"I need a name for what's killing me," Kenji demanded, leaning against the counter, still recovering from Finnian's touch.
Finnian ignored him, pointing to a mountain of broken, sparking electronics. "You want to work, clean that. Organize every piece by its residual magical charge. If you're a real Scrapsmith, you can do it without a Rank-Reader."
Kenji began his brutal apprenticeship. He had to learn to categorize residue: the sharp, brief sting of electrical scraps; the dull, heavy throb of kinetic scraps; the icy chill of frost remnants. The work was agonizing, but it trained his inner sense.
After twenty hours of non-stop work, Kenji finally pinpointed the location of the Echo of Resonance. It was a clear, high-frequency sound, unlike anything he'd encountered—a piece of sonic magic that had been left to crystallize.
"It's coming from Old District 7," Kenji stated, pointing at a dusty map. "The decommissioning site for the first wave of System Gates. It's a low-grade sonic barrier, but the residual echo is immense."
"That gate was sealed years ago," Finnian said, not looking up. "Protected by the Blackwood Security Conglomerate. You'll need more than low-grade static sparks to get in there."
Kenji didn't need to ask why Blackwood was guarding a junk gate. The Blackwood family owned Damon.
Kenji moved that night. The old gate area was fenced and monitored, but the security was automated and lazy. He slipped past optical sensors, using his Scrapsmith ability to absorb minute amounts of electrical residue from a nearby substation, granting him temporary invisibility to electronic eyes.
He reached the heavy steel vault door protecting the Residual Gate Area. The Sonic Barrier was humming—the Echo of Resonance was palpable just inches away.
He was reaching for a panel to disable the barrier when a blinding spotlight snapped on, freezing him.
"Well, well. Look what the sewer dragged in."
A tall, impeccably dressed figure stepped out of the shadow of a reinforced transport vehicle. It was Damon Blackwood, Kenji's smirking rival from the Academy, flanked by two burly security guards.
"Still playing in the dirt, Tanaka? That's Blackwood property. Did you really think a Rank D sanitation worker could steal from a Rank 6 Elite's family?"