Arthur Cousland woke to the rare, beautiful sound of absolutely nothing happening. There were no klaxons blaring through the Outpost's comms network, no panicked reports of Rapture incursions from Sector Eighteen, and surprisingly, no irate messages from any of the Big Three corporate CEOs demanding his immediate attention. The artificial morning sun of the Outpost filtered warmly through the blinds of his private quarters. He lay staring at the ceiling for a long moment, listening to the faint, rhythmic whir of the servos in his Cerberus-alloy arms.
Today was a scheduled day off. He had fought tooth and nail for it, battling through mountains of Central Command bureaucracy and the endless logistical nightmares of managing a sovereign sanctuary for Nikkes. He intended to spend the day doing nothing more strenuous than drinking black coffee, reading a real paper book from Phantom's library, and perhaps visiting the Maid Café for a quiet lunch.
He threw off the covers, his heavy goddesium prosthetic legs making a soft, metallic thud against the hardwood floor. He rolled his shoulders, feeling the residual ache in his recently healed ribs. A long, hot shower was the first item on the agenda.
Arthur padded across the room, his tactical instincts entirely powered down. He reached the door to his en-suite bathroom, turned the handle, and pushed it open. A thick cloud of fragrant steam immediately rolled out, carrying the scent of expensive lavender soap and hot water.
He froze. Through the condensation-fogged glass of the walk-in shower, two distinct, distinctly feminine silhouettes were visible.
Arthur closed his eyes. He reached up with his right hand and pinched the bridge of his nose. He took a slow, deep breath, counting to three, entirely convinced that the stress of the shifting biomechanical labyrinths and the lingering trauma of the Heretic encounters had finally caused his mind to fracture. He opened his eyes. The silhouettes were still there.
The water clicked off. The sliding glass door smoothly rolled back, releasing another wave of heavy steam.
Standing in his shower were D and K. They were the entirety of Perilous Siege, the Ark's most elite, feared, and highly classified black-ops execution squad. Specialized exclusively in the neutralization of human targets, they were the grim reapers of the Central Government. And currently, they were entirely naked, dripping wet, and occupying his personal bathroom on his day off.
D, with her long, dark hair slicked against her forehead and her piercing, icy red eyes, looked at Arthur with the exact same stoic, calculating expression she wore on a battlefield. Her pale, flawless skin was flushed pink from the heat.
Beside her, K leaned against the tiled wall, her vibrant orange eyes dancing with unmistakable amusement. Her long, dark hair was heavy with water, clinging to the generous curves of her body. She crossed her arms beneath her breasts, a wicked, knowing smirk pulling at the corner of her mouth.
"Good morning, Commander," K purred, her voice echoing slightly against the wet tiles. "Did we wake you? I told D we should have kept the water pressure on low, but she insisted you were a heavy sleeper."
Arthur stared at them. He looked at D's unblinking red eyes, then at K's infuriating smirk, and finally down at his own goddesium feet. He pinched his arm. The tactile sensors in his Cerberus prosthetic relayed a sharp, localized spike of pressure to his neural cortex.
It was not a dream.
"I am going to close this door," Arthur said, his voice a flat, gravelly baritone completely devoid of inflection. "I am going to walk into the kitchen. I am going to brew a pot of the strongest coffee Anis left in the cupboards. When I return to the sitting area, I expect you both to be fully clothed and prepared to explain why the Ark's premier assassination squad is utilizing my personal plumbing."
"Understood, Commander," D replied smoothly, entirely unbothered by her state of undress.
Arthur stepped backward and pulled the door shut. He stood in the hallway for a full ten seconds, staring blankly at the wood grain, before letting out a long, exhausted sigh. His day off was officially over.
Ten minutes later, Arthur sat in the deep leather armchair of his sitting room, nursing a steaming mug of black coffee. The door to his bedroom hissed open, and D and K emerged. The surrealism of the morning faded instantly, replaced by the cold, heavy reality of their presence. They were no longer the provocative apparitions from his bathroom; they were back in their element. D wore her signature black tactical trench coat, her belts and holsters laden with suppressed weaponry. K wore her sleek, dark operative gear, a tactical harness strapped tightly across her chest.
They stood before him, the very picture of lethal efficiency.
"Take a seat," Arthur commanded, gesturing with his cybernetic arm to the sofa opposite him. "Talk."
K threw herself onto the sofa, draping one leg casually over the armrest, while D sat with perfect, rigid posture.
"Right to business, I like it," K said, examining her fingernails. "We have a new assignment from the Judges. The target is the president of a little corporate venture called Cycle of Life. C.O.L., for short. They specialize in the buying, repairing, and reselling of used electronics and pre-war tech across the Ark."
Arthur frowned, taking a sip of his coffee. "I have heard of them. Electronics and tech components are heavily regulated by the Central Government. A secondary market like that is a goldmine. But they aren't a military manufacturer."
"They don't need to be," K rambled on, her words spilling out in a rapid, cynical cadence. "The company has experienced a meteoric rise over the last three years. We are talking astronomical profit margins. They are gobbling up market share so fast that even the Big Three are starting to look small by comparison. Ingrid, Syuen, and Mustang are actually sweating. And guess who runs this little juggernaut? An ex-Central Government bigwig. A guy who used to sit on the very boards that write the trade regulations. He knows all the loopholes, all the blind spots, and suddenly he is the richest man in the lower sectors. I mean, the guy's penthouse has a dedicated elevator just for his imported caviar. He collects pre-war automobiles. Automobiles, Cousland!"
"K," D interrupted, her voice a sharp, commanding whip crack that instantly silenced her partner. "You are babbling. The Commander does not need the target's dietary preferences."
