Apocalypse Trade Monopoly
Chapter 134: Kai System Decode

Chapter 134: Kai System Decode

They had moved to a soundproofed and sealed room, tucked deep within the Bai Manor’s underground level—the kind of room you only found in estates where powerful men planned for betrayal long before it happened.

Kai sat in the center of it, restrained. A military-grade chair bolted to the ground, his wrists cuffed in an adaptive alloy that adjusted to twitch-level motion. His lip was split. Right eye already darkening from the bruise. One arm hung lower—dislocated or worse.

Lucas stood across from him, deceptively relaxed, flipping a knife between his fingers. Every slow rotation of the blade was practiced, silent, and deliberate.

"Comfortable?" Lucas asked lightly.

Kai coughed once. The sound was rough. Dry. "Your hospitality could use work."

Lucas tilted his head. "Funny. That’s what the last guy said. He’s dead without a tomb.."

"I’m not him."

"No," Lucas said. "You’re dumber. He ran. You walked in."

Ava stood just behind the line of shadow, her arms crossed, bracer glowing faint against her forearm. She hadn’t said a word yet. Just watched. Listening.

Kai’s gaze flicked toward her, brief but sharp.

Lucas noticed. Of course he did.

"Look at me, not her," he said, stepping forward. The blade stopped spinning.

"She’s not here to negotiate."

Ava raised an eyebrow. "Wow. Romantic."

Lucas didn’t look at her. "Professional. You’re the one with the scanner."

A beat passed.

Then Ava sighed and stepped forward. "Alright. Let’s see what this bastard’s hiding."

She tap his bracer. A faint blue line of sync logic formed across Kai’s chest and arms, trailing data streams Ava pulled from his exposed system port—sloppy work, half-buried behind government encryption.

It took twenty seconds.

Ava’s eyes widened.

"He’s synced."

Lucas blinked once. "With who?"

"Sniper. Passive long-range boost interface. Custom channel. That means she doesn’t just spot for him—she boosts his active field range. He can hold position and still strike through a dead-zone if she’s on the other end feeding data."

Kai smiled. Blood stained his teeth.

Lucas’s smile didn’t return. "Where is she?"

Silence.

Kai’s wrists twitched against the cuffs—barely—but Lucas moved anyway. In one smooth motion, the blade stopped flipping and angled down.

Ava stepped in before it connected. "Let me finish."

Lucas didn’t argue. Just pulled back half an inch.

Ava placed two fingers against Kai’s temple and activated a secondary pulse.

[SYNC ROUTE DETECTED – INACTIVE]

[CONNECTION: DORMANT / NOT TERMINATED]

[LOCATION FLAGGED – APPROXIMATE COORDINATES LOCKED]

She blinked. "She’s alive. Cryo-state. Same location as—"

Lucas’s voice cut in. "My father."

A beat of stillness passed.

The blade lowered further.

Kai spoke for the first time in full: "You’re too late."

Ava frowned. "She’s in the same cryo wing. That means someone put her under—and you weren’t told why."

Kai didn’t answer.

Lucas tilted his head again, this time with a smile that had no warmth in it. "You thought you were the asset. Turns out you’re just packaging."

Kai’s eyes burned. "I volunteered."

Lucas leaned down.

Voice low. Quiet.

"Then you’re an idiot."

He stepped back, drew a second knife from his hip, and drove it down into the wood beside Kai’s chair. Not skin—yet.

Lucas pulled a second object from his pocket.

Locke Ring to be more accurate.

Simple metal. A strange blue sheen around the edges. A sync-link enhancer. Not standard-issue.

"Recognize this?" Lucas asked.

Kai’s face twisted. "Where did you get that?"

Lucas looked him dead in the eyes. "Angle."

That name shifted everything.

Lucas stepped forward again, voice calm. "Three questions. You answer clean, we walk out. You don’t? We don’t."

Kai stared at him. Jaw tight.

Lucas held up a single finger. "One: Where is Angle?"

No answer.

Lucas didn’t blink. "Two: What did she trade to get you into my house?"

Kai flinched—small, but visible.

Lucas raised a third finger. "Three: Who gave her the ring?"

Kai looked at Ava again.

This time, he looked guilty.

And that was all Lucas needed.

He stepped forward, reached down, and yanked the ring from Kai’s finger.

"No answer?" he asked, voice still soft.

Kai didn’t speak.

Ava stepped forward. "Lucas, wait."

Lucas turned his head slightly. "Why?"

"We need to know what she gave them."

"We already know," he said. "She gave me."

He looked down at Kai. "And that’s not a debt I’m paying."

Then—

One motion.

Clean. Surgical.

The blade slipped into Kai’s chest just left of center. Straight through the rib spacing. A kill Lucas had executed more times than Ava could count.

Kai jerked. Gasped.

Then slumped forward.

Gone.

Ava didn’t move for a full five seconds.

Lucas stepped back, cleaned the blade on the chair leg, and dropped it into his holster.

He didn’t look guilty. Not cold either.

Just done.

"Strategic," he said quietly. "Not personal."

Lucas wiped the blade clean and tucked it away like it had only been a tool—no different than wire cutters or a busted scanner. The tension in the room hadn’t broken; it had shifted. Hardened.

Ava didn’t move.

She was still looking at the body like something in her system hadn’t finished syncing with what just happened.

"You killed our only source of active location data," she said, low.

Lucas’s voice was calmer than it should’ve been. "He’d already locked the route. And I wasn’t going to waste another hour letting him feed us more rerouted noise."

Ava stepped in front of him. "So what’s the plan now? Walk into a sealed bunker full of defense drones, bioscanners, and probably a few pissed-off scientists with less conscience than you?"

Lucas smiled.

Not wide.

Just sharp.

"Exactly."

Ava blinked. "You’re joking."

He walked past her, already tapping into his bracer. "They won’t expect it. That’s the advantage."

"They won’t expect you," she said, following after him, "because it’s suicidal."

"No," he said, scanning a map overlay. "It’s direct. Kai’s sync partner being in cryo tells us something. They don’t expect her to need extraction. Which means they don’t think we’re stupid enough to come for her. That’s our opening."

"You’re using their assumptions as cover," she muttered.

"Exactly."

"Lucas—this is your version of subtlety? Kick the front door in and hope they’re too confused to react?"

He stopped and turned to face her.

"No," he said. "Kick the door in. Then have you build something they can’t shut down before it turns the place inside out."

Ava’s eyes narrowed. "You’re serious."

He tilted his head. "Why else would I keep you around?"

She stared at him for a beat.

Then stepped closer.

"You think my system can outbuild a West Sector defense grid while you’re lighting up hallways like an aftershock?"

"I know you can."

Ava exhaled slowly. "This is crazy."

Lucas’s grin sharpened. "It’s us."

She didn’t smile back.

But she didn’t step away either.

"Give me five hours," she said. "I’ll give you a distraction they can’t firewall."

Lucas nodded once, already walking again.

"And Ava," he said without looking back, "make it loud."

Ava didn’t respond right away.

She just watched him walk off—shoulders straight, coat flicking at the edge with each step like he was dragging inevitability behind him.

"Make it loud," she muttered under her breath. "Fine."

Pulling out hidden directory deep in her Blueprint System’s private sublayer. Protected by a spiral-coded encryption tree. No one—not even Lucas—had seen what she kept in there.

[ACCESSING PRIVATE MODULE: S_001_TIER-RED]

[UNSEALING BLUEPRINT CACHE...]

Four icons slid into view, glowing soft gold. Schematics that pulsed like heartbeats.

These weren’t just weapons.

They were concepts. Answers to problems no one else had solved.

She tapped the first.

[VIOLET DAGGER: Portable Disruptor Frame]

A handheld pulse cannon built to fracture barrier fields without triggering alarm thresholds. Stealthy. Precise. Untraceable until detonation.

She marked it active.

Second file.

[SUNDIAL: Multi-Point Light Lattice Cannon]

A chained beam weapon designed to arc across power sources, turning their own grid into a self-destruct timer.

Third.

[BRIDGEWALKER: Modular Surface-Climber Drone]

Autonomous. Silent. Adapts to terrain. Ava had only ever run simulations—but it ate perimeter walls like termites on caffeine.

Last.

She hesitated.

Then tapped.

[SOVEREIGN: Hacked Orbital Uplink Detonator]

Ava looked up at the corridor Lucas had disappeared down.

"You want loud?" she said, voice low. "I’ll give you seismic."

Ava turned away from the hallway.

Back into the room.

Kai’s body was still slumped in the chair, head down, the ring Lucas had taken now lying cold on the floor where it had rolled under a drain grate.

She didn’t look at him.

Didn’t even flinch.

Her boots echoed as she crossed to the side counter, pulling the tarp off a cleared section of reinforced alloy—an old weapons table, stained with solvent and burn marks.

The perfect place to start.

She flicked open her bracer again and selected Violet Dagger.

The table lights adjusted automatically as the schematic loaded.

Ava reached for the first tray of parts from the corner—housed components, detachment rails, magnetized power housing.

Clink. The first piece hit the table.

Click. Second piece slotted beside it.

Her hands were already in motion.

No hesitation.

No commentary.

Violet Dagger took shape in under five minutes—sleek, sharp, almost delicate. A blade-shaped emitter with a core that would pulse once, then shred every sensor in its path for twelve seconds of undetectable entry.

Perfect for Lucas.

She didn’t even pause before queuing the next: Sundial.

This one was messier.

Heavier.

She started laying out the ion coils, carbon-threaded lattice arms, and the modded uplink splitter like she was setting out ingredients for a meal.

One coil rolled slightly to the edge of the table and stopped beside Kai’s boot.

She still didn’t look at him.

Sundial took longer.

More fragile connections.

When the core housing buzzed and sealed with a blink of green, she leaned back.

"Two down," she muttered. "Time for termites."

Bridgewalker loaded.

She popped a rolling case open beside the table and pulled the drone chassis out like it was a folded pet.

Four legs. Rounded body. Lightweight.

Ava opened a side compartment, stuffed it with climbing gel cannisters and micro-mapping radar.

By the time she closed the back plate, the thing blinked at her.

"Good boy," she murmured, tapping its head. "You’re going to eat a lot of walls."

And last—Sovereign.

She hesitated only slightly as she set the schematics up on the leftmost edge of the table.

No one had approved this one.

Not even her.

But it would work.

She pulled a black core housing out from a small crate she’d locked with a code Lucas didn’t know.

Assembled the relay system by hand.

The overhead lights flickered for half a second when she tested the uplink spike.

She didn’t care.

By the time Lucas returned, Ava stood at the table surrounded by four deadly, beautiful machines.

And Kai’s body?

Still seated. Still silent.

Forgotten.

Because Ava had work to do.

And her weapons were louder than grief.

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