The fog was a grey wall. It tasted of salt and diesel. Their stolen cargo skiff, a flat-bottomed electric barge with its identifiers scrubbed, cut through the light chop of the North Atlantic with a low hum. Sineus gripped a cold metal rail, his knuckles white. Ahead, the Neptune Platform was a ghost, a vertical city of rust and unregulated commerce emerging from the mist. It was a monument to every loophole in international law, a place where anything could be bought if you had the right currency. Tonight, their currency was audacity.
Their goal was simple. Get on, find two specific crates containing the cores for a Void Catalyst, and get off. The plan was Ksenia’s, a thing of cold, beautiful logic built from the data they had bled for. The execution was theirs.
— Two minutes to the sensor perimeter, — Ksenia’s voice, crisp and disembodied, came through Sineus’s earpiece. — Ansel, you’re on.
Ansel Stern, the cell’s resident ghost of a technician, grunted an affirmative. He knelt at the bow, hunched over a battered case that pulsed with a faint blue light. He didn’t look at the platform, a jagged silhouette of repurposed oil rig and stacked shipping containers that clawed at the sky. He only watched his instruments. He was a man who trusted data more than his own eyes. A wise choice in a world where eyes could be made to lie.
— Pulse ready, — Ansel muttered. He made a final adjustment. — Firing.
There was no sound, no flash. Just a flicker on Ansel’s monitor and a brief ripple in the fog, as if the air itself had flinched. A five-minute hole had just been punched in the platform’s outer defenses. The price for the targeted EMP was half the skiff’s remaining battery life. A choice made. A cost paid. They were committed.
— We’re clear, — Ksenia confirmed. — Zora, Sineus. You’re up.
The skiff slid against a loading dock slick with sea spray and grime. Zora Kos was first off, moving with a wiry grace that defied the lingering stiffness in her wounded shoulder. She carried a heavy, long-barreled railgun as if it were part of her arm. Sineus followed, his feet landing silently on the grated metal floor. The air smelled of brine, ozone, and welding fumes. They melted into the shadows of stacked shipping containers, a maze of corrugated steel and faded corporate logos.
Ksenia’s voice was a calm thread in the labyrinth. — Vector 3-1-5. Move 40 meters. The crates are marked with a MemTech internal designation. Sub-lot 7B.
They moved through the artificial canyons. A lone patrol drone drifted overhead, its searchlight cutting a clean cone through the fog. They froze, pressing themselves into the rust-streaked wall of a container. The light passed. Sineus saw his own wavering reflection in a puddle of oily water, a distorted ghost in a grey jacket. The flicker of the drone’s light made the image tremble, a lie waiting to be seen.
They found the crates tucked behind a stack of industrial-grade protein synthesizers. Two of them, just as the manifest had promised. They were heavy, matte-black cubes, each weighing around 150 kilograms. The MemTech sigil—a stylized eye weeping a single data point—was stenciled on the side. Sineus placed a hand on the cold metal. He could feel nothing, no hum of memory, no psychic residue. The components were inert, waiting for assembly. Waiting for a command to unmake a piece of the world.
— Got them, — Sineus whispered into his comm. — Beginning extraction.
He and Zora each took a side of the first crate. It was a dead, awkward weight. They grunted, heaving it onto a small cargo dolly they’d brought. This was the most vulnerable part of the plan. They were exposed, slow, and committed to their prize. They had just wrestled the first crate onto the dolly when the world dissolved into noise and light.
A klaxon blared across the dock, a harsh, synthetic scream. Red lights strobed, turning the fog into a pulsing blood-mist. A pressure plate sensor. So much for a clean break.
— They see us! — Zora yelled, her voice tight with adrenaline. — Ksenia, status!
— Automated security activated, — Ksenia’s reply was clipped, all business. — Hydrofoil Drones. Six of them, emerging from the water. Speed is 60 knots.
Sineus saw them. Six sleek, black shapes rising from the waves on glistening struts, knifing toward the dock. They looked like water spiders, their multiple optical sensors glowing with a cold, predatory blue. They were faster than the skiff, armed, and entirely without mercy.
— Buy us time! — Sineus shouted, heaving the second crate with Zora.
Zora didn't need to be told. She dropped her side of the crate, swung the railgun to her shoulder, and braced herself against a container. The weapon hummed, a deep thrum of capacitors charging. A grin touched her lips. This was her element. Not the hiding. The fighting.
— Come on, you bastards, — she muttered.
The railgun fired with a deafening crack that split the air. A hypersonic slug tore a line of incandescent heat through the fog, missing the lead drone but forcing the entire group to break formation. They scattered, their movements fluid and inhumanly fast. Zora fired again, the recoil jolting her entire frame. Another near miss. She was buying them seconds, nothing more.
They got the second crate onto the dolly. Sineus knew they wouldn’t make it to the skiff. The drones were already flanking them, closing off their escape. He had to act. Not with a weapon, but with a lie. He reached out with his mind, not to the drones themselves, but to the network that bound them. He found their targeting sensors, their shared reality.
He pulled a memory from his own mind—a freighter, huge and rusted, from a film he’d directed years ago. He poured his will into it, weaving a lie of immense mass and momentum. He projected it into the drones’ sensorium, a ghost ship made of pure Memorum, placing it directly in their path. The effort sent a spike of pain through his temples, the taste of ozone flooding his mouth.
The drones’ logic snapped. Their programming screamed at them: massive, high-speed collision imminent. Two of them, targeting the phantom freighter, swerved violently to avoid it. They swerved directly into each other.
The explosion was a brilliant white flash, a concussive boom that shook the entire dock. Shrapnel whined through the air. The remaining four drones faltered, their network momentarily scrambled by the loss of two units. The path was clear.
— Now! — Sineus yelled.
They sprinted, pushing the heavy dolly toward the edge of the dock. Ansel had the skiff waiting, its engine humming. They shoved the crates aboard, the metal groaning in protest. Zora jumped on, followed by Sineus. Ansel slammed the throttle forward. The skiff surged away from the Neptune Platform, leaving the remaining drones circling in confusion over the burning wreckage of their comrades.
They had the cores. They had won.
The smell of burnt fuel and ozone hung heavy in the air. The quiet hum of the skiff’s electric motor was the only sound.
Then a new sound cut through the fog.
