Apocalypse Trade Monopoly
Chapter 116: – Data and Delay

Chapter 116: – Data and Delay

The final drive felt different.

It sat in Ava’s palm like a warning—smooth casing, no markings, matte black with a low, deliberate pulse of blue light at the base. Nothing military. No serial. No tags. Just that flicker, quiet and steady, like something beneath the surface was waiting.

Ava stared for a second too long.

Then plugged it in.

[EXTERNAL DRIVE RECOGNIZED][ENCRYPTION TYPE: MULTI-TIER DYNAMIC – ROTATIONAL LOCKS][PROCESSING CORE INSUFFICIENT FOR FULL DECRYPTION][PARTIAL DECRYPTION ENABLED – LINKING TO SECONDARY SYSTEM HOLDER]

She redirected it to Lucas with a flick of her system ID, watching the transfer lock clean.

"You’re crazy," she muttered.

Across from her, Lucas caught the ping just as it lit up on his bracer. He tapped in wordlessly, scanning the contents with sharp eyes and that same focused stillness he always got when power was involved.

Cassi kept the hummer moving—no interruptions, no words—but Ava could feel the tension in the way the wheel shifted in her hands.

The sun had already dropped behind the crags. The sky outside bled red and violet, road signs silhouetted in ruin.

"What’s in it?" Ava asked.

Lucas didn’t answer at first.

He scrolled—lines of corrupted logs, restored fragments. A few decrypted notes played across his vision, and his mouth moved slightly as he read.

[CORE FIELD REPORT – LOG 72-B][LOCATION: BLACK FENCE BETA / DEEP SCAN ZONE][OBJECTIVE: OBSERVATION OF UNREGULATED ENERGY SIGNATURES][SUBJECT: SYNC-CORE ENTITY TYPE - WILD VARIANT]

Lucas’s brows drew together.

"It’s about energy cores," he said finally. "Not the kind we’ve been using. These are—raw wild harvested types."

He scrolled deeper.

"And in two cases? It didn’t just mutate. It talked."

Ava blinked. "What?"

Lucas turned the bracer so she could see:

[RISK ALERT – CORE PERSONALITY RESONANCE DETECTED][NOTES: CORE OWNER PRESENCE ATTEMPTED MENTAL OVERRIDE][CASE 1: ABORTED. SUBJECT DECEASED.][CASE 2: SUCCESSFUL – HOST PERSONALITY SUPPRESSED TEMPORARILY]

Ava’s breath caught. "You’re saying... sometimes when someone uses a core—"

"The original owner’s mind comes with it," Lucas said, voice low. "It’s rare. But it’s happened. Once in a feral-bonded sync. Another with a recycled core in a military lab. Both unstable."

"Possession by power," she whispered.

He nodded. "Core imprinting. Not just memory. Personality. Skillset. Intent."

"Then why do you still use them?" she asked. "Why take that risk?"

Lucas gave a faint, crooked smile—the kind that made him look more dangerous than amused.

"Because I don’t just plug in and pray," he said, voice low. "I digest."

Ava frowned. "Digest?"

Lucas didn’t blink. "I don’t accept what’s in the core as-is. I break it down. Strip the surface, map the internals. My system identifies the logic paths—what matters, what doesn’t—and then I pass the good data through your system."

Ava’s breath hitched slightly.

"My system isolates the access points," he continued, "but yours? Yours interprets. Rebuilds. Optimizes. I don’t just absorb the ability. We refactor it."

"You eat the core’s structure," Ava said slowly, trying to follow the implications, "and rebuild it into something better."

"Exactly," he murmured. "Not random. Not roulette. Every ability becomes a blueprint. No risks I don’t calculate. No gains I don’t choose."

Her system hummed softly in agreement, picking up the cross-frequency trace from Lucas’s bracer.

[SYNC-SCAN LINK DETECTED: L. BAI][FUNCTION MATCH: ABILITY DECONSTRUCTION MODE / LOGIC STRAND TARGETING][SECONDARY SYSTEM ROLE: STRATEGIC INTERFACE REBUILD – ACTIVE]

Ava leaned back, staring at him like he was something half-mad, half-brilliant. Probably both.

"Well," she said, narrowing her eyes, "if that’s true..."

She let it hang there.

Lucas finished it for her.

"...Then we’re not just lucky. We’re ahead."

He looked up, golden eyes no longer just sharp.

They gleamed—with control, with precision, with hunger for what came next.

"There are so many good plays now," he said softly. "And we’re holding pieces no one else even knows exist."

He reached beside him, fingers brushing over the matte-black cylinder—the one with the pulse that felt too patient for tech. Not a core. Not a tool. Something older. Wilder.

"I don’t think this is just a sample," he added. "I think it’s alive. And if I’m right..."

He looked at Ava, no smile now. Just intent.

"We don’t study it. We use it. The first move has the highest yield—because it defines the field."

Ava’s system pulsed hard in her palm as she touched the core.

Harder than before. Not heat—depth. Like the signal didn’t just ping from the surface, but echoed down through a labyrinth of layered tech and something else—something organic.

Her vision flickered with cascading scans.

[CLASSIFICATION: ADVANCED CORE SIGNATURE][SUBSTRATE: ORGANIC-SYSTEM HYBRID][ENERGY FORMAT: UNSTABLE / ADAPTIVE][TYPE: INHERITED STRUCTURE – NOT ARTIFICIAL][ACCESS: RESTRICTED – UNKNOWN REBOOT TRIGGER]

She blinked.

"This isn’t just alive," she muttered. "It’s... evolved. Structured. It has reroute points like a system—but none of the anchor code. It wasn’t assigned."

Lucas nodded slowly. "Makes sense."

Ava looked up. "Explain."

"There’s a theory," he said, "that wild beasts—especially the higher-tier ones—don’t just mutate randomly. They develop. They’re categorized by threat, but also by core complexity. Level One is feral trash. Claws, speed, whatever. But Level Nine?"

He held her gaze. "Level Nine beasts have systems."

Ava’s breath caught. "Like us?"

"Exactly like us," Lucas said.

He tapped his bracer once, pulled up a scatter graph of decrypted logs from the core file.

"Some of these things used to be human. Their bodies rebooted post-collapse. Either the trauma or the exposure woke up something latent. They became host-organic syncs."

She stared at the pulsing core again.

"And if the system’s in the body..." she said slowly, "then it could be dormant in anyone."

Lucas nodded. "Exactly. And here’s the kicker—the military’s not just studying them. They’re trying to shortcut it."

He looked at Cassi.

"They’ve developed a drug. Black-lab injectable. Supposedly triggers a temporary system reboot in non-holders. Works on normals. Even on shifters."

Cassi didn’t even hesitate.

"I fought someone on it."

Both of them looked at her.

She didn’t blink. "Level Two field op. Shifter—barely made the cut. They gave him a shot before a trial run."

Ava frowned. "And?"

"It was like fighting a feral god with a migraine." Cassi’s knuckles tightened on the wheel. "Unstable abilities, boosted sync rate, no pain delay. He snapped one guy’s jaw sideways and turned his own arm into glass fifteen minutes later."

Lucas raised an eyebrow. "Survival rate?"

"Ten percent, maybe," Cassi said. "Most burn out. Organs rupture, brains melt. But while it works?" She exhaled through her nose. "It’s real. Like the system’s clawing its way out through the spine."

Ava stared at the core in her hand—then at Lucas.

"If this thing was grown... then someone survived the full mutation. That means whatever’s inside—whatever system this came from—it stabilized."

Lucas nodded, calm but sharp. "And that makes it priceless."

The hum of the core didn’t grow louder.

It just felt closer.

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