Second Dominion (Fourth Age)
Aurean Cycle no. 462 of the Macbeth dynasty, reign of Aldric II
Second Quadrant, Alay (Seat-Planet of House Claw)
"Am I having a déjà vu?" Amarel remarked.
"Eh? Did I miss something?" Lacrosse, behind them, trudged along awkwardly while dragging the canister: Law had had to lend him a spare thermal suit, which fit him completely wrong. While they were putting them on—shortly after disembarking at the station—the suction tubes had jammed on the poor boy at least three times. Luckily the Woimar station was enclosed and heated.
"It does look similar," Law muttered.
Only this time, in the frozen industrial district, it was night. And the temperature dropped even further, if that were possible. Sure, the thermal suits did their job, but it was inevitable to feel a spectral shiver under the skin. And at that moment, not only from the cold.
A few hours earlier, at Stella Nova, thanks to Jean and a couple more EMPs, the group had managed to hide away in the hold of a shuttlebus headed to a belt of meteorites a few light-years from the station. It had nothing to do with Alay, true, but at least they could sit in proper seats when the next line came, and without worrying about pursuers.
Snow's black mansion was practically invisible in the nighttime dark. The only element faintly signaling its presence were the timid warm lights peeking from the walls.
After a short wait, the semicircular gate opened slowly, and behind it the same butler from last time was once again waiting for them.
"Welcome back. I take it your mission went smoothly."
The S'Ari ushered them in with the same clipped gesture as the week before. The warm light in the wall's engravings tracked them like an eye, then dimmed by half a tone.
"You may remove your masks," he said.
The four pushed back the hoods of their suits; Lacrosse took a moment longer: the fabric swam on him and the chin buckle came off in his hand. The butler looked at him half a second longer than necessary, then looked away as if nothing had happened.
"The master awaits you," he stepped aside, leaving the way clear. Despite the new guest, no search, again. No metal detector, no hands rifling through pockets. Only corridors smooth as blades, and that minimal warmth that wasn't enough to draw the cold from your bones.
"You know, this hospitality thing is starting to grow on me," Amarel murmured.
"Yeah, I thought he only did it the first time to look cool," Law played along.
"Maybe the review isn't so wasted."
"We'll like it if he stops," Jean cut in, holding the canister by the top handle. The cylinder puffed milky vapor with every step.
The platform took them and carried them up, with a slow vertical motion in the silence of the black block. The higher they went, the more the floor seemed to listen to them. Above, the same hall. Guards at the corners, motionless, black blasters already in hand. The long table, two dozen seats, empty. At the head, Snow.
He wasn't eating this time. He was standing, gloved hands in his pockets, skin as pale as sunless snow, hair slicked back. His pale blue eyes steady. He didn't say "welcome." He made no comment. He only gave a nod.
--
A few weeks earlier — Second Quadrant, Futura Life HQ (Negotiations Room)
It was a room of glass and cold lights. Inside were three Futura Life staffers, collars closed and voices low. Mareque did his best to speak without theatricality, to seem less… Rouge than possible. He even wore a shirt buttoned to the neck.
"There's a way to get you through the border cleaner…" he said. "…add a secondary check between the Halcyon-3 gate and Spine-Delta. Call it a 'green squeeze.' Looks like a trivial security step, but audits love it."
"How much does it cost?" asked the middle staffer.
"Nothing you can't sign today…" Mareque replied. "It's just one extra line in the documents. You can write it exactly like this: 'green squeeze between Halcyon-3 and Spine-Delta.' It can come in handy if someone asks questions."
The three looked at each other. A moment later, they nodded in unison. Approved.
Mareque didn't smile. Not yet.
--
The door closed softly behind the group. Snow crushed under boots, warm lights in the engravings. Snow waited for the silence to spread properly, like a sheet.
"You brought a canister." He pressed his thumb to the table's edge, as if testing its temperature.
"Yes. As agreed," Law said.
Amarel set the cylinder down. Jean stayed half a span behind; she watched everything out of the corner of her eye. In the oversized suit, Lacrosse didn't know where to put his hands.
Snow studied them one by one. When he came to Lacrosse, his gaze did not move on. Not immediately. No comment.
The guards didn't move, but resettled on their soles, a short rubber click on stone. It was a minimal gesture, and yet it made the air colder.
"Set it there," Snow said, indicating a square on the floor that lit up.
Law didn't move. "Payment first, then the rest."
The slightest smile, millimetric. "I will pay. When the job is closed. As promised."
The room creaked. It wasn't the ice.
