The first thing I hear is wind.

  Sharp, howling, and dry—like it’s blowing through empty metal. Then the hum of something mechanical near my ear. A loose wire flickers on the dashboard. I open my eyes slowly.

  I’m in a car.

  Not April’s.

  A different one—low, military-green finish with a matte sheen. Scratched and dented. There's a broken panel near the gear lever and the faint smell of oil and burnt plastic in the air. Sunlight streams in through a cracked window. Outside, there’s noise—sirens, yelling, something distant exploding. It sounds like chaos, but muffled.

  I sit up quickly.

  My head throbs instantly.

  Where the hell am I?

  My phone is in my hand. Dead screen. I hold the button down and it lights up. Notifications flood in like a dam breaking.

  13 missed calls – APRIL

  4 unread messages – JUDY

  1 new contact request – UNKNOWN

  And something else. I reach into my jacket pocket and pull out a small, padded case. Inside are three thin vials, emerald green and glowing faintly through the glass.

  Venom.

  I’ve only heard whispers about it. A prototype from Droigland, one of the more ruthless tech corps—designed for military use, but never released. It was said to boost cognition, reflexes, even physical strength. But it was never supposed to leave the labs.

  How the hell did I get these?

  I open my other messages. Nothing helpful. Just more calls from April. Then I scroll back up and hit “Call.”

  She picks up on the second ring, voice sharp enough to cut through steel.

  “OSKAR? Where the hell are you?!”

  “I—I don’t know. I just woke up in a car.”

  “A car?! It’s been two days! Do you even remember what happened?!”

  “No,” I say, my throat dry. “I don’t even remember falling asleep. One second I was at your place and then... I don’t know.”

  “You missed the drop. We had everything ready. Judy, Ember, me—waiting on you. We thought something happened. We almost pulled out. Do you know how bad that makes us look?!”

  I rub my forehead. “I didn’t do this on purpose. I swear.”

  She pauses on the other end. Her tone shifts slightly.

  “Where are you?”

  I look around. Through the dirty windshield, I can see the edge of an industrial zone, filled with shipping containers, drones buzzing overhead, and flashing red lights down the street. Armed responders are locking down an area behind a barricade. I don’t recognize any landmarks.

  “No idea. Somewhere near South Aether shipping district, I think.”

  “I’m coming to get you. Stay put.”

  The line goes dead.

  She’s definitely mad at me. Rightfully so. But can you really blame me?

  I lean back in the seat, the vials still in my hand. I stare at them. I don’t know who gave them to me or how I ended up with them, but for now, I’m not telling April. Not yet.

  Something’s off about all of this. I can feel it.

  I slip the vials back into my pocket and look around, trying to get my bearings. The chaos outside feels too familiar. Too much like something I’ve seen before. It’s like the whole city’s on the edge of exploding, and I’m caught in the middle of it.

  But the vials… I need to keep them hidden for now.

  I’m not sure who to trust anymore.

  I sit there for what feels like an eternity, my mind buzzing and my body tense. Every second I wait feels like a million. The vials in my pocket are a constant reminder of the chaos unfolding, and the more I think about them, the more uneasy I feel.

  Something doesn’t add up.

  April said two days have passed. I haven’t the faintest idea of what happened during that time. My body aches like I’ve been put through a blender, but there’s nothing to show for it. No injuries. No memories.

  When I finally hear the screech of tires on gravel outside, I snap out of my thoughts. I look out the cracked window to see a sleek, black vehicle with tinted windows pulling up beside the car. It’s April, probably—she’s not wasting any time.

  I quickly shove the vials deeper into my pocket, just in case. The last thing I need is for her to start asking questions I can’t answer.

  The car door opens with a slight squeak. She steps out, her long coat trailing behind her, looking as composed as always, but there’s an edge to her that wasn’t there before. Her eyes scan the area quickly, locking on the car I’m in. She strides over, and I immediately push open the door to meet her.

  “Did you forget how to answer your calls?” she asks, her voice still sharp, but there’s a hint of relief mixed with frustration in it.

  “I didn’t know what was going on. I’m sorry,” I mutter, rubbing the back of my neck. I’m trying to sound calm, like I’m not completely lost.

  April doesn’t look convinced. “You’ve been gone for two days, Oskar. Two days. And now you're just waking up in some random car? What the hell happened?”

  I shrug, feeling like I'm barely keeping it together. “I don’t know. I didn’t even remember falling asleep. I think someone messed with my head, April.”

  She narrows her eyes, her expression hardening. “This sounds like more than just a simple blackout. But we’ll get to that later. We need to move now.”

  I nod, swallowing the lump in my throat. She’s right. There’s no time to waste. I’m already dragging us both into something bigger than I can control.

  April turns, leading me toward her car. “Get in. I’ll explain everything on the way.”

  I do, feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders as I settle into the passenger seat.

  The car hums to life, and we drive through the chaos of the district, the flashing red lights of emergency vehicles casting long shadows across the streets.

  “I thought you’d be pissed,” I say, trying to ease the tension.

