09-11-2355 | 07:30
HARBOR HQ - Training Dome, Sim Deck.
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The training dome hums around Ryn Kestra, a private construct built entirely for him. Every grav plate, every vapor band, every spar drone orbit has been tuned to his style, his weight, his reach. Two vapor bands float at knee and shoulder height, the grav plates tilting the mat in sly increments. Three spar drones circle, matte shells gleaming faint teal, stun probes tucked close like knives.
"Begin," the sim intones.
Ryn locks his stance, counts four beats, and tightens. He threads the low vapor into a sharp ribbon, rides micro-gusts along its length, bumps two drones together, then flicks a palm-thick water sheet from the floor reservoir to smear the third's camera. The plates drift east. He leans early, steals angles, and keeps his hands tight so his wrists don't complain later.
The dome drops a low metallic pulse that presses the inner ear. His inhale catches. A drone dives on a hitch and grazes his cheekbone-bright sting, hot and immediate. He pins one drone in a pressure pocket, bounces the second to the floor, spins the water into a whip, and forces the last into sulk-mode as the plates level. Pulse settles where he wants it.
Sneakers squeak.
Noa Morrell slides in, tray in hand, way too much cheer. "You're flirting with drones. Don't lie. I saw eye contact."
Ryn steps off the mat. Plates click back to neutral. "Bringing snacks to a sim isn't exactly genius."
"It's morale," Noa says, tilting the tray. "Black sesame, yuzu, and a pink lie the cafeteria calls dragonfruit."
Ryn grabs black sesame first, then yuzu to wake up the sour receptors. "Because they're extinct?"
"Nope. HARBOR spends on tech, not food," Noa says, dry as ever.
The far door hisses. Morrell slides in, eyes on Noa. "Still badmouthing HARBOR's terrible dietary policies?"
"Maybe," Ryn says.
"Definitely," Noa says immediately.
"Interlocks?" Morrell asks.
"Done," Noa flashes the bracelet. Holo windows open, cascade, lock. "Capped the plates at twenty hertz during multi-actor drills. Fewer lawsuits."
"Document it," Morrell says, then to Ryn: "Control looked smooth. Skipping the finish rush improves your economy."
"I heard," Ryn mutters.
"Cool down and hydrate," Morrell adds, then leaves them.
"You're making the 'I'm-gonna-run-it-again' face," Noa says. "Do your little yoga for murderers first."
"It's a cooldown sequence."
"Yoga that'd get me fined," Noa says, nudging the tray. "Take the fake dragonfruit. Live dangerously."
Ryn grimaces, pops the pink betrayal anyway, runs the cooldown fast, and resets at the line.
"Begin," he says.
Ryn runs the set clean, cuts power before the drones can get cute, and grabs a towel. The door slides open again. Morrell waves Noa toward the console.
"Give us a minute," Morrell says, his voice low, steady, carrying the faint hum of authority that fills the dome.
Noa drifts off, leaving the dome quiet except for the subtle hiss of grav plates. Morrell stops an arm's length from Ryn and hands over a cold bottle. "Hydrate."
Ryn takes a long pull, the chill hitting his throat and pulse kicking up just enough to remind him he is alive. "You do realize I still... pee like a human, right?"
Morrell smirks faintly but his eyes stay sharp. "You're holding back. The dome can take whatever you throw at it. Why throttle yourself?"
"Because this dome's in a building with six hundred employees and almost three thousand agents," Ryn says, shoulders tight, jaw set. "You want me redlining while HR is eating eggs two floors down?"
"The shell and anchors can handle it. We built them for it."
He swallows, feeling the weight of the floor beneath the plates, the subtle sway of the grav field under his boots. "Perfect. And I can conjure from whatever is lying around. If I slip at full send, your anchors hold but Facilities cries. I want people alive."
"You're not wrong," Morrell says, tone softening slightly, almost conversational. "You're also not testing your ceiling."
