The steak was bleeding.
It sat on a plate of bone-white porcelain, a thick slab of muscle seared to perfection. Red juice pooled around the edges, soaking into the mashed potatoes.
Jason stared at it.
He hadn't seen real beef in three years. Not since the collapse. He had eaten rat, soy paste, and canned beans that tasted like tin. But this? This was a memory from a dead world.
"Eat," Alta Rockefeller said.
She sat at the head of the long mahogany table. The chandeliers above cast a fracturing, diamond light over the room. Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, the Babel Spire pulsed with a low, throbbing red light, humming like a headache.
Jason picked up his fork. The silver was heavy. Cold.
He looked at Sarah across the table.
She was slicing her meat with surgical precision. The knife scraped against the china. Screee. Screee. She put a piece in her mouth, chewed, and swallowed. Her face was blank.
"Cloned tissue," Alta said, dabbing her mouth with a linen napkin. "Grown in the labs on Level 20. No cows required. Just protein sequencing. It's cleaner."
"It tastes like copper," Jason said. He cut a piece. He forced himself to eat it. The flavor was rich, iron-heavy, and cloying.
"It tastes like efficiency," Alta corrected. She swirled her wine—a vintage Cabernet that probably cost more than a human life down in the Pit.
The dinner had been silent for twenty minutes. No threats. No business. Just the sound of chewing and the hum of the tower outside.
It was suffocating.
"How is the new job, Jason?" Alta asked casually. "I saw your reallocation of the protein supplies in the Pit. Bold move. Expensive."
"A hungry worker is a slow worker," Jason said, taking a sip of water. "I'm optimizing output."
"Or you're buying loyalty," Alta smiled thin. "Be careful, Jason. Loyalty bought with steak expires as soon as the meat runs out."
She pressed a button on the table.
A panel in the wall slid open.
Jason reached for the Derringer in his tuxedo pocket. His hand tightened on the pearl grip.
But it wasn't a robot. It was a drone.
The drone buzzed into the room, carrying a tray. But instead of dessert, the tray held a pair of handcuffs.
And dragging behind the drone, stumbling on a chain leash, was a man.
He was beaten. His face was a pulp of bruises. He wore the gray uniform of a factory foreman.
"Dessert," Alta announced.
The drone dropped the man to his knees at the foot of the table. He sobbed, blood bubbling from his lips.
"Please," the man wheezed. "Ms. Rockefeller... I didn't..."
"This is Mr. Halloway," Alta said, ignoring him. She picked up her wine glass. "Mr. Halloway was the shift supervisor for Sector 7. This morning, my security AI flagged an encrypted transmission from his terminal."
She looked at Sarah.
"He was selling schematics of the Babel Spire to the Timber Barons," Alta said. "For gold. Can you imagine? Gold. A heavy, useless metal."
Sarah stopped eating. She put her knife down.
"What do you want, Mother?" Sarah asked.
"I want to see if you're ready," Alta said.
She reached under the table. She pulled out a pistol. A heavy, black service revolver.
She slid it across the mahogany. It spun, coming to a stop in front of Sarah's plate.
"Loyalty is a garden, Sarah," Alta whispered. "You have to weed it."
The room went deadly still. The hum of the tower seemed to get louder.
"Kill him," Alta said.
Sarah looked at the gun. She looked at the sobbing man.
"He's a traitor," Alta pressed. "He sold our family secrets. In the old world, we would have sued him. In this world? We delete him."
"Sarah, don't," Jason said.
Alta's eyes snapped to Jason. "Quiet, employee. This is a family matter."
"If you do this," Jason told Sarah, ignoring Alta, "you don't come back. You cross a line."
"And if she doesn't?" Alta leaned forward. Her voice dropped to a hiss. "If she doesn't, then she is weak. And if she is weak, she cannot inherit. And if she cannot inherit... then I have no use for either of you."
She checked her watch.
"You have sixty seconds, Sarah. Or I liquidate Mr. Halloway, you, and your pet Irishman in the basement."
Sarah stood up.
She picked up the revolver.
It was heavy in her hand. Her dress rustled as she walked around the table.
She stood over the kneeling man. He looked up at her, tears streaming through the blood.
"Please," he begged. "I have a daughter."
Sarah's face didn't change. The mask was perfect. Cold. aloof.
She raised the gun. She aimed at his forehead.
Her finger tightened on the trigger. The hammer began to pull back.
Jason's heart hammered against his ribs. He saw it in her eyes. She was going to do it. She had calculated the cost, and she was willing to pay it.
No.
Jason couldn't let her pull that trigger. Not for Alta. Not for the mission.
He had to move. Now.
Jason stood up so fast his chair fell over. Crash.
"You're doing it wrong!" Jason shouted.
His voice was loud, slurred. He swayed on his feet, feigning drunkenness.
Alta looked at him, annoyed. Sarah hesitated, the gun still pointed at the man's head.
"Sit down, Jason," Alta warned.
"No!" Jason laughed. A manic, arrogant laugh. He walked toward Alta, stumbling slightly. "You're thinking small, Alta! That's your problem! You think like an accountant!"
He walked right up to her chair. He invaded her space.
"He sold secrets?" Jason leaned down, putting his hands on the arms of her chair, trapping her. His face was inches from hers. "So what? You kill him, you lose a supervisor. You lose the training cost. You lose the intel!"
Alta stared at him, her blue eyes wide with shock and disgust. She smelled of expensive perfume and cold ambition.
"Get off me," she hissed.
Jason didn't move. He reached into his pocket with his right hand. He palmed the scanner. Tesla's device.
"You don't kill a spy, Alta," Jason whispered, staring deep into her eyes. "You turn him. You feed him bad intel. You use him to poison the Barons!"
He brought his hand up, pretending to gesture wildly, but actually bringing the scanner within six inches of her face.
He needed three seconds.
One.
Alta stared at him. She didn't blink. She was too angry to blink.
"You are drunk," Alta spat. "And you are insolent."
Two.
The man on the floor whimpered. Sarah's gun hand trembled, just a fraction.
"I'm not drunk," Jason grinned, his eyes locked on hers. "I'm visionary. That's why you hired me."
Three.
The device in his palm vibrated. A short, sharp buzz against his skin.
Scan Complete.
Jason pulled back instantly. He stumbled away, putting distance between them. He slipped the scanner back into his pocket.
"But hey," Jason shrugged, throwing his hands up. "It's your company. Your weeds."
He looked at Sarah.
He had the key. The mission was a go. He signaled her with his eyes—a tiny, desperate flicker. Don't do it. We have what we need.
Sarah looked at Jason. She saw the relief in his eyes.
She looked at the crying man.
She looked at Alta.
Alta was rearranging her dress, furious. "Finish it, Sarah. Now."
Sarah took a breath.
She shifted her aim.
BANG.
The shot was deafening in the small room.
The bullet didn't hit the man's head. It hit the floor, three inches from his knee. Concrete chips exploded.
The man screamed and scrambled backward, wetting himself.
"Get out," Sarah said. Her voice was quiet, but it carried the weight of a gavel. "Report to the Pit. You work the sludge line until you die. Get out of my sight."
The man scrambled up and ran. He bolted out the door before the drone could stop him.
Silence returned to the room. The smell of cordite hung in the air, mixing with the smell of the steak.
Alta stared at the empty spot on the rug.
Then, she looked at Sarah.
Slowly, Alta started to clap.
Clap. Clap. Clap.
"Mercy," Alta said. "A calculated risk. You kept the asset, but destroyed his status. Crueler than death."
She smiled.
"You remind me of your father."
Sarah lowered the gun. She placed it on the table.
Her hand was shaking now. Just a little.
"I'm tired," Sarah said. "May we be excused?"
Alta waved a hand dismissively. "Go. The real work starts tomorrow."
Jason walked over to Sarah. He took her arm. He felt the tension vibrating in her muscles. She was a wire pulled to the breaking point.
They walked out of the dining room.
As the heavy doors closed behind them, blocking out the light of the chandeliers, Jason let out a breath he felt like he'd been holding for an hour.
He touched the scanner in his pocket.
They had the eye.
But looking at Sarah's pale, rigid face, Jason wondered if the cost of the key had been too high.
"You didn't kill him," Jason whispered.
"I wanted to," Sarah said. She didn't look at him. She stared down the dark hallway toward the roof access stairs. "For a second... I wanted to see the red."
She looked at Jason. Her eyes were dry.
"Let's go break her tower," Sarah said. "Before I change my mind."