D turned her intense, crimson gaze toward Arthur. "Allow me to streamline the briefing. The president of Cycle of Life has been making massive, very public donations. Millions of credits funneled directly back into the Central Government's infrastructure projects, and even more into the medical industry. Orphanages, hospital expansions, public works. On paper, he is the Ark's greatest philanthropist."
"But the Judges put him in your crosshairs anyway," Arthur deduced, his tactical mind slotting the pieces together. The Judges were the absolute, faceless judicial authority of the Ark, the shadow council that dictated who lived and who died when the law was insufficient.
"Correct," D said.
"Why?" Arthur asked. "If he is greasing the wheels of the Central Government and keeping the medical sector afloat, he should be untouchable."
"Because I think his philanthropy is a smokescreen," K chimed in, leaning forward, her eyes narrowing with predatory focus. "You do not make that kind of money just by flipping used toasters and repairing broken Omni-tools. His riches have to be coming from disreputable means. Black market smuggling, Rapture tech trading, illegal cybernetics... something heinous. The Judges know it, too. That is why they sent us to investigate the man and make a decision."
Arthur lowered his coffee mug, setting it on the glass table between them. He leaned forward, the leather of his tactical coat creaking. "What exactly do you mean by a decision? You are Perilous Siege. Your squad does not negotiate. You do not issue citations. When you are deployed, someone's head ends up in a bag."
K smiled, a cold, humorless expression. "We will decide whether or not to kill him, Commander."
Arthur's dark eyes shifted from K to D. "Clarify."
"Perilous Siege operates as both investigator and executioner in matters of high treason or extreme corruption," D explained, her tone completely devoid of emotion. "We will infiltrate Cycle of Life. We will investigate the president's private files, his communications, and his hidden ledgers. If we confirm he is conducting illegal business, we will weigh the severity of his crimes against his philanthropic contributions. If his actions are heinous enough to warrant execution, we will carry out the sentence immediately. No trial. No public spectacle. This is how our squad has always functioned."
D paused, her red eyes locking onto Arthur's with an uncharacteristic intensity. "However, there is a deviation in protocol for this operation. The Judges have decreed that you, Commander Cousland, are to be attached to this mission. And it is you who will make the final decision on whether the president lives or dies."
Arthur went perfectly still. The ambient noise of the Outpost seemed to fade away. He stared at the two assassins, his mind racing through the political minefield they had just dropped in his lap. He was a military commander. He fought Raptures. He led the Monarks. He built a sanctuary for Nikkes. He was not an assassin, and he certainly was not a designated executioner for the Ark's corrupt judicial branch.
"Why me?" Arthur asked softly, the servos in his left arm whirring as he clenched his fist.
K let out a sharp, cynical laugh, throwing her hands in the air. "Oh, come on, Cousland, you are smart enough to see the board. The Judges are greedy, paranoid cowards. I would bet my favorite combat knife that more than a few of those robes have been lining their pockets with C.O.L.'s money for years. Cycle of Life is their personal piggy bank. They are extremely reluctant to lose that revenue stream."
"But," Arthur finished for her, "the president has done something, or is involved in something, so dangerously illegal that they cannot ignore it anymore without risking their own necks."
"Exactly," K said, pointing a finger at him. "The Judges are caught between their greed and their survival. So, they pass the buck. They attach the famous Commander of the Outpost to Perilous Siege. You are a Central Government agent, but you have a reputation for empathy, for taking the moral high ground. They are banking on the hope that you will look at his orphanages and hospital donations and decide to be lenient. You spare him, the Judges keep getting their bribes, and if it ever blows up in their faces, they can blame you for making the bad call."
"And if I decide he needs to die?" Arthur asked.
"Then you pull the trigger," D said flatly. "And the blood of the Ark's greatest philanthropist is on your hands, not theirs. They wash themselves clean of the execution."
Arthur leaned back in his chair, rubbing his bearded jaw with his flesh hand. It was a flawless, vicious political trap. If he refused the order, he defied the Judges, putting the sovereignty of his Outpost at risk. If he accepted, he became a pawn in a billionaire's death sentence. The Ark's politics were a labyrinth far more twisted and toxic than the shifting biomechanical corridors of Sector Eighteen.
"Fine," Arthur said, his voice hard as steel. He would not be intimidated by bureaucratic shadows. "I will play their game. If this man is funding something monstrous under the guise of charity, I will not hesitate to end him. D, what is the operational plan? I assume we are not just kicking down the front doors of the C.O.L. tower with heavy weapons."
K scoffed loudly, rolling her eyes. "Oh, sure, let's just march in there with your Omni-blade and start shouting. What kind of schmuck doing highly illegal, treasonous activities would just leave illicit documents unsecured on a desk for people to snatch? If we go in loud, the data gets wiped, the ledgers burn, and he walks away clean."
"K is correct, despite her lack of professionalism," D said, ignoring her partner's offended gasp. "Truthfully, we have already done most of the groundwork. We have the building schematics, the security rotations, and the structural vulnerabilities. The final details, the actual hard evidence of his crimes, must be secured from his private internal network. That requires undercover work."
Arthur looked at his tactical coat, his heavy boots, and his armored cybernetics. "I am a known figure in the Ark. I am not exactly built for stealth infiltration in a corporate setting."
"We are not sneaking in through the air vents, Commander," D said, standing up and smoothing the lapels of her trench coat. "We are walking through the front door. We have fabricated identities, forged credentials, and pristine background checks. Cycle of Life is having a massive hiring wave this week to support their expansion. We are going to disguise ourselves as new corporate employees to gather the intel from the inside."