Ryn lets his eyes drift over the mat, noting the subtle pressure shifts, the way the vapor dances like it knows him. "I know my ceiling. I hate ceilings with neighbors," he mutters, pulse climbing a notch.
Morrell tips his head, gaze following him. "Run the last set again. Don't sand it down. If the dome complains, I'll fix the dome."
Ryn shakes his head, a half-grimace tugging at his mouth. "Hard pass."
Morrell blinks once, sharp. "Excuse me?"
"I'm done playing target practice for the press kit," Ryn says, the towel pressing against his forearm as he flexes fingers that still hum from the last set. "No more sets today. Probably not this week. I'm going to my studio."
"Ryn, training doesn't cancel your other work. We can balance both," Morrell says, tilting slightly, reading the tremor in Ryn's forearms, the subtle lift of his chest as adrenaline still hums through him.
"Every time I build something that isn't a spectacle, HARBOR turns it down," Ryn says, voice low but charged. "Child-safe med locks that only open to the right bio-salt profile. Flood-sensor bracelets that ping the three nearest responders. Air scrubbers that snap into old vents and eat mold for cheap. You know what I get back? 'We already spent enough money advertising you to the public.'" His fists clench slightly at his sides, knuckles blanching.
"That's not the whole story," Morrell says, calm but reading every twitch, every micro-expression.
"It's the only sentence I hear," he snaps, jaw tight, pulse rattling softly under his skin. "I'm not doing another 'look at the shiny mage in the dome' stream while Procurement tells me a ten-dollar sensor is off brand."
Morrell leans a fraction closer, enough that his presence brushes against Ryn's awareness. Tone is even, patient, but heavy. "You're angry. Fine. Be angry and build. I'll route the proposals."
"You mean route them to a committee that asks if the bracelet can glow in the promo? Harder pass," Ryn says, voice low, hands tightening around the strap of his canister. "I'm still building. I'll push them to the internal repo and to whoever actually fixes things around here. If PR wants a quote, they can clip this one. Stop using me like a poster and start using me like staff."
"Do you need me involved?" Morrell asks, eyes tracking the slight shift in Ryn's posture, reading his tension.
"I need you not to lock my access," Ryn says. "You do that and I'll go design on a street corner and hand the files out like candy."
Morrell exhales through his nose, shoulders easing a fraction. "Your access stays. I expect drafts by end of day."
"You'll have them," Ryn says, dropping the towel onto the rail. "No cameras. No tour."
"Understood."
Ryn slings his bag over one shoulder and steps toward the side door. "Tell Noa I stole the last yuzu. He'll live."
"Ryn."
He freezes at the threshold, glancing back.
"You still owe me two redline blocks," Morrell says, voice calm but firm. "Not today. Not for PR. For you."
"We'll see," Ryn says, eyes on the corridor ahead, not turning. "After I build something you won't be allowed to say no to."
He steps out, slicing through the service corridor, and swipes into his VR studio. The room boots in near-silence, a neutral void waiting for input. He kills the dome feed on his wrist, slides the visor over his eyes, and settles in. The sandbox spins up, a lattice of active nodes and a backlog of archived designs hovering in mid-space. He drags a bracelet model into focus, peels off the ornamentation, slots a failproof quantum chip, programs the triage ping to cascade across three subnets, then rigs a flood sensor to trigger on molecular pressure and chemical runoff, not just precipitation.
He tags the files internal, locks the comment chain so PR can't slap holo-gloss over it, and hits save. The system stamps his ID and the chronocode. His chest tightens just a touch, the pulse of work still echoing through him, but he doesn't look back. Somewhere behind the reinforced wall, a dome hums for someone else. He opens a new file and starts another project they'll try to veto, letting the click of the interface carry him forward.
The studio door hisses open to a corridor that smells like sanitizer and bitter coffee. Han leans under a hard-light directory, arms crossed, chewing a mint stick like it owes him rent. Beside him, Dax Mercer stands taller than most, a presence that fills the hall. His field jacket refuses to wrinkle, sharp-cut over broad shoulders, eyes already scanning the corridor with that calm, commanding sweep that makes people think twice before stepping wrong. Up close, the angle of his jaw, the way light hits his hair, the measured set of his mouth-it all signals someone used to control the room without saying a word.
