The Core Hub’s lower levels were a labyrinth of forgotten tunnels and derelict chambers, a graveyard of technology long past its prime. Here, neon lights flickered erratically, casting the cracked walls in a sickly, shifting glow. The stale air hung heavy with the scent of synthetic smoke and engine oil, a fitting ambiance for the underbelly of the orbital city that drifted far beyond any central government’s reach.

  Vero Decantos strolled through the narrow, dimly lit corridors with a practiced swagger. His boots clacked against the metal grating, their sound swallowed by the cacophony of a hundred voices screaming deals, threats, and drunken curses into the gloom. The Broker liked to think of himself as the maestro of this chaotic symphony, conducting the underworld’s business with a light touch and a razor-edged grin.

  Tonight, however, business wasn’t going as smoothly as he would’ve liked. He pushed open a creaking door, entering the back room of The Rusted Halo, one of the few places in the Hub that wouldn’t try to stab him in the back for his credits. At least, not without negotiating first.

  The room’s air was thick with smoke from synth-cigarettes and a few more exotic substances that could strip the paint off a starcruiser’s hull. The glow of holo-displays bathed the cramped space in an unearthly blue, throwing shadows that writhed along the stained walls. Vero’s eyes darted around, taking in the familiar sight of broken furniture, leaking pipes, and a few unsavory characters nursing drinks at the corner tables. This was his kind of place: a hideout for the desperate, the cunning, and the damned.

  “Late, as always,” came a guttural rasp from the shadows.

  Clink emerged from the corner, a mountain of mismatched metal and scar tissue. His limbs were a patchwork of crude prosthetics, scavenged parts bolted onto ruined flesh. Vero had never bothered to ask what had happened to the man’s original arms—he figured it was a story he didn’t need to hear. The mask covering Clink’s face was expressionless, its surface worn smooth by years of use, but the soft red glow behind the eye slits tracked Vero’s every move.

  “Time is relative,” Vero said with a grin, tossing a datachip onto the grimy table. “What matters is I’m here now. And I’ve got something worth your metal knuckles.” He slumped into a chair, immediately kicking his feet up, letting his worn-out boots rest on the table as if he owned the place. In a way, he did. No one in these parts made a move without Vero’s say-so, at least not if they wanted to live long enough to spend their credits.

  Clink’s only response was a slow, mechanical hum as he scanned the chip. His fingers, more like serrated clamps, handled the delicate piece of tech with surprising gentleness. “Rumor… Destruction chip...” The words came out like broken code, each one a struggle against the torn-up vocal cords and poorly installed enhancements.

  “Yeah, yeah, that’s what they’re calling it.” Vero leaned forward, a spark of amusement dancing in his dark eyes. “But who’s to say it’s even a chip? Half the junk that comes through here is either broken beyond repair or a trap set by Nexus to flush out rebels.”

  As if to punctuate his point, the lights overhead flickered. In this part of the Core Hub, power was as unreliable as a scoundrel’s promise. Vero had gotten used to the darkness—hell, he thrived in it.

  Clink turned the chip over, examining its holographic markings. “They… say… it can end Nexus.”

  Vero snorted. “Sure, and I’ve got a plasma blade that can cut through a moon. Get real, Clink. If a chip like that actually existed, Nexus would’ve melted the station to slag to keep it out of circulation.” He watched Clink’s mechanical jaw clench and release, an unsettling grinding sound that echoed through the tiny room.

  But Vero couldn’t deny there was something... peculiar about the data he’d managed to pull. The rumors had started a few cycles ago, whispers in dark corners about an artifact capable of toppling the AI that controlled half the galaxy. To most, it was a fairy tale, a story to give hope to the hopeless. But to Vero, stories were the best kind of currency.

  Still, there was a nagging itch at the back of his mind. His contacts weren’t prone to hyperbole, and the desperation in their encrypted messages had been palpable. It wasn’t just the usual scum looking to make a quick profit—there were whispers of old factions stirring, rogue splinters of the once-mighty Interstellar Alliance, all hunting the same prize.

  “Word on the corridors is Nexus’s cronies are scouring the entire quadrant,” Vero said, tapping the side of his head. “And if they’re that desperate, that means whatever they’re after is more than just a fancy piece of tech.”

  Clink’s fingers tightened around the chip until Vero worried it might shatter. “If not chip… then what?”

  Vero leaned back, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “That’s the billion-credit question, my friend. It’s why I need you sniffing around. See if anyone’s been making moves that don’t fit the usual patterns. There’s always a loose thread somewhere. We just have to pull it.”

  Clink nodded stiffly, the movement jerky, like a puppet with tangled strings. Without another word, he turned toward the exit, his heavy footsteps reverberating through the metal floor. As he reached the door, Vero called out, “Oh, and Clink—try not to kill anyone we might need later, alright?”

  Clink didn’t respond, but Vero caught the faintest twitch in the man’s shoulders—a sign that his request might actually be considered.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  The door to the grimy bar swung shut behind Clink, the hydraulic hiss mingling with the distant hum of the city's decaying infrastructure. Vero watched the hulking figure disappear into the haze of the undercity streets, shaking his head. Clink was reliable enough, if one didn’t mind the occasional bout of selective listening.

  As Clink lumbered away, Vero’s pulled out his Terminal. The cracked screen displayed the intercepted Nexus directive: an encrypted data burst, full of cryptic codes and fragmented intel. Something big was happening out in the fringes, something that had Nexus scrambling to deploy one of their Exalted squads. Vero’s fingers danced over the keys, decrypting another snippet.

