barry held his gaze. "I don't."
Lena slid off her crate.
"I'll bring extra burn gel," she said. "Just in case your restraint fails."
Kade checked his rifle. "I'll bring extra bullets. Just in case his does."
Barry flexed his hands.
"Then we wait for the ping," he said.
As if the system had been listening—which it always was—the board in the corner chimed.
LOAD TEST SCHEDULEDFIELD: 3 / 4 OVERLAYWINDOW: TOMORROW — 18:00–19:00PARAMETERS: ACTIVESTERILIZATION: ENABLED (UNSTABLE ZONES ONLY)
Silence slid into the room.
"Tomorrow," Jay said slowly. "That's your idiot day."
"Tomorrow," Lena echoed.
Kade just nodded once.
Barry stared at the notice.
He thought of the rat tags, of Riggs preening, of Lena's clinic, of Kade's one-shot justice, of Lissa's cords and number on the wall.
"Terms don't change," he said. "We go in together. We walk out if it's wrong. I don't pull you deeper for my glitch."
Lena's eyes were sharp. "Good. Because I'll shoot you myself if you try."
"Seconded," Kade said.
Jay exhaled, slow. "Alright. Then I'll spend the night trying to predict a god with a concussion."
After they lost, big choices never showed up alone. They arrived with crowd noise, better payouts, graffiti threats, and system invitations you'd be an idiot to accept.
Barry checked his pistol, his plates, his collar.
Tomorrow, they'd accept anyway.
Not because NEXUS asked.
Because some problems didn't leave you a third option.