Apocalypse Trade Monopoly
Chapter 105: - Ghost Data and Scattered Names

Chapter 105: - Ghost Data and Scattered Names

The mood shifted again—tightening like a net pulled snug around something no one could quite see. The kind of tension that signaled intent, not just curiosity.

Lucas stood, one hand still wrapped around Ava’s as he did, and the ease in his posture now was the kind of calm that meant everything was already in motion.

"We’re leaving in the morning," he said, addressing the room without ceremony. "First stop is the Dust Market. Then the clinic."

"You think the scientist in the market still has the drive?" Keel asked, adjusting his sleeve. "I’ve heard people get greedy there. And dead."

Lucas nodded once. "He’s greedy, but not stupid. I already sent word. I’ll make a trade he won’t refuse."

"And if he does?" Cassi asked, draining the last of her drink.

Lucas smirked. "Then Ava gets to show off again. Education for all."

Elias exhaled slowly. "And the second one? The medic?"

"Hidden under fake licenses. Outer Sector clinic doing rehab work on post-core users. She’s clean—but scared." Lucas ran a hand through his hair, almost thoughtful. "I’ll have to talk her into remembering who she used to be."

Ava finally stood too, her posture fluid and ready, like she was already a step ahead.

"If the drive’s intact, I’ll probably be able to extract and start blueprinting the missing sequences. Even if they only have 30% of the data, I can reconstruct the missing branches."

"From nothing?" Cassi blinked. "Seriously?"

Ava nodded. "I don’t build from nothing. I build from patterns."

Lucas gave her a quiet, approving glance.

"And that’s why," he said softly, "when the war finally starts, we won’t just survive it—we’ll shape it."

The rest of the room fell silent again. Rhys leaned back. Keel gave a low whistle. Even Elias looked... impressed.

Cassi smiled slightly, propping her elbow on the back of her chair.

"Well, damn. I’m in."

She glanced over at Lucas with a sideways smirk, eyes glinting.

"You know, Bai, you’re a lot more entertaining than the last three power brokers I sat through drinks with. At least your disasters come with strategy."

"Flattery?" Lucas said, mock-offended. "Or an early warning?"

"Both."

Elias stood, brushing off his coat. "You two will stay the night here. Office upstairs is cleared. One bed. Locked door. You’re welcome."

Ava blinked. "That wasn’t a request."

"Nope," Elias said, not bothering to hide the grin. "I figured Lucas would be too lazy to sleep on the floor, and you’d be too smart to offer."

Lucas, already halfway to the stairs, didn’t deny it. "See? He gets me."

Cassi drained the last of her glass, stretching her arms overhead. "I’ve got a free window tomorrow. I’ll follow your lead, Bai. Sweep the Dust Market, help with your little ghost hunt."

Keel raised a hand. **"I’ve got an appointment—someone’s buying illegal encryption chips and pretending they invented them."

"Rhys?" Lucas asked.

"Council check-in," Rhys replied with a grimace. **"I’ll rejoin when I shake the trackers."

"So Cassi gets the fun gig." Ava’s voice was dry.

"Naturally," Cassi said, already pulling on her jacket. "I’m the one who enjoys watching people squirm."

Lucas reached the top of the stairs, turned, and offered Ava a look—equal parts amusement and invitation.

"Beauty, let’s go ruin a perfectly uncomfortable bed with too much strategic talk."

Ava sighed and followed.

Behind her, she could still hear Cassi laugh as she called up,

"Just keep the walls intact, lovers!"

Ava sighed and followed, her boots thudding quietly against the worn metal steps. The hallway upstairs was narrow, the paint peeled, the lights too dim to bother fixing. Elias hadn’t lied—just one door at the end, slightly ajar.

She pushed it open and paused.

The room was bare-bones: concrete walls, reinforced steel shutters, a single overhead bulb... and one bed. Not narrow. Not wide. Just big enough to make things awkward.

Lucas stepped in behind her, glanced around once, then gave a low whistle.

"Wow," he murmured. "He really rolled out the welcome mat. What’s next? A complimentary bodyguard under the bed?"

Ava turned to say something, but a quiet ping blinked in the corner of her vision—Lucas’s message flashing across her private sync feed.

[PRIVATE CHAT – L.BAI → A.ZHANG]

Room’s bugged. Probably two feeds.

Elias is friendly, not stupid. Smile when you read this.

Ava blinked, then gave a slow, forced smirk that absolutely wasn’t real—but would read just fine on video.