  “Zero-VI Station,” he muttered, squinting at the fuzzy details. He’d heard of it—a relic from humanity's early days of star exploration, long abandoned by any sane traveler. The station was so ancient it still had physical archives. The absurdity of that made Vero snort. Nexus must be truly desperate if they were digging around a place that still used paper records.

  But the real curiosity lay in the mention of a “Destruction Protocol.” Vero’s brow furrowed as he cross-referenced the term against his extensive black-market database. Every hit he got was scrubbed, redacted, or flagged with warnings from Nexus’s higher echelons. Whatever it was, it wasn’t just another digital artifact; it was something that required boots on the ground, hands-on retrieval. And now, those boots were headed to Zero-VI.

  He leaned back, pondering his next move, when the terminal pinged with an incoming call. The display blinked with the ID: Ramos - Freelance Information Broker. Vero hesitated, then accepted the connection. Ramos was one of the few people in this sector who had a nose for trouble—and wasn’t shy about selling what he knew.

  The screen flickered, revealing a grizzled man with a mess of silver hair and cybernetic eyes that flickered with shifting data streams. “Vero, you sly bastard,” Ramos greeted with a gravelly laugh. “What’s got you poking around Nexus channels again? You know they don’t like being spied on.”

  “Yeah, well, they’re not exactly forthcoming with invitations,” Vero replied dryly. “What do you know about Zero-VI?”

  Ramos’s grin faltered, replaced by a look of genuine surprise. “Zero-VI? That old hunk of metal’s still on your radar? Thought you preferred more... current affairs.”

  “Save the small talk, Ramos. If I wanted to chat, I’d call my mother,” Vero said, leaning forward. “I’ve got half a dozen encrypted Nexus signals screaming about something they’re after there. And I get the feeling it’s not just old data files.”

  Ramos scratched at his stubbly chin, his cybernetic eyes flickering as he pulled up his own feeds. “You’re not wrong. Nexus has gone quiet about this one, even to their own people. Whatever they’re after, it’s got them spooked.” He paused, leaning in as if to emphasize his next words. “And it’s not digital.”

  Vero’s eyes narrowed. That lined up with his own suspicions. “Then what is it?”

  Ramos leaned back in his chair, his fingers dancing across a holographic interface only he could see. The faint hum of his mechanical eyes synced with the movements, creating an eerie rhythm. “It’s an artifact," he said slowly, almost as if weighing the consequences of speaking the words. "A physical one. Ancient. And no one really knows what it does… but whatever it is, it’s been buried for a reason.”

  Vero felt the tension coil in his gut. “A relic, huh? And Nexus is willing to risk everything for this… thing?”

  “Yeah,” Ramos replied, nodding. “You have to understand, Nexus doesn’t get spooked easily. They deal with all sorts of screwed-up tech, ancient and new, but this… this thing's different. They’ve been tracking it for decades, but it’s always been just out of reach.”

  Vero exhaled sharply, trying to suppress the gnawing suspicion creeping up his spine. “Why now?”

  "Maybe they think they can finally figure it out, unlock what’s buried deep in that wreck of a station. Or maybe they’re just throwing everything they have left at it before someone else does.”

  Vero stared at the terminal, his mind whirling. Something didn’t sit right. Nexus was known for their ruthless, calculated moves, and this? This wasn’t like them. There was too much at stake for a simple data retrieval. He’d played this game long enough to know when someone was hiding more than they were showing.

  “Is it a weapon, then?” he asked, voice steady despite the growing weight in his chest.

  Ramos’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Could be. Could be a lot of things. But the one thing it definitely is… is dangerous. Don’t be fooled into thinking this is just another easy payday. This mission? It could break you, Vero. Or worse.”

  Vero leaned back in his chair, his fingers tapping lightly against the cold metal. The faint hum of the terminal buzzed in the silence between them. His expression remained inscrutable, but inside, old memories churned—images of scorched fields, of shouts drowned in static, of a name whispered in anger. He wasn’t just interested in Nexus secrets; he needed them, in the way someone drowning needed air. He wasn’t about to let that show, though. Not to Ramos.

  “I didn’t get where I am by running from danger,” Vero said, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “I've never really been afraid of the unknown.”

  Ramos’s gaze sharpened, lingering on him for a beat too long. “That’s your problem, Vero. Always chasing things you don’t understand.” His voice softened, almost as if offering a warning. “Fine. But if you go after this, don’t expect to walk out without consequences.”

  The words should have landed like a threat, but Vero welcomed them like a dare. He stood up, brushing his coat into place, his movements deliberate and unhurried. A surge of anticipation coursed through him, filling the hollow spaces in his chest. “I’ve faced worse,” he said, his voice edged with something between defiance and conviction. “I’ll find what Nexus is hiding. And if it’s something worth dying for, well… I’ll figure that out too.”

  For a moment, Ramos’s face was unreadable, but then he shook his head, a mixture of resignation and something closer to pity flashing briefly across his features.

  “You’re diving into the void, Vero. Just make sure it doesn’t swallow you whole.”

  Vero turned back to the terminal, the glow of its display casting sharp shadows across his face.

  Zero-VI. The name lingered, heavy with implication, as if weighted by the ghosts of things better left buried. His fingers hovered over the terminal’s controls before he logged out, the faint hum of the system silencing. A realization settled over him, one that drew a sharp breath he hadn’t intended to take.

  “Wait… didn’t Kaden worked there?” The question lingered, sharp with bitterness, as the terminal’s screen faded to black.

  How many pillows do you use when you sleep?