Han lifts a hand. "There you are. We were about to file a missing-persons ping with Ops."
Ryn keeps walking until they're close enough to feel the subtle hum of Dax's presence. "I hide on purpose."
Han smirks. "Ryn, meet Dax Mercer, K-6 lead. Dax, the problem-solver you've been doomscrolling."
Dax doesn't extend a hand. He tilts his head slightly, gaze sharp and assessing. "I read your chrono-log. You done skipping training to play in CAD?"
Ryn's lips twitch into a ghost of a grin. "Someone hasn't doom scrolled my training file. And I built two tools that'll save your ass faster than a cheer squad. Demo or press conference?"
Dax's eyes narrow just a fraction. He doesn't smile. "You like funny. I don't do funny." His voice drops, low and deliberate, the kind that sticks to the spine. "Can your constructs hold against negative-pressure events without turning my team into paste?"
Ryn swallows, a thrill sparking along the edge of nerves and adrenaline. Up close, Dax is... undeniably imposing. But damn, he's also the kind of challenge that makes you want to build something bigger. Something that works. Something perfect.
"Anything with solid matter stays. Others hold as long as I need 'em," Ryn says, eyes scanning the hallway for weak points. "Anchor points gotta be functional, not decorative. And if PR's not breathing down my neck."
"Can you cut localized power without frying a hallway?" Dax asks, voice low, measured.
"Depends on the system," Ryn says, thumbs flicking over a holo-pad projected from his wrist. "And if Facilities actually gives me the schematics they keep pretending are classified."
Dax nods once, sharp and deliberate. "Good. Live test in a dead wing at zero six tomorrow. No spectators. No holo-cams. You push when I say push, stop when I say stop."
Ryn snorts, a spark of amusement tugging at his mouth. "You always start with orders, or is there a warm-up question like 'how's your day'?"
"I'm not here to like things," Dax says flat, eyes catching the light from the corridor. "Or people. I'm here to work."
"Cute mantra," Ryn says, lips twitching. "I'm here to keep people from dying while a budget committee tries to sell my face on a mug."
"Bring your tools," Dax says, his gaze locked, unyielding. "I'll bring a real problem."
Ryn glances at Han. "Is he always this... approachable?"
"On good days," Han says, lips tight. "On bad days, he talks less."
"Great," Ryn mutters, swiping a line onto his wrist-pad. "Mandatory joy, noted."
Dax steps aside, clearing the corridor like he owns it, shoulders square, stride confident. "You can hate me and still follow direction. That gonna be a problem?"
"I don't have to like the wrench to turn the bolt," Ryn says, smirk tugging at his lips. "And I hate wrenches."
"Tomorrow. Zero six. South annex. Han will send clearance."
Han taps his wrist. "Already done. Also, you still owe me a demo of that flood bracelet."
"You'll get it when Procurement stops whining if it can glow for a brochure," Ryn says, rolling his eyes.
Dax is already moving, the quiet authority of his presence pulling the space behind him taut. "Pleasure to meet you."
Ryn watches him go, chest tightening a little at the sheer confidence radiating off him, then turns to Han. "Didn't he get a team member killed?"
"Play nice," Han says, voice clipped but protective.
"Right," Ryn says, shoulders easing back. "I'm going back to work. If he shows up with a camera, it's getting tossed in a fire pit."
"Noted. And Ryn?"
"What?"
"You're a valuable asset," Han says, simple, real.
Ryn gives a short nod, no theatrics, and pivots to his wrist-pad. He scrolls through his tasks, adding one more under the bracelets and scrubbers: South annex test. No holo-cams. Make it idiot-proof. Then he keeps walking, stride steady, pulse humming in time with the quiet hum of the station around him.
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