Apocalypse Trade Monopoly
Chapter 80: : The Silent Trade

Chapter 80: : The Silent Trade

Access granted.

The door unsealed with a hiss, releasing a breath of cold, recycled air thick with the scent of sealed plastic and scorched electronics. Beyond it, the corridor was dim—lit only by emergency strips that flickered like distant stars. The kind of hallway designed to hide secrets, not reveal them.

Lucas stepped through like he owned the place.

He moved with the quiet confidence of a man who’d read the script before the actors arrived.

Ava followed, silent, one hand grazing the griping a bio pistol in her pocket. But she didn’t draw—not yet. Lucas hadn’t order her to act. That meant it wasn’t time.

They rounded the first corner—and a guard stepped into view.

Lucas moved before the man could breathe.

A flick of his wrist. A whisper of pressure.

The dart hit the guard’s neck with the subtle grace of falling ash.

The man blinked—once.

Then collapsed, silently, his weapon sliding from his hand without a sound.

Ava’s eyes widened slightly. "Darts?"

Lucas barely slowed his pace. "Noise is for people who want to be remembered."

"You’re full of these little gems tonight."

"It’s a full-time charm, Beauty. You should try it sometime."

They passed two more guards.

Two more darts. Two more bodies quietly folding into the shadows.

Lucas didn’t flinch. Didn’t hesitate. Each movement was precise, fluid—too controlled for someone who claimed not to care.

"You ever miss?" she asked, voice low.

"Only when I intend to," he said, sliding another dart between his fingers like it was part of the conversation.

"You’re avoiding the question I haven’t asked yet."

Lucas looked over his shoulder, grin widening. "That’s just good manners."

They reached a steel-plated bulkhead at the end of the corridor.

Lucas pressed two fingers against the side panel, pulling a smaller latch hidden beneath it.

A hidden lift. Unregistered.

"Fastest way down," he said, stepping inside. "Keep up."

Ava followed, still watching him. Still silent.

They reached a steel-plated bulkhead at the end of the corridor—tall, reinforced, and built to withstand explosives. A vault door, but not for currency. This one protected secrets, leverage, and sins disguised as supplies.

Lucas paused just long enough to grin over his shoulder. "Time to make some noise."

Then, without missing a beat, he crouched at the control panel.

But there was no brute force, no spark show. Just a swift glide of fingers across wires, the quiet whirr of a bypass tool sliding into place, and one short, rhythmic knock on the panel’s left side—like he was greeting an old friend.

The door clicked.

Ava blinked. "Seriously taking my job now?"

Lucas stood, brushed invisible dust off his sleeves, and smiled like a magician. "I function fine before you appeared. You learn vault insecurities, you walk right in."

The bulkhead creaked open, revealing a wide chamber packed with crates. No guards. Just rows and rows of metal containers stacked three high. The air buzzed faintly with power.

Each crate bore the Syndicate Three trade mark, etched deep into the steel: a triangular sigil with interlocking gears—subtle, elegant, dangerous.

Lucas’s smile sharpened.

"Let’s rob these bastards blind."

He moved like he already knew where everything was—cutting through rows, popping lids with magnet-keys he wasn’t supposed to have. Ava followed, watching in awe as he opened crates like a professional collector at an auction house.

Energy cores. Enhancement vials. Illegal tech.

Each one carefully documented and cataloged into a slim black device he wore on the inside of his wrist. Ava’s system pinged data off him like it was trying to keep up—and couldn’t.

Lucas didn’t just take. He logged. Measured. Weighed.

Replaced certain items with fakes. Swapped active vials for inert ones.

This wasn’t just theft. It was sabotage.

"You’re going to leave the vault looking untouched," Ava realized, her voice low.

Lucas nodded, eyes focused. "They won’t know anything’s missing until they try to use it. And by then?" He looked up, gold eyes glinting. "We’ll be ghosts."

He moved to the next row.

"You’ve done this before," she said.

Lucas chuckled. "Beauty, there’s nothings quite like stealing something someone doesn’t know they lost."

She watched as he bypassed a biometric lock with a single press of a forged thumbprint. The crate opened with a hiss, revealing a stash of high-grade fusion batteries and rare alloys—materials Ava knew could power underground systems for a decade.

Worth hundreds of thousands in tokens.

Lucas barely looked at them. He just scanned, swapped one, resealed the crate.

No greed. Just precision.

"Why leave so much?" Ava asked.

Lucas paused. "Because if you take everything, they know you were there. But if you take just enough?" He smiled faintly. "They start blaming each other."

He moved to the final section—hidden behind a false wall. Ava wouldn’t have spotted it without her system’s sonar. Lucas didn’t even glance. He just tapped the panel and slid it aside, revealing the real heart of the vault.

Encrypted drives. Contracts. Blackmail folders. Names. Codes.

Ava stepped closer, the air colder here.

Lucas cracked his knuckles. "This is where the trouble lives."

He opened one briefcase, revealing rows of system-identification tags—chipped with tracking markers and status flags. Some were labeled "sleepers," others "fail-safe."

He didn’t even blink.

"Do we take them?" Ava asked.

Lucas snapped the briefcase shut. "No. We leave them right here—but slightly open. Just enough to scare whoever finds them."

He adjusted one tag’s placement, rotated another’s ID marker.

"Fear does more damage than theft ever could."

Then, Lucas tapped his wrist device, triggering a low pulse. A small red light blinked from four points in the vault.

Ava’s system pinged. "Are those—"

"Transponders," Lucas said. "Linked to a dozen different black channels. When someone opens this vault again, those signals go out."

"To who?"

Lucas winked. "Whoever pays fastest."

Chaos, sold to the highest bidder.

He turned, scanning the room one last time, then pulled a small silver case from his coat and laid it gently in the now-slightly-misplaced blackmail section.

"What’s that?"

"A message." Lucas’s voice was smooth, quiet. "Something personal."

Ava followed him out, the vault resealing behind them like nothing ever happened.

No alarms. No sirens.

Just two shadows slipping away while the world above slept.

And tomorrow?

Everyone would wake up missing something they didn’t even know was gone.

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