Apocalypse Trade Monopoly
Chapter 123: – Wires Access

Chapter 123: – Wires Access

First Stop: South Access Trunk

The southern node sat beneath the east garden—ironically located just behind the irrigation controls for Bo’s most dramatic tomato rows.

Ren handed her a datapad with the legacy routing codes, then held the garden door open like a man escorting a duchess to war.

"It’ll be warm," he warned, voice smooth as polished stone.

Ava crouched beside the panel and popped the lid with a flick of her multi-tool. Warm was generous. It was practically sweating voltage under there.

"Power bleed," she muttered, already elbow-deep. "You weren’t kidding about it being old."

"That panel predates Master Lucas," Ren replied.

"So it’s ancient."

She tapped through three layers of coil resets, rethreaded the relay, and sealed it with a fresh node stamp.

The system chimed in her bracer.

[NODE 3-S REPAIRED — STABILITY +12%]

She exhaled and leaned back on her heels. "One down."

Second Stop: Sub-Level Ventilation Chamber

The sub-level smelled like metal and filtered dust. Not dirty—just old.

Ren led her through a side corridor past the dry-cooling tanks and pulled open a narrow hatch with one white-gloved hand. Ava had to duck to get through.

"This chamber controls emergency lockdown circulation and backup oxygen flow," Ren said.

"I love how you make that sound optional," Ava muttered, already scanning the feed lines.

She tightened three bolt clamps, disabled a flickering regulator, and dropped a small AI seed into the sync slot.

The screen overhead blinked to green.

[AIRFLOW GRID REBALANCED — SENSOR STABILITY: RESTORED]

Ava wiped her hands on her hoodie.

Ren handed her a sanitizing cloth without comment.

She took it with a grunt. "How many more of these?"

"Two. And a reward at the end."

She squinted at him. "Food?"

He only smiled.

Third Stop: East Hall Sync Bay

This was one of the newer wings. Sleek walls. Bright glass. The sync bay doors opened with a quiet hiss.

The problem was buried beneath one of the wall conduits—an old dual-node bypass Lucas had wired in years ago, then apparently forgotten.

"His doing?" she asked, already kneeling to open the casing.

Ren didn’t answer immediately.

"He had plans," he said eventually. "But not all of them finished."

The coil inside was looped backward—wrong pattern, right intent.

"Sloppy," she murmured.

"Experimental," Ren corrected.

Ava rethreaded it in silence.

Sometimes people weren’t as put together as they pretended. Even Lucas.

[BAY GRID ACTIVE — RESPONSE TIME IMPROVED]

Fourth Stop: The East Link — Not a Tower After All

The blueprint labeled it as Old Tower Access 4-C, but Ava realized quickly that wasn’t what it was.

There was no tower.

Not really.

Just a wide, glass-lined stairwell leading to a sealed door hidden behind stacked crates and a faded "Under Construction" sign. It looked like part of an old maintenance hall. Forgotten. Unused.

Except the structure didn’t match the rest of the manor.

Ava stepped through, her bracer syncing automatically to the door panel.

[ID RECOGNIZED – RESTRICTED ENTRY UNLOCKED]

The door slid open with a soft hiss—and cool air rolled out.

She blinked.

Beyond the door was a basement corridor lined with black marble tiles and recessed lights. Not manor style. Something... retail.

Ren followed behind her silently.

"This isn’t the old tower, is it?"

"No, Miss Zhang," he said, tone respectful as ever. "It’s the link to the south annex—what used to be the underground service corridor between two adjacent shopping plazas. Your—pardon—Master Lucas’s father purchased both properties years ago and renovated the underground access as part of the estate perimeter."

"So," Ava said slowly, stepping into the gleaming hallway, "Bai Manor is sitting between two abandoned shopping malls."

"Technically," Ren said, "Bai Manor includes them."

She looked around again.

This wasn’t just luxury.

It was legacy-level real estate laundering.

"Being rich is ridiculous," she muttered as she walks the levels.

The lower level opened into a hollowed-out mall space, long stripped of customers but not entirely dead.

Glass storefronts still bore signage in faded neon: boutique names, pop-up repair stalls, old-world cafés. It had the stillness of a bunker, but the bones of commerce.

Ava wandered through slowly.

Some of the shelves were still stocked. Dusty. But untouched.

A small clothing boutique caught her eye—high-end sportswear, smart-fiber jackets, old synth-lace boots in her size.

She stared at them for a second.

Then pulled one on.

The fit was perfect.

Ren stood behind her near the entrance, hands folded behind his back.

"You’re not going to stop me?"

"It’s all technically yours."

Ava grinned. "Dangerous sentence."

She spent the next twenty minutes exploring. Most of the stores had been long since emptied, but a few had been sealed tightly enough to protect inventory. There were utility kits. Cold-weather gear. Even two bottles of unopened high-nutrient juice pressed against a locked kiosk.

She grabbed both.

And three knives.

When she was done looting—and trying not to enjoy it—Ava walked the full perimeter of the twin shopping complexes. Her bracer scanned the local network, searching for untagged life signatures.

[SCAN COMPLETE – NO BEAST TRAILS DETECTED][ENVIRONMENT CLEAN – LAST INFILTRATION 83 DAYS AGO]

"Why is this place so secure?" she asked as they reached the second plaza’s far edge.

Ren was checking the rusted emergency exit locks.

"I patrol when I can," he said simply. "And the beasts prefer higher ground. Noise. Food. We offer none."

She glanced back toward the glass dome above them. The light was faint. Natural.

"How’d they hide this for so long?"

"Lucas’s father rerouted all registry signals. These plazas haven’t been listed on a live map since before the collapse."

"So no one knows they’re part of Bai property?"

"Only the ones who need to."

Ava’s eyes flicked to the edges of the map on her bracer.

Then she tapped in a new command.

[INTEGRATE SECTOR: PLAZA A / PLAZA B INTO OUTER MANOR ROUTE][ROUTE STATUS: UNDER ZHANG, AVA / ACCESS PERMISSION CONFIRMED]

The system pinged.

She smiled.

"There. Outer shell expanded. We’ve got buffer territory now."

"Impressive," Ren said.

Ava turned, dusted off her new jacket, and tucked one of the stolen knives into her pocket.

"Let’s go home."

She turned on her heel, the new jacket settling around her shoulders like it had been waiting years to belong to someone.

Ren fell into step beside her, silent as always, and together they walked the underground path back toward the access corridor—the route now officially marked on her bracer, as if she’d claimed it with her footsteps.

But just before they crossed back into the manor’s lowest threshold, Ava paused.

Turned slightly.

And looked back.

The angle was strange—slanted, half-obscured by the support beams of the walkway—but from here, she could see the outline of Bai Manor rising behind the glass and stone of the connected plaza. The frame of it tall and clean. Defensive and elegant.

But more than that, it was... rooted.

Not just built.

Not just owned.

Loved.

Ava didn’t move.

Didn’t speak.

She just stood there, hood halfway up, hand on the edge of the railing, and let herself see it. Not as a fortress. Not as her workspace.

But as someone’s legacy.

Lucas hadn’t been joking when he said the house wasn’t really his anymore.

But maybe—just maybe—it still carried the shape of who he was raised to be.

Who he could have been.

Who someone—his mother, maybe his father—believed he was.

Ava exhaled slowly.

"Lucas Bai," she murmured, "you really were loved."

Ren didn’t interrupt.

Didn’t offer some line about duty or blood.

He just waited as she turned back to the corridor, eyes a little sharper now. Shoulders squared.

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