"So," she said out loud, voice dry, "you calling the left side or are you going to keep pretending you’re a gentleman?"

Lucas leaned against the wall, arms crossed, grinning.

"Oh, I’m a gentleman when it’s strategic."

[PRIVATE CHAT – A.ZHANG → L.BAI]

You think he’s watching now?

[L.BAI → A.ZHANG]

If he’s smart, he’ll turn off the feed before we start talking systems and scandal. But he’ll leave it on long enough to believe we’re sleeping together.

Ava set her bag down by the foot of the bed and sat carefully, eyes scanning the corners of the room without turning her head.

"So," she said aloud, folding her arms, "strategic talk or simulated pillow talk first?"

Lucas smirked and pushed off the wall, unbothered.

"Whichever gets us fewer eyes tomorrow."

[PRIVATE CHAT – L.BAI → A.ZHANG]

Give it ten minutes. Then we talk. Real quiet.

Ava nodded. Just once.

Then leaned back, stretched out her legs, and tilted her head toward the ceiling as Lucas pull out an energy core pulsed with a dull, irregular glow—amber light flickering under the crystalline shell like a heartbeat that couldn’t decide whether to stop or explode.

He stared at it, jaw tight.

"I’ve been tempted to eat one."

Ava didn’t look up from where she sat cross-legged on the floor, running a diagnostic on her left bracer. "I rather you don’t."

He didn’t laugh. Didn’t even smirk. Just rolled the core across his knuckles and muttered, "William warned me off it. Called it ’suicidal with extra steps.’"

Ava finally raised her eyes. "And yet, you’re still holding it like it’s dessert."

Lucas leaned back on one arm, letting the core hover above his palm with a flick of his system’s stabilizer.

"The system gives me everything I want—speed, market advantage, scan overlays. It’s clean. Efficient. But this?" He turned the core in his fingers. "This is a shortcut. A violent one. One that might rip your nervous system inside out... or give you god-tier reaction time for five glorious minutes."

Ava gave him a long, flat look. "You say that like you haven’t already memorized the odds."

"Seventy-two percent instability. Forty-five percent neural backlash. Seventeen percent immediate cardiac spike." Lucas looked up, smirk faint but present. "One percent it works exactly the way I want it to. That’s the part I keep thinking about."

Ava held out her hand."Give it to me."

Lucas blinked."You gonna throw it out the window?"

"No." She flicked her system open. "I want to scan it. Might be a way to get the benefit without triggering system collapse."

He handed it over without hesitation, their fingers brushing briefly as the core passed between them.

Warm. Too warm.

Her Blueprint System immediately flared with data.

[BEAST CORE – CLASS B][CHIMERIC ENERGY STRUCTURE DETECTED – VOLATILE][POSSIBLE CONVERSION: INGESTION PATHWAY – REQUIRES STABILIZER MODULE / SYNTHETIC FILTERING AGENT][RISK: SYSTEM OVERRIDE, CORE MELTDOWN, CELLULAR REJECTION]

She let out a slow breath. "Yeah. It’s possible. If you want to turn your intestines into fire."

Lucas raised an eyebrow. "So, not today."

"Not without a containment rig. Maybe a metabolizer chamber. You’d need to reprogram your system’s intake parameters."

He grinned. "Which I can do."

Ava handed the core back. "You’re not doing it here."

He took it, turning it once before slipping it into his inner coat pocket.

Silence settled for a moment.

Lucas finally glanced up. "You’re looping the security feed again."

Ava didn’t deny it. "Too much movement in the outer corridor."

"Yeah." Lucas tapped his interface without looking. "But now it looks too clean. If someone checks that loop and sees a perfect pattern, we look guilty. And I look like I’m lying."

"Aren’t you?" she asked.

He smiled slowly. "Always. But not to them."

He moved toward her—barefoot, quiet—and crouched beside her on the mattress.

"Drop the loop. Leave it choppy. Let them think we argued, maybe something messy happened. Let them fill in the gaps."

Ava adjusted the feed. One flick, and the loop fractured—just slightly. Enough to look human.

Lucas stood again and stretched. His shirt lifted slightly as he reached back, revealing a faint scar beneath his ribs.

Ava looked away.

He caught it.

Didn’t say a word.

He just stepped back to the bed, pulled one of the blankets over his lap, and laid back with a low, exhausted groan.

"If I die in my sleep," he muttered, "loot my coat and blame it on bad coffee."

Ava pulled her second blanket over her shoulders, curling against the wall.

"If you die," she said, "I’m selling pants first then your coat."

Lucas smiled.

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