--
First Quadrant, Zephir, commercial district
At the back of a certain market, there was a counter. An old terminal. It smelled of paper, even though no one printed anything anymore. Mareque left a line on a public circuit where "useful rumors" were traded:
"New bio-pharmaceutical routes. Green squeeze between Halcyon-3 and Spine-Delta. Tight window. Passage on S-972-b."
The line went out. Usually, in the little virtual fair, a rumor bounced three times and then died. That one, instead, did not. It was copied verbatim into a bulletin by a Third Quadrant middleman. Then into a private list. Then into a virtual table where no signatures are left, only covered crests.
Each copy carried the same small scar: "green squeeze." A mark you don't notice until you look for it.
Mareque paid the boy who carried data packets. "And if they ask you the source?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.
"'A rumor,'" the boy said. And vanished.
"Formidable."
--
"Open it," Snow said, curt.
"Um… we need a stable temperature, a cold room," Jean interjected. "Otherwise we're left holding an expensive puddle, yeah."
"I've prepared it," he said with a quick nod. "I care about stable things."
He spoke softly. No useless gestures. The guards slid aside, leaving the way clear toward a dark door, low lights beyond the threshold.
Law didn't move. "We verify the room first. Then the rest."
Snow nodded once. No comment. No hurry.
The butler indicated the corridor. Amarel nudged Law with an elbow, as if to say "do I breathe?" Law didn't return the gesture: he kept the room in his sights, eyes and back.
Snow watched everything. In silence. His gaze went and returned, but left no words.
The tension walked with them.
--
Second Quadrant, Crestoria (Opulence Palace, Mareque's Atelier)
Three screens. One with station cycles, one with "internal personnel" notices, and one with a gate map. At last the line the Master of Sculpture was waiting for arrived:
"Futura Life (FL) convoy. 'Green squeeze' confirmed between Halcyon-3 and Spine-Delta. Route S-972-b. Internal memo forwarded to external partners."
Same words, same order, no name traceable.
Mareque closed the first two screens. On the third, only the map remained. He had done what he needed: insert a mark, a scar, inside a document others would use to feel safe. Whoever made use of it would betray himself later, when someone asked: "What route did the thieves have?" And in the answer, his word would be there.
He stood. There was no satisfaction on his face, only that kind of calm that comes when the rhythm is right.
"It works," he said quietly.
Outside, Crestoria's sky changed color like a breath. Inside, the plan had stopped being an idea.
--
The side door opened onto a bare cold room: smooth walls, a grid of pipes sweating rime, three column indicators pulsing slowly. Breath turned to fog in the throat.
"Temperature?" Jean asked, already bent over the console.
The butler merely touched a wall crystal: the three indicators stepped down half a degree.
"Okay, it's stable," she said, more to herself than to the others. She latched the canister into the metal cradle, passed her wrist over the reader, waited. The display pinged dryly and turned green. "Good. It's on curve. No shock."
No one applauded.
Law stood diagonal, shoulder to the wall, corner of his eye holding everything inside it: the butler, the threshold, Snow's reflection on the polished slab beyond the door. Amarel passed by him to take the weight of the cylinder for a moment more; when he lifted his eyes, he met the gaze of one of the guards. There was no challenge, only acknowledgment of presence.
"Ten minutes for settling," Jean murmured. "Then a micro-opening and an air sample. If it holds, it's all yours."
Snow nodded. He didn't move. He watched. He did it with a patience that you couldn't tell was courtesy or chains.
--
First Quadrant, Zephir, "useful rumors" circuit
A short line slid from node to node: "green squeeze between Halcyon-3 and Spine-Delta." Someone copied it into a "for logistics personnel" bulletin; someone else tucked it into a route digest. It didn't stand out unless you looked at the edge.
An old man living on digital tips in a backroom of sector 8 opened his mail at three in the morning. His hands always trembled, but never when it came to selecting noise from signal. He clicked on something he'd already seen twice that week. He read. Rewrote. Forwarded.
Recipient: Listening Office – Woimar.
Subject: bio-pharmaceutical / "green squeeze" / S-972b.
A single line in the body: "comes back always the same."
--
The ten minutes didn't last ten minutes. They lasted nine and a half, then Jean raised a hand, but checked her own impulse to open. She waited another half minute, the way you wait for a word that must not come out wrong.
"Okay," she said softly. "Three seconds."
She unlocked the valve by a finger's width, letting the sensor's nozzle slip in. The air pricked her fingers through the gloves. The display pulsed yellow, then returned to green.
"It's stable," she confirmed, louder. "We can close."
Snow didn't signal, but the butler moved as if he had received one. The cold room door closed behind them with a sigh.
In the hall, the warmth returned by a hair—just enough to make the cold feel like an idea and not a blade. The corner guards were no longer in the corners. One had stepped half a pace forward, the other had shifted weight to a different foot. They were details, if you cared to look.
