"I've got an item you might be interested in," I said, resting a hand on the counter.

  The neural mod had elevated my Charisma, and I was ready to put it to use. However, the merchant still had little interest in me. His hands continued to move, sorting through the stack of old data slates as if I weren't even there.

  This kind of behaviour wasn't merely a sign of disinterest, but one of control. The negotiations had already started, and this pattern began long before words left your mouth.

  He'd seen me come in, likely noticing every detail and movement from the moment the door swung open. It was also possible that he had been monitoring the situation beforehand.

  Now, he was waiting, allowing the gravity of the situation to sink in before deciding whether we'd even negotiate, let alone what the item was worth.

  I cleared my throat, breaking the silence. "You seem like you've seen all sorts of things come through here. But what I've got... It's not your usual junk."

  I let the words hang in the air for a moment, watching him and waiting for a sign of acknowledgment.

  He finally looked up. "That so?"

  His expression remained unchanged. He continued to wear that bored look of disinterest, and his voice mirrored it.

  "Its importance is measured in blood," I said. "Getting it here wasn't easy. People died. All because of this."

  Milo died for it. There were likely many before it reached me. Probably a hell of a lot more.

  Whatever history it held before arriving in my hands would remain a mystery—but death always seemed to follow closely behind.

  Milo was proof of that.

  "Doubtful," the merchant said, his tone flat as old code, interest already fading.

  "Plenty of things in the Metaverse leave bodies behind. It doesn't necessarily make them valuable; they're just dangerous most of the time."

  "This one's different." My words came out strong and deliberate.

  "What makes it so different?" the merchant asked, his expression unchanged except for a slight, sarcastic raise of his right eyebrow.

  The neural mod was effective. I had the merchant's attention, and I observed a subtle shift in his demeanour.

  Now, the only thing to do was to keep it up long enough to make the trade. Then I was off to the first metagate out of this city. Once clear, I could wipe my trail, alter my identity, and jump anywhere I needed to be.

  Mixing wasn't something to take lightly. You paid the price, stepped through a mixer, and that was it.

  Once it was done, there was no undoing it. No resets were possible. Only the sharpest eyes—those who had spent thousands of hours honing their skills—could spot it.

  And those were the ones that mattered—the ones who were already looking for you.

  Mixers were for criminals and the desperate—people fleeing from their past or simply wanting to wipe their lives clean and start anew. Either way, once you mixed the old, you were gone. Or so it was believed.

  But a record stayed.

  A permanent trace. Buried, sure. But never truly gone.

  The tension was high, but the mod kept my voice steady and confident. I might have had no clue what I was selling, but I knew it had a cost.

  "Someone got their throat shot through over this," I said, slow and deliberate. "Not in some botched trade. Not in random crossfire. A hit. Executed right outside this shop. Precise. Clean. No last words. Assassinated."

  I allowed the silence to stretch. A moment passed. Then, I leaned in slightly.

  Then, out of seemingly nowhere, the drowning struck like a train.

  The holo-train. The kid. His hands clawed, his breath rattled, and the fear in his eyes as the fight left him. Too young, too weak. Desperate to live. The same fear I'd seen on Milo's face as his throat burned, his body sagging into dead weight, and I began to shake internally.

  No final words. No negotiations.

  I forced it down. I swallowed the weight, locked my jaw, and blinked hard. Focus. Now wasn't then. Now wasn't the time.

  I let my body settle. I couldn't let my terminal show. "And yet, here it is. Still moving through the system, breathing in the code, causing problems." The words landed, and I could feel them—a subtle weight behind my voice that wasn't just mine. Silver Tongue was doing its job.

  The merchant didn't react at first, but I noticed the slightest hesitation in how his fingers hovered over the display for just a fraction too long. It was as if he were gauging the negotiations, processing and calculating them; his next move was slow and deliberate.

  "Bodies stack over nothing all the time," he said, his tone even. "Let's see if this one's worth the count."

  The merchant accepted the bait and verbally agreed to trade.

  Now comes the actual game of completing it.

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  Every second counted. Every move had to bring me one step closer to the only thing that mattered: getting the Hel out of Helstalgia.

  I hardly had time to examine the merchant to initiate the trade before he beat me to it. A request appeared in my vision.

  He was quick. Decisive.

  It was also unusual for a merchant to initiate a trade. Either way, I accepted.

  More than just a trade window opened up.

  He was a merchant through and through. His inventory of goods spread out before me—a digital expanse of everything a man would kill for.

  New and old blasters resemble a collection Mega Man might possess after numerous victorious boss fights. Armour can transform a rat into a war machine. Neural mods and cybernetics promise power that makes one feel invincible.

  However, there were also genuine treasures.

  Spoofed identity chips were prepared for insertion. Some were clean, some dirty, and some linked to individuals who weren't even aware that someone had assumed their identity.