  “I am pissed, Oskar,” she replies, her tone steady but full of restrained anger. “But you’re a part of this now. We don’t have the luxury of time.”

  She glances at me quickly, her hands gripping the wheel tight, but she doesn’t say anything more. The tension in the air thickens, and I know she’s holding something back. Whatever happened during those two missing days is worse than she’s letting on.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  As the car speeds through the streets, I try to think of something—anything—to make sense of what I’ve just woken up to. What was I even supposed to be doing? I should’ve been there for the mission, but I couldn’t even remember getting to the point where I could help.

  I glance at her, then back at the road.

  “You still haven’t told me what my role in all of this is, April,” I say, the frustration creeping back into my voice.

  She lets out a long sigh. “It’s not about a single role, Oskar. You’ll figure it out as we go. But right now, it’s about survival. Survival and finding out who or what did this to you.”

  I nod, but something doesn’t sit right. I can feel my instincts telling me this isn’t just about survival anymore. There’s something bigger at play, and I’m tangled in it, deeper than I could’ve ever imagined.

  And I still haven’t told her about the vials.

  The ride back to April’s place is quiet.

  Not the peaceful kind of quiet, though—this one has weight to it. Her fingers drum the steering wheel in a rhythm that betrays her tension. The city outside blurs past us, all neon edges and flickering streetlights, but I barely register it. My thoughts are spiraling again, chasing shadows and fragments that refuse to settle into anything coherent.

  I keep my mouth shut. The vials are still in my pocket, and they burn against my leg like a brand. I'm not ready to talk about them yet. I don’t know what they are, what they mean, or how I even got them. All I know is they’re important. Dangerous, probably. But maybe important too.

  By the time we pull into the gated driveway of April’s estate, my brain feels like it’s running in circles. I catch myself watching her more than once. She doesn’t look at me, but I know she’s thinking hard. We both are.

  She leads the way inside, past the shimmering glass foyer and up the stairs into the main lounge. The lights adjust automatically to her presence, casting the room in a low, ambient glow. Ember and Judy are already here, sprawled on opposite ends of the oversized couch with drinks in hand. The Azuria bot—the same one April reprogrammed—is standing by the far wall, silent as a shadow.

  Judy glances up from her glass. “Look who finally decided to wake up.”

  Ember rolls her eyes, but there’s a flicker of concern beneath the sarcasm. “You good?”

  I offer a faint shrug. “Not sure yet.”

  April kicks off her boots and collapses into one of the lounge chairs. “We’ve done what we needed to. Right now, it’s a waiting game.”

  Ember looks over. “You mean the program’s running already?”

  April nods. “Slipped in clean through the maintenance subnet. Took a while, but it’s inside now. Pulling every dirty thread it can find and packing it into a neat little bombshell.”

  Judy grins. “And when it goes off, Stewart Namareth’s gonna wish he’d retired ten years ago.”

  I sit at the edge of the couch, eyes flicking to each of them in turn. “You’re seriously going after the CEO of AzuriaCorp.”

  April glances at me with a small smile. “We’re not going after him. We’re just letting the truth do the work.”

  “The guy’s entire image is spotless,” I say. “No one even knows what he does behind closed doors.”

  Ember sips her drink. “Exactly. And that’s what makes it fun.”

  April pulls a tablet off the side table and checks something on the screen. “The algorithm’s nearly halfway through his personal archives. Everything encrypted. Messages, transfers, off-book meetings, sketchy contracts—anything he thought he buried. We’re digging it up.”

  “And you’re sure this’ll work?” I ask.

  April leans her head back against the chair, a long breath slipping out. “If it doesn’t, then we’re in way deeper than I thought.”

  There’s a moment of silence, and I can feel all three of them watching the invisible clock tick in their minds. The room hums softly with the sound of the system's ventilation and distant music filtering in from somewhere deeper in the house.

  I should feel like I’m part of something here, like I’m on a team. But I don’t. Not yet. I still feel like the outsider. The guest in the house of rebels.

  And the vials in my pocket keep reminding me I’m hiding something.

  Eventually, April stands and heads toward the kitchen. “Anyone want something stronger?”

  Ember raises her glass. “I’m good.”

  Judy nods. “Same.”

  April glances back at me. I shake my head politely.

  She vanishes around the corner, her footsteps soft against the marble. The quiet returns, not quite comfortable but not tense either. Just... waiting.

  I lean back into the cushions and exhale. My fingers brush my pocket again, tracing the shape of the small glass tubes tucked inside. A gift from someone I don’t remember meeting. A piece of a puzzle I’m still blind to.

  Something tells me those vials are going to be important.

  I just hope I figure out how before it’s too late

  April returns a few minutes later with a drink in hand—something darker, richer. Not the sparkling garbage from before. She offers it to me without a word, and I take it, nodding once in silent appreciation. She settles back onto the sleek leather couch, her eyes catching mine just long enough to say you’re welcome without actually saying it.

