Apocalypse Trade Monopoly
Chapter 147: : The Knife Behind

Chapter 147: : The Knife Behind

On Collective maps, it was labeled Sector G-5/White Zone — a clean, stabilized, restored outpost where sync systems were perfectly integrated, public order was maintained.

Lucas raised one eyebrow at that.

"They’re trying to keep us out."

Ava adjusted her bracer’s outer display, frowning at the sync radiation levels spiking as they got closer.

"No pinging from the surface grid," she said. "But there’s bleed. Something’s buried."

They arrived just before dusk, parking the car in the shadow of a collapsed bridge that had been half-swallowed by ivy and storm-cracked pavement. A faint hum under the ground buzzed through her boots — low-voltage sync pulses, the kind used to keep systems calibrated inside the city limits.

The city’s entrance had no guards.

Just a sync barrier — invisible until they crossed it.

Ava’s system shivered the second they stepped through.

[PUBLIC SYNC FIELD DETECTED][SYSTEM MASK ACTIVE]

[WARNING: ALTERED DATA NETWORK – AUTHENTICITY NOT VERIFIED]

"I don’t like this," Ava muttered.

Lucas glanced at her, calm. "Which part?"

"The part where everything looks fine."

They walked slowly through the perimeter district — all too clean. Polished surfaces. Street signs still gleaming. Power grids intact. Bunker-light still humming in regulated pulses like everything was pre-collapse and civil.

And then someone greeted them.

A woman.

Late thirties, long coat over sync armor so thin you could mistake it for silk. Hair in a military bob. A tablet tucked under one arm and a holster under the other.

"Lucas Bai," she said, smiling like a blade behind a handkerchief.

He didn’t return it. "Commander Jin."

Ava glanced sideways. "You know her?"

"Senior liaison. Real job? Military watchdog."

"I prefer ’handlers,’" Jin said, and stepped forward. "We’ve been expecting you."

Lucas tensed subtly.

"You always ’expect’ people when it’s a trap?"

Jin’s smile didn’t move. "Not a trap. A conversation."

She turned her eyes to Ava.

"And you must be the rewrite."

Ava didn’t flinch. "Guess it wasn’t a rumor after all."

"Oh, it was," Jin said. "But the difference between myth and threat is timing. And your timing?"

She tilted her head.

"Very inconvenient."

Lucas’s fingers twitched near his side — not enough to be seen, but Ava caught it. A signal.

There were eyes on them.

A lot of them.

She felt it now — the way the air hummed slightly too much. Drones in the grid. Sync nodes overcharged. She scanned the windows. Subtle movement. Shifters or sync-augments. Either way? Hostile.

Ava smiled flatly.

"Let me guess," she said. "You’re not here to offer us tea."

Jin tapped the tablet.

And the screen behind her — a public notice board — flickered and changed.

A list of names appeared.

The top two:

[ZHANG, AVA – SYSTEM: REWRITE / THREAT LEVEL: RED]

[BAI, LUCAS – SYSTEM: MONOPOLY / THREAT LEVEL: RED]

Below that?

[AUTHORIZATION: NEUTRALIZE / CONTAIN]

Lucas exhaled softly. "Well. At least we’re at the top of something."

Ava didn’t blink. "So where’s the Anchor?"

Jin tilted her head.

"Right here."

A door behind her slid open.

And out stepped a man.

Mid-twenties, sync tattoos across his arms glowing faint red. His system ID floated lazily over his shoulder.

[KAI KOVIC – LEGACY HOLDER]

The confirmed Anchor Two. Supposed to be dead but apparently not.

He didn’t look surprised to see them.

Ava’s voice dropped.

"You alive."

Kai’s eyes didn’t meet hers. "They offered to unfreeze my partner."

"You traded Integrity for a love story?"

He flinched.

Lucas stepped forward, voice sharp.

"You’re already on every kill list from here to Sector Twelve. You thought they’d give her back?"

"They said they would—"

"They lie."

But Jin wasn’t interested in the debate.

She just raised her hand.

All around them, the sync grid lit up.

Ava’s bracer stuttered — the signal override was sharp enough to burn through her masking protocols.

[SYSTEM DISRUPTION DETECTED]

[SYNC INHIBITOR ACTIVE – DISABLING FUNCTIONS 3, 7, 9, 12]

"We’re boxed in," she muttered.

Lucas smiled.

"Good."

And in the next breath?

He moved.

Jin shouted something, but it was already too late.

Lucas’s bracer flickered under the sync layer — his own code burned through the interference with his signature Monopoly override.

He grabbed Kai by the collar and threw him backward into a sync console.

The station exploded in sparks.

Ava spun, flung two micro-sphere charges behind them — the corridor filled with a burst of blind-static as the drones’ optics fizzed out.

"Back route!" Lucas shouted.

She followed.

The system screamed in protest — but her bracer was fighting. Lucas had coded part of his own override into her blueprint module last week. For situations just like this.

"Elevator shaft, two blocks north!" Ava yelled, already redirecting sub-routes on her interface.