  A new name. A new past. A way out of a current Helstalgian life without leaving the city—if you have the credits to pay for it.

  I lingered on that one for a moment longer than I should have. Tempting. Too tempting. It was almost obvious, and it felt like it was targeted at me.

  I didn't want to stay and create a whole new identity. I wanted out. I wanted my past interactions to be unreadable and mixed.

  My eyes caught sight of the folder labelled Ghost Data.

  These contained packaged memories, fragments of consciousness, and personalities extracted from those at the brink of death, digitized into pure code.

  Some files were neatly sorted and labelled, but most were thrown in haphazardly. There was no way to know for sure what you would ultimately end up installing.

  You might install one and experience another's memories. Let it whisper in your ear, guide your hand—or worse, permit it to take complete control of you.

  I looked away before I found myself dwelling on it too much.

  Some things shouldn't be for sale.

  Most of this inventory was beyond my reach. Some of it wasn't intended for people like me at all. The merchant had left the negotiation portion of the window empty—a blank slate, a loaded silence. It felt intentional—an invitation to make the first mistake. Never be the first to show your cards.

  That emptiness reminded me of every bad deal I had ever walked into. Is that what this is? No, it couldn't be. The mission brought me right here.

  I let my eyes drift over his inventory again; feigning interest was a negotiation tactic I had acquired on my own.

  Make him believe I wasn't in a rush. Make him believe I was contemplating something else.

  The charisma buff had levelled the playing field initially, but now? Now, I had the upper hand. I'd dragged him this far, yet he hadn't backed out.

  The negotiations weren't solely about Neon. They are concerned about the right move—the right decision. A single misstep could shatter the illusion, which was the essence of the Undernet.

  With all the confidence that "Silver Tongue" could muster, I placed the fragment onto the countertop, where it appeared in the vacant negotiation tab.

  My move was deliberate and unshaken; I knew what this was worth.

  A pause.

  It felt like forever.

  The merchant examined the fragment, and I could see his eyes scanning the text that hovered in his vision. He remained silent.

  I could feel my stress levels rise, tension coiling tighter with every passing second, thick enough to cut with a plasma arc torch.

  The merchant finally picked up the fragment and turned it over in his hands. His fingers glided gently across its surface as if he were searching for something unseen. His expression remained unchanged, but the way he lingered over it made me feel uneasy.

  I waited.

  And then—the drowning.

  Thick. Thicker than water. If there was ever a moment tonight, it is now.

  I couldn't take it.

  As I waited, thoughts rushed in again, starting with the kid on the holo-train and ending with Milo, dragging through every person in between. My eyelids grew heavy, and my breath became shallower.

  The drowning pulled me under.

  My hands, while empty, still felt as if something slick was covering them. Blood. Fresh. Warm.

  My breath hitched.

  No. Not now.

  His voice brought me back to the present. "Curious."

  The merchant continued to turn the fragment in his hands, revealing his struggle to decide whether the trade was worthwhile.

  Then, an offer appeared.

  The amount quickly ticked upward, stopping at 5,000 Neon.

  My gut twisted.

  That was precisely the amount Milo had on him when I looted his corpse. It wasn't nearly enough to buy passage, but perhaps it was sufficient for a metagate merchant to disclose his routes.

  It could offer a glimpse into the paths between worlds.

  "Interesting offer," I countered. The negotiation window lingered in my view, but I chose not to look at it. I observed the merchant.

  He met my gaze. "Curious how it got here."

  I remained unfazed. "Not part of the deal."

  "No?" He slowly placed the fragment on the counter.

  The moment it touched the surface, its edges began to flicker. Each scratch, dent, and scorch along its body lit up in blue circuitry.

  "People don't just walk in with items like this. Not alone." His voice was measured and deliberate.

  Then—a ping. It was as loud as a gunshot in my skull, sharp enough to split the moment in two. Stolen. Marked. Tracked.

  It wasn't just any minimap ping. It's a rare Proximity Item Flag—the kind used to trace stolen goods before they vanished into the cracks of Helstalgia for good.

  A stolen item had been marked.

  Items that have been improperly switched hands are flagged for a limited time as stolen. That window allows whitehats, bounty hunters, and retrieval teams to identify theft and act accordingly. Once the time expires, the item is as good as wiped.

  But this ping? It didn't originate from the merchant.

  My breath hitched, and my muscles tensed.

  "That doesn't belong to you," a smooth voice said, cutting through the air. It was measured and close, followed by the soft click of a disengaged safety.

  I moved before I thought. Blaster drawn. Safety off. I turned and had the blaster levelled square between the eyes of the man sitting in the cubby.

  He didn't aim his blaster at me; he was pointing it at the merchant.

  Another click.

  The merchant exhaled as slowly as a loading screen. "Now, now," the merchant said, smooth as glass. "No one wants to start shooting here. Bad for business."

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