Apocalypse Trade Monopoly
Chapter 87: : Quiet Morning

Chapter 87: : Quiet Morning

Ava’s eyes opened to low, filtered light.

For a moment, she didn’t know where she was. No walls shaking. No orders shouted. No system alerts flashing red.

Just... stillness.

Her body felt heavy, but not in a bad way. Like something had actually worked. She blinked hard, the room slowly sharpening into focus—the metal walls, the faint hum of ventilation, the single bed across from her.

Lucas sat on the edge of it, tying his boots.

He looked up when he heard her shift.

"Morning, Sleeping Beauty."

Ava groaned."How long was I out?"

"Eleven hours."

Her eyes widened."That’s—"

"Longer than usual, yeah. Your system forced it. You needed it." He stood, stretching his arms over his head. "Still breathing. Consider it a win."

Ava sat up slowly, rolling her shoulders."Alright. What’s the plan?"

Lucas slung his coat over one shoulder, already halfway to the door."We walk. Bai Manor’s two zones north that about 15 miles, through the old city sectors. But we’ll hit a few stops along the way."

Ava narrowed her eyes."What kind of stops?"

"Supermarkets." He turned with a grin. "Two of them. One big, one hidden. Not for snacks—well, maybe a few—but mostly gear. Stockpiles the military missed or buried."

Ava stood, shaking off the last of her stiffness."And you’re sure they’re untouched?"

"I’m not sure about anything." He shrugged. "But I paid three people to map the route and mark what’s still intact. So unless one of them lied—"

"They always lied."

"—we’re going shopping."

Ava shot Lucas a flat look as he tapped the side of his head, the edge of a smirk already forming.

"Don’t worry, Beauty. I updated the sync while you were passed out drooling against a wall."

"I don’t drool."

"You definitely snore."

Ava grabbed her coat but didn’t rise to the bait.

"Sync with what, exactly?"

Lucas held out his hand, and with a flick of his fingers, his system glowed faint gold across his skin.

[SYSTEM SYNC – MONOPOLY APPRAISAL + BLUEPRINT CHANNEL: STABLE]

[DATA CROSSFLOW: ACTIVE – 94% EFFICIENCY]

"I ran a clean link between our systems," he said, adjusting the strap on his pack. "Mapped the region between here and Bai Manor using your structure scan logs and my valuation grids. Pulled environmental data from the last year, layered in potential salvage points, chokeholds, collapsed zones, and one restricted thermal dump site we are absolutely not going near."

Ava blinked slowly.

"When did you do all that?"

"Around hour three of your coma." He gave her a glance. "To be fair. It’s been a fun three weeks since we started syncing. I mostly use your system data for tech scrap IDs—but the analysis on beast cores? That’s been delicious."

He flicked his wrist again, pulling up a translucent panel only he could see.

[ITEM LOG: INFUSED ENERGY CORES – BEAST CLASS D TO B+]

[VALUE TREE: CORE PURITY → CRAFTING MODIFIERS → TRADE MULTIPLIER]

[RECOMMENDED EXTRACTION STRATEGY: QUICK SEVERANCE + LOW HEAT CONTAINMENT]

Lucas smiled like a thief with a blueprint to every vault in the world.

"With your readings, I can tell which cores give the best returns before I touch them. The last one? Found it inside a crawler. Worth three times what the market thought. Already flipped it through Noah’s network."

Ava narrowed her eyes.

"You’ve been using my system while I sleep."

Lucas held up both hands, grinning.

"Relax. I left you full access to everything I found. Including the stockpile cache we’re headed to next."

He turned toward the sealed door and paused, just for a beat.

"I scouted the area yesterday. Hid the bike two blocks down in a collapsed substation—mapped three safe zones, two fallback spots, and one sniping nest in case we’re followed. But so far? Dead quiet."

"You did all that alone?"

"You were snoring."

"Still not funny."

Lucas keyed the door open, light bleeding in through the narrow gap.

He looked back over his shoulder as the dust drifted in.

"Let’s go get rich, Beauty."

Ava step up the lader and moving out of Lucas way as he crouched beside the hatch, fingers running along the edge where steel met concrete. He pressed down, checked the seal, then flipped a small switch hidden behind the frame. The metal shifted with a satisfying click, locking tight.

"It’ll hold." He brushed the dust off his hands and turned toward the road. "Let’s move."

Ava stared down the broken stretch of concrete ahead, already sighing.

"Still think we should’ve kept the bike."

"Too loud," Lucas replied, already walking. "Draws attention. This way’s slower, but smarter."

"I hate smarter."

"I know. But you’re too practical to stop being it."

Ava muttered something that sounded suspiciously like a curse and adjusted her pack.