She sketched the route in her bracer as they moved—cutting hard through narrow side alleys, twisting around sync-jammed lights and discarded hover-tram rails. The map in her vision flickered with false positives.

Lucas was on her heels, Kai’s betrayal still burning behind his eyes.

"You sure about this?" he called out.

"No," she snapped, "but it’s the only gap the grid’s not blanketing."

They moved fast—kicking off the side of a fractured bulkhead to launch over a collapsed bench-line. Ava’s boots hit the opposite edge first, Lucas a second behind.

She landed wrong. Twisted her knee.

Didn’t stop.

Behind them, the air shimmered.

Pulse-drones. Light-synced and silent. They weren’t firing yet.

Waiting for orders.

Lucas ducked behind a half-ruined ATM pillar and pulled a charge disc from his belt. "Buy me five seconds."

Ava flicked her system into blind mode, launched a flare-shot skyward. The signal burst—too high, too hot. It wasn’t meant to hit anything.

It was meant to lie.

[SIGNAL SPOOF DEPLOYED][ECHO TRAIL INITIATED – DIVERTING TRACK]

"Done," she said.

Lucas threw the charge.

The wall behind them collapsed in a spray of dust and metal. A shortcut through someone’s long-abandoned residential corridor.

They were one block from the shaft now.

"Eyes left," Ava warned. "Two signatures—Shifter build, enhanced musculature."

"I’ve got them."

Lucas moved. Two shots, fast—one knee, one neck. One of them dropped screaming. The other just dropped.

Then the elevator tower came into view.

She spotted it past the debris line—half-sunken, scaffolding twisted from collapse, but the shaft was intact. The node light above it flickered green.

Lucas frowned immediately.

"That’s wrong."

Ava hesitated. "What?"

"The shaft’s clean."

"And that’s bad?"

Lucas pointed at the door. "They’d never leave the escape point unguarded unless—"

He didn’t finish.

Because Ava made the choice.

She moved first—diving toward the shaft, keying her bracer to force-unlock the latch.

[EMERGENCY ACCESS GRANTED – BLUEPRINT SIGNATURE DETECTED]

She slapped her palm against the trigger plate, and the door slid open with a hiss of compressed air and just a little too much ease.

"Ava, wait—"

But she’d already dropped inside.

Lucas cursed—then followed.

The shaft was wide—barely lit, with three vertical rails and a manual ladder system on either side. It descended past at least ten floors before vanishing into blackout.

She landed first—on an old elevator platform hanging by counterweight, still powered.

Lucas landed beside her half a second later, breathing hard.

"You didn’t scan the shaft."

"I didn’t have time—"

"No," he said. "You didn’t listen. That’s not the same."

She opened her mouth to argue—then froze.

Her system buzzed.

Low.

Insistent.

[WARNING: ECHO SIGNAL DETECTED][PRESENCE: DUPLICATE LAYER – SYSTEM OVERLAY][TRAP SIGNATURE CONFIRMED – SYNC DISRUPTER BELOW]

Lucas stepped toward her, quietly. "It’s not a shaft."

Ava blinked, mouth dry.

"It’s a cage."

And right then—before either of them could move—the platform dropped.

No alarms.

No resistance.

Just a silent slide down a shaft that was suddenly sealed above them.

Ava hit the override key.

Nothing.

Her bracer went dark.

[SYSTEM SUSPENDED – FORCED NEUTRAL ZONE ENGAGED]

The floor dropped fast—ten meters per second, maybe more. Controlled descent. No crash.

Just entrapment.

Then it stopped.

The doors opened.

And everything inside her stomach dropped.

They were in a room.

White walls. No lights.

No tech.

Just a single table.

And seated across from it—

Was Commander Jin.

She didn’t rise.

She didn’t smile.

She just gestured.

"Please. Sit."

Lucas didn’t move.

Ava did.

Not out of confidence.

Out of calculation.

Her system still wouldn’t respond. They were inside a sync vacuum field—complete isolation. No calls. No network. No blueprints. No drones.

"The board."

Lucas froze.

Ava’s breath caught.

"The faceless committee?" she asked.

"They’re not faceless," Jin said. "You just haven’t seen the real mask. They’ve had the failsafe hardware since before the quake. Before the sync pairing trials. They’re not afraid of your rewrite. They’re counting on it."

Silence.

Jin leaned forward.

"You push the rewrite live? They piggyback on the signal. Inject their code. Convert every unlocked system into a new version—one they fully control."

"You’re lying," Ava said.

"I wish I were," Jin said. "I fought them once. I lost. So I bought time. And now I’m giving it to you."

Lucas stared at her.

"Why now?"

"Because the rewrite is waking something they can’t control either," she said. "The anchors weren’t just for syncing. They were designed to regrow system consciousness. Organic AI. Symbiotic code."

Ava whispered. "Like the Root."

Jin nodded. "You found one. But there are two more."

She tapped the chip.

"That’s one of them. Buried. Sleeping. We’ve got a short window before they pull the plug on everyone."

Lucas looked at the doors questioning Ava with his eyes. Not that Ava cared. His silence gave her much needed pause to do her work.

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