  Ember stands and paces slowly across the open lounge, eventually stopping by one of the wide-paneled windows that overlook the dark valley below. The city’s skyline glows faint and distant, like an old memory pushed far off in the corner of the horizon. “You ever think about what’s gonna happen when this goes public?” she asks, her voice light but sharpened by something underneath.

  April exhales. “I think about it all the time.”

  Judy makes a sound close to a laugh. “You mean if. If it even gets out. You’re putting a lot of faith in a few lines of code.”

  April shrugs. “No choice but to. It’s already deep inside AzuriaCorp’s system. All we can do now is wait.”

  I take a sip of the drink. Smooth. Full-bodied. Definitely not whatever bubbly nothing she offered earlier. “So, what exactly happens when it’s done?”

  April turns toward me, her legs pulled up under her. “It waits for the scheduled trigger. Then it hits every known outlet—open nodes, blackline servers, independent news chains. Like setting fire to a forest and walking away.”

  Judy hums. “Stewart Namareth’s got a whole graveyard of skeletons waiting to be exhumed.”

  Ember stays quiet, arms folded as she watches the stars blink faintly above the trees. “What if it doesn’t work? What if the public doesn’t care?”

  April’s voice is low but steady. “Then we keep going. Keep hitting them where it hurts. Eventually, something breaks.”

  The silence that follows doesn’t feel awkward. It feels settled. Like this has been said before, again and again, in different rooms with different drinks in different parts of this mansion. It’s the same storm cloud just circling back.

  Outside, the wind whistles faint through the pine trees surrounding the estate. No noise from the city. No sirens or hover engines or neon ads. Just dark woods and old stone walls and enough quiet to make your thoughts echo.

  I swirl the glass in my hand, watching the light catch in the surface of the drink. I want to believe this’ll work. I want to believe this will matter. But the doubt keeps crawling at the edge of everything.

  The next morning, I wake up to the soft, unfamiliar scent of lavender and synthetic linen. Sunlight filters through tall, angled windows as birds—not drones—chirp faintly outside. April’s mansion is quiet, colder than I remembered. My room still feels like it belongs to someone else, which makes sense. It does.

  I sit on the edge of the bed for a moment, rubbing my eyes and shaking the weight of yesterday off my shoulders. Still no clue where that Venom came from. Still haven't told April. Maybe I could tell her today?

  Downstairs, I find Azuria in the kitchen.

  She’s not humming or blinking with artificial cheer. Instead, she’s moving with deliberate, practiced steps—dicing herbs, rotating a pan on the stove, adjusting the heat with her hand hovering a few centimeters above the sensor.

  She doesn’t turn when she says, “You’re awake.”

  “I guess you cook now,” I say, trying not to sound like I’m questioning it too hard.

  “I find the process… calming. April allows it.”

  I raise an eyebrow, leaning against the counter. “You’ve got some range. What are you making?”

  “Spiced lentils with grilled plant protein and toasted flatbread. Nutritional value optimized for your current hydration and caloric deficiency.”

  I blink. “Right. Of course.”

  We talk a little more—light conversation, mostly her asking questions she probably already has the answers to. I get the sense she’s learning how to sound more human, to talk without triggering suspicion. And she’s good at it. Scarily good.

  April’s gone, off somewhere without a message. Maybe she needed to think. Maybe she doesn’t want to deal with me right now. Either way, I take it as a sign.

  I grab the small black box from my bag. The one with the Venom vials. There's a label on the bottom I hadn’t noticed before, partially torn off. Just an address, smudged but legible. Midtown. Industrial side.

  I slip out without telling Azuria.

  The warehouse district hasn’t changed. Still smells like old oil and wet rust. Most places look abandoned, but that’s just how they like it out here. You don’t pay attention to what’s inside a building if the outside says don’t ask.

  The building the label led me to is squat and windowless, with a cracked steel door. I knock once.

  That’s all it takes.

  I feel the thud before I even register the movement. A shock to the back of my head, not hard enough to knock me out, but enough to stumble me forward. I try to turn but hands are already on me—three, maybe four bodies pinning me down, pulling a hood over my head.

  Someone says something I can’t hear and throw me into a car.

  The scent inside the car—if you can call it that—is burnt plastic and old leather. The ride is rough, fast, but I don’t say anything. I just focus on counting turns and time. It doesn’t help.

  We stop. The door opens. I’m yanked out and marched forward, footsteps echoing on polished stone or tile. Eventually, the hood comes off.

  I blink against the sudden light.

  I’m in a long, narrow room with dark wood paneling and a massive, high-tech table lit underneath by violet ambient lights. At the end of the table sits someone I never expected to see.

  Leonan Veyl.

  CEO of Artebot.

  His silver-blue eyes lock onto mine with the kind of calm that makes your blood feel heavier. He doesn’t smile. Doesn’t move.

  On either side of the table are others. I recognize two of them from press vids—chief officers at Artebot. Beside them, dressed in slate-gray with chrome accents, is Yura Sahn, CTO of NeoFactor. Security and vehicles. Big money. Next to her are three people I assume are lawyers, because they look like they’d rather be anywhere else.

  No one speaks.

  Not yet.

  They just look.

  And I have no idea what they want from me.