"So?" Amarel said, trying to sound light and only half-succeeding. "How many stars do we get to swallow?"
"We need to close the job," Snow said. Quietly. Without edges.
Law didn't smile. "Already done."
--
Second Quadrant, Alay (Woimar, Listening Office)
A long room. Four screens. Three chairs occupied by S'Ari with almost transparent eyes. Hands moved over keyboards that made no sound.
"You see it too?" asked the first, without raising his voice.
"'Green squeeze.' Third time it comes up. Same phrase, same punctuation," the second replied. "It isn't their jargon. It was inserted on purpose."
"It maps to S-972b," added the third, tapping the map with a nail. Small circle, two jumps from the border. "Futura's route. And…" he scrolled a list "…escort note 'internal memo forwarded to external partners.'"
They looked at each other a second longer than necessary. Then the first prepared a packet: three lines of text, a reduced map, a note.
To: Dorian Claw (aka Snow) (internal).
Subject: "green squeeze" / S-972b / bio-pharmaceutical.
Note: repeats. If true, it's today.
In the mansion, the butler took the tray as if it were full of glasses. It wasn't. He brought it up.
Snow read the packet standing, before a window that had no view. The message occupied a minimal corner of his eye. He said nothing. He touched a point on the table. A tab appeared on an invisible screen, open to BreedOfUnderworld.gala:
Private invite – live conversation.
Attached location: Woimar, Alay.
Recipient: The_Shifter.
--
"Now… well…" Jean said, nervous. "We've got the best part. For us. Payment, receipt, and we go, okay? Pods for us, power for you…"
Snow lifted his chin just slightly toward the butler. The latter stepped away for a moment, then returned with a tray bearing three black cards. He set it on the table.
Jean, Law, and Amarel stepped closer.
--
Crestoria – Artists' Council Archive
A dark hall, lit only by rows of thin screens. Green text scrolled fast, dissolving like smoke.Lucienne Rouge calmly followed a series of logs coming from BreedOfUnderworld.gala. She couldn't read the contents, but the movements were clear: accesses, times, ciphered signatures."You see it?" she asked.Corbin nodded, pointing to the blinking line. "A Second-Circle Claw just sent a reserved request. Masked name, but the exchange address is Woimar. Perfect timing!"Lucienne let her lips curl into a small smile. "The 'green squeeze' did its job. If Snow is seeking manpower now, it means they've taken the bait on the convoy. Send it all to Mareque."
Corbin brushed the panel, and the log was archived into a compact packet. In the note he wrote only three lines.Client: Dorian "Snow" Claw.Hired group: suitable.Insertion of Lacrosse: feasible.
--
"Check them," Snow said.
Jean took one of the cards, turned it over between her fingers, and checked the amount. The display projected a figure. Fifteen million, as agreed. All it took was entering the code in a specific function on one's account platform, and that was that. She made no comment and set the card down.
Amarel took his, gave it a quick look, and slipped it into an inner pocket. Law did the same.
Lacrosse didn't reach out his hand. Snow didn't offer him one. "It's been a pleasure doing business with you," he enunciated, level.
Jean gave a quick nod and picked her card up from the tray. The other three turned and started walking.
It was done. Fifteen million.
I did it. Jean exulted inwardly.
Amarel let out a sigh of relief. "Now we should be able to pay the Fortwin's parking at the station," he joked.
Law even allowed himself a crooked grin. "Screw it, I'm leaving it there."
"...Unfortunately…" Snow said suddenly. "…they didn't tell me about your arrival, boy."
Who was he talking to? Who was that meant for? Lacrosse. Of course it was meant for Lacrosse.
The latter shrugged and chuckled.
"Yeah, we found him on the road too. He'll survive," Law snorted.
"Ah, I'm sure he will…" Snow replied. "So long as you bring him back to Crestoria safe and sound."
The group nodded in unison, already turned, waiting for the platform.
"Yeah, we'll just have to endure a few more bus rides," Amarel muttered.
"At least we're not in the hold," Jean replied. "And then…"
Oh.
Shit.
They realized it too late. Law's petrified face was only further confirmation. He was the first to turn.
Then Amarel.
Law's reflexes were too slow, though.
Click.
It was such a quiet sound for a pistol. How long had he had it in his hand? Had he drawn it right after they turned? How long had he known? How did he know?Too late.
"NO!"
Law shoved Amarel by a few centimeters, but it did no good. The shot simply hit a little farther left, on the forehead.
The blood came after. All at once.
Silence. No—heavy breathing.
A smoking pistol.
A gesture.
All the guards in the hall raised their blasters.