The morning was dry, the wind sharp but not biting.

They walked in sync, boots thudding soft against gravel and metal. No one else in sight. No noise except the soft sound of Lucas humming some tuneless rhythm under his breath.

Ava glanced at him sideways.

He looked... smug.

"You’re unusually chipper for someone who made me walk five miles before Lunch."

Lucas tilted his head toward her, not missing a beat."I’m in excellent company. My system’s fully synced, I’ve got a working trade map, and I’m heading to a manor full of weapons, resources, and unspent favors." He flashed her a grin. "What’s not to like?"

Ava snorted."You forgot your charming personality."

"Impossible. That’s the first thing I pack."

She tried not to smile. Failed slightly.

Lucas caught it.

"See? I am charming."

"You’re tolerable."

"Liar." He leaned in slightly as they walked, voice low and smooth. "You wouldn’t have held on so tight if you didn’t like me just a little."

Ava shot him a warning glance."I was trying not to fall off a moving death machine."

"That’s one interpretation."

She looked away, lips twitching despite herself.

Lucas slowed for a step, letting her catch up so they were side by side again.

"You know," he said suddenly, voice softer, "if things had been different... the world, I mean... I might’ve met you in a different way."

Ava blinked.

Lucas kept walking, calm, like he hadn’t just dropped something heavy between them. Then he spoke again—quieter, sharper now, with none of the usual charm to soften the edge.

"Look, we’re partners in this. No games. So let’s just get this out."

Ava slowed, eyeing him warily.

Lucas didn’t stop. His voice was casual, but something underneath was too precise—like he’d practiced saying it, or thought about it too long.

"The three weeks I was gone? I wasn’t just trading." He glanced at her. "I was digging. Ran some diagnostics on the sync while you were sleeping. Got access to a few back-channel data streams I shouldn’t have."

Ava’s stomach tightened slightly.

He continued.

"Turns out, the system sync isn’t just tactical. It’s biological."

She stopped walking.

Lucas did too, this time. He turned to face her, hands tucked in his coat pockets, golden eyes unreadable.

"It rewires things. Buries access keys deep. Starts merging behavioral patterns. Neural adaptation." A pause. "Technically, it’s a kind of marriage. Between systems. Between people."

Ava stared at him, jaw tight."You’re saying we’re—"

"Bonded." He said it plainly. "System-bound. Every upgrade you make feeds back into me. Every item I appraise cross-references through your scan logs. We’re locked into a loop. Long-term."

"And you just found this out now?"

Lucas gave a slow nod."Only the deeper levels. Most people never go that far. The sync we did? That wasn’t basic." He met her eyes. "You made it stable. That’s rare."

Ava was quiet for a long second.

Lucas fell into step beside her, and when she didn’t stop him, he kept talking.

"I got my hands on case studies." His tone had shifted—clinical now, more business than banter. "You and I know of two synced pairs, right?"

Ava gave a slight nod.

"I found nine more. Hidden logs. Fragments from labs and buried blacksite servers. Military ran experiments on sync pairs. So did private syndicates. Not all were volunteers."

Ava didn’t like the sound of that."What did you find?"

"Patterns," Lucas said. "Once sync reaches full depth—between six days and six months depending on frequency of contact and system compatibility—there’s spillover. Instinct-level reaction time. Cross-boosted regeneration. Co-dependency modifiers."

He glanced at her.

"One subject could lift a car the other was visualizing. Another pair survived an ambush because one of them felt the incoming threat before the sensors picked it up."

Ava raised an eyebrow."That doesn’t sound like tech."

"It’s not. It’s borderline instinctual—merged neurofeedback loops. Your system reads blueprints, mines structure data. My system parses value, probability, and potential. The more synced we are, the more those systems talk."

"What’s the tradeoff?"

"We don’t know." His voice dropped. "None of the reports went far enough. Most terminated early, or went dark. Too risky, or someone didn’t want the data shared."

Ava narrowed her eyes."You think that’s what happened to the other synced pairs?"

Lucas didn’t answer directly.

"There’s interesting data I’m digging now is on energy cores." He pulled up a scan from his wristband, the light flickering across his face. "Everyone knows energies cores are values—but I’ve seen hints. Notes of experiments."

"And?"

"There is a high possiblity that energy cores can be used to upgrade systems directly." His voice was tight. Controlled. "Not as external components. Internal fusion. But the process is missing. No one is sharing it. Either they’re dead or keeping it off-grid just like the pairings."

Ava kept walking, slower now.

Her mind spinning.

Lucas walked beside her, voice low.

"If we can find that process...." He looked at her. "We become untouchable."

The city loomed ahead, quiet and broken.

But now, Ava saw something else beneath the rubble.

Possibility.