The Sector 4 Black Market Forge did not look like a place of creation. It looked like a place where machinery went to be tortured.
Located deep within the geo-thermal vents of the lower Outskirts, the air was a thick, orange soup of sulfur, molten iron, and the acrid stench of burning synthetic rubber. Massive, automated hydraulic hammers slammed into raw scrap metal with a rhythmic, deafening BOOM... BOOM... BOOM, vibrating the floor so violently that Zayn could feel it through the frame of Rora's hover-stretcher.
"Get up, potato," Rora hissed, pulling her neon-green goggles down over her eyes as she steered the stretcher past a row of shady dealers selling black-market cybernetics out of rusted oil drums. "We're in the Forge Core. If the local scrap-barons see me wheeling around a guy in a grey jumpsuit like a piece of luggage, they're going to butcher us both just for the spare parts."
Zayn slowly opened his eyes. The gold glint in his pupils was dim, shadowed by the sheer physical exhaustion still weighing down his muscles.
[Time to Cooldown: 11:32:05]
[Physical Output: 22% (Slightly improved due to localized sewage napping)]
With a slow, deliberate effort that made his collarbones click, Zayn dragged himself off the stretcher and stood on his own two feet. He staggered slightly, his oversized grey jumpsuit billowing around his lean frame, but his expression remained completely blank. Deadpan. Unbothered.
"The thermal distribution in this room is completely uncalibrated," Zayn noted, his voice a low, raspy murmur. "The western furnace is radiating at roughly 1,200°C, while the eastern exhaust line is leaking cold coolant fluid. The structural expansion coefficient of these pillars is dropping by 0.02% every hour. This entire ceiling is going to collapse in three months."
"Nobody asked for a building inspection, Zayn!" Rora snapped, grabbing his arm to steady him. "We're here to see The Broker. He's the only one who can forge high-tier equipment without a Hegemony registration license. You need clothes, and I need a weapon upgrade before that Inquisitor figures out we're not actually floating in a septic tank."
They navigated through the maze of sparks and shouting scavengers until they reached a reinforced steel bunker embedded directly into the volcanic rock wall. The door was flanked by two massive automated bouncers—Mark-IV defense units with heavy rotatory cannons where their left arms should have been.
Inside, the air-conditioning was a sudden, freezing shock to the system.
Sitting behind a massive desk made from the polished windshield of a downed Hegemony dropship was a short, remarkably wide man wearing a tailored suit made from industrial fire-retardant fiber. He was currently polishing a pristine, high-frequency vibro-knife with a silk cloth.
"Rora," The Broker purred, his voice sounding like gravel being turned in a cement mixer. He didn't look up from his knife. "I heard Sector 4's plumbing had a holy awakening today. The Orthodoxy is currently dismantling every pipe between here and the Upper Spire. Care to explain why my business smells like scorched silk?"
"An industrial accident, Broker," Rora said, stepping forward with a nervous grin. "Just a localized data glitch. But I brought you something better than information. I brought a client with high-density requirements."
The Broker finally raised his eyes, his cybernetic optic whirring as it locked onto Zayn. The lens zoomed in, scanning the grey jumpsuit, the pale skin, and the dull gold ring within Zayn's irises.
A long, heavy silence filled the bunker. The only sound was the faint hum of the air conditioner.
"He's a Rank 18 Anomaly," The Broker said slowly, his fingers setting the knife down on the desk with a sharp clack. "His physical mass is practically non-existent right now, but his internal mana-pressure is dense enough to warp the local gravity grid. This is the guy who left Kaelen's spine hanging from a canyon pillar."
"I am also," Zayn added calmly, stepping forward with his hands inside the pockets of his oversized jumpsuit, "a man without a shirt. This is a severe tactical deficit. The wind resistance on this cotton fabric is lowering my movement speed by four percent."
The Broker stared at him for three full seconds, trying to decipher if the teenager was mocking him. Finding no emotion on Zayn's face, the fat man let out a short, wheezing laugh.
"Audacious," The Broker muttered. "The Orthodoxy is turning over every stone in the sector for you, and you come into my forge complaining about aerodynamics. What do you want, glitch?"
"A replacement," Zayn said. His gold eyes flared with a brief, sudden intensity that caused the holographic screens on The Broker's desk to flicker with static. "Enchanted silk baseline. Midnight weave if you have it. It needs to absorb dark matter, mask my internal ether leakage, and have a high resistance to localized friction. And I need it calibrated in the next ten minutes."
The Broker chuckled, leaning back in his tank-seat chair. "Midnight weave? That's military-grade stealth fabric from the High Board's personal reserves. I have one roll of it in my vault, salvaged from an infiltration unit. It costs twenty thousand high-credits. What are you paying with, kid? Spite?"
Zayn didn't flinch. He walked right up to the desk, leaning his weak upper body against the polished metal.
"I'm paying with your life," Zayn deadpanned. "Because three seconds ago, a localized binary ping bypassed your bunker's encryption. The Inquisitor's advance scout just mapped this specific grid coordinate. You have exactly seven minutes before a plasma rail-cannon fires through that ceiling."
[System Warning: Incoming Ballistic Signature Detected]
[Targeting Vector: Your Exact Coordinates]
[Time to Impact: 06:42]
The Broker's jaw dropped as his terminal suