Apocalypse Trade Monopoly
Chapter 110: – Terms and Tethers

"I want more than the logs."

"You want more?" the vendor asked, voice like static and stale caffeine.

Lucas leaned on the stall counter like he owned the structure, the street, the man, and every byte of dirty intel stored behind his bloodshot eyes. He didn’t blink. "I came for the logs. I stayed for the theories."

The vendor blinked. "Theories?"

Ava, standing at Lucas’s left shoulder, hood up and silent, studied the man’s twitchy fingers. They moved like he was calculating equations in the air. Maybe he was.

Lucas tapped the sealed data cube already in his coat. "I want the science you didn’t put in writing. The ideas too half-mad or half-true for documentation."

"You want hallucinations."

"I want the future. Preferably early access."

The vendor hesitated—too long. Lucas just tilted his head a degree to the right.

Ava recognized that tilt. It meant: talk, or I make you irrelevant.

The vendor sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Fine. I’ll tell your Three. I’m not suicidal."

"I’m already impressed," Ava said dryly.

Lucas gestured vaguely. "Begin."

The man counted on his fingers.

"One. Sync pairings generate residual code bleed—’echoes’—in about 16.7% of tested subjects. Especially if emotional response curves are high. The theory is, under pressure, systems begin cross-referencing. Think... intrusive system intimacy."

"Like two AIs whispering in a shared duct," Ava muttered.

"Exactly," he said, pointing at her like she’d passed an oral exam.

"Two." He held up another finger. "Certain mutations—particularly in Shifters—aren’t just adaptive responses. They’re accumulative. Shifting too frequently doesn’t just tax the body, it rewrites it. Bones, cartilage, brain chemistry. That’s why some Shifters can’t turn back. Or shouldn’t."

Ava’s brow furrowed. "That’s not just physical fatigue. That’s degenerative recursion."

"Bingo," he said. "We tried hormone blockers. Failed. Neural loop correctors? Worse. It’s not just biology—it’s identity collapse. They forget they were ever human."

Lucas didn’t react. Ava caught his glance sideways at her. Just a flicker.

"Three," the vendor continued, now picking up speed like the dam was breaking. "Energy cores weren’t just power reserves. They were nano-instructional jumpstarts. Originally designed to trigger emergency failsafes in system architecture. If you overload a system with energy while the nano is dormant or destabilized, you don’t just ’recharge’ it. You reroll the entire interface."

"Reset button," Ava said.

"Russian roulette," Lucas added.

"Exactly. Every system holder knows it now—thanks to black-net leaks. That’s why prices are going higher and no stock avalible in the market ever since the new laws pass."

"This one is extra," the vendor said, raising his hand. "And most valuable."

Lucas gave him a pointed look.

The vendor continued. "Let’s call it Sync Theft. A way to strip active sync pairings and reassign them using shadow protocols. We thought sync codes were one-time bio-locks. We vould be wrong. Turns out, if you get a clean enough system snapshot, and a matching system resonance frequency—"

"You can unpair and re-bind someone," Ava finished, horror dawning.

The vendor nodded. "And if that someone’s powerful enough? You can steal an empire."

Lucas’s expression didn’t change.

But Ava saw it.

A crack.

He stepped forward. Not fast. Not angry.

But the vendor flinched.

"You’re telling me that sync pairings—can now be hijacked like radio signals," Lucas said, voice low. "That means all my effort acquiring a bond..."

"It means you’re not as secure as you think," the vendor said. "Unless you keep her close. Physically. Systems in proximity reinforce sync bonds. Distance weakens them."

Ava opened her mouth.

Lucas beat her to it.

"No more splitting up," he said flatly. "From now on, you don’t leave the room unless I’m two steps behind you."

Ava blinked. "That’s a bit possessive."

"It’s statistical," he replied. "Also practical. I don’t like redoing paperwork."

Ava raised an eyebrow. "That’s your version of affection?"

"I have a spreadsheet for feelings," he said. "You rank slightly above my favorite boots and just under multi-spectrum intel chips."

"Wow. I feel so cherished."

Lucas glanced down at her. "My boots don’t argue."

Before Ava could come up with something appropriately scathing, a shadow shifted at the edge of the alley. A figure stepped into view—tall, wiry, wrapped in a gray half-cloak that did nothing to hide the bracer tech strapped across both wrists. The air around him smelled like cold metal and ozone.

The vendor stiffened immediately.

"You’re late," Lucas said calmly, not even looking at him yet. "We’ve already extracted all the good data, plus the theorized heresies. You can collect the crumbs."

The newcomer’s expression didn’t change, but the tension rippled off him like heat. "The file was promised to me."

"And yet," Lucas murmured, finally turning, "here I am. In possession of it. What a tragedy of punctuality."

"You don’t know what you’re handling."

Lucas gave a brief smile—sharp, thin. "I do. That’s why I got here first."

The vendor looked like he wanted to dig a hole and die in it.

"Slip of the data stream," he mumbled, inching back toward the tarp flap. "Minor cross-reference. Harmless. Probably corrupted."

Ava smiled.It wasn’t friendly.

It was the kind of smile you gave something you were already measuring for parts.

The man caught it—and looked at Lucas instead.

Bad move.

Lucas stepped forward, slow but deliberate, like gravity had decided to play favorites.

"Let me save you the embarrassment of pretending you didn’t know this was my deal," he said, voice low. "You got here late. You saw us talking. And you still opened your mouth."

"I have rights—"

"You have expiration dates," Lucas cut in. "What you don’t have is leverage. You weren’t named. You weren’t marked. You weren’t expected. That means you’re a loose end walking into a locked equation."

The vendor made a small noise—half warning, half regret.

Lucas ignored him.

"Here’s how generous I’m feeling today," he continued. "You can leave, empty-handed, with your arteries still inside your body. Or—option two—you can pay."

The man’s eyes narrowed. "Pay for what? Data that was mine?"

Lucas tilted his head, just slightly. "For the privilege of walking away without becoming a system demo."

The silence stretched.

Then the man reached slowly into his coat. He pulled out a small metal chip case, flipped it open, and thumbed over a blue-marked shard—Tier 2 verified. Not just currency. Identity. Clearance.

He held it out with a stiff arm.

Lucas took it without blinking.

"Good choice," he said, pocketing the chip in a hidden fold. "That buys you...two seconds of dignity."

The man glared. "You think you’ve won."

"No," Lucas said, already turning away. "I think you’re still breathing."

He jerked his chin toward the alley exit. Ava moved first.

The vendor opened his mouth to say something—but Lucas shot him a glare so flat and sharp it could’ve frozen light.

"Not a word," he said.

They were halfway down the alley when Lucas muttered, just loud enough for Ava to catch it, "That shard better be real, or I’m sending William to collect interest."

Ava glanced sideways. "You’re fun when you’re annoyed."

"I’m efficient."

"You’re terrifying."

Lucas gave her a very faint smile. "Only when I care."

And then they were gone—out into the streetlight haze, fast and smooth, already vanishing back into the city like they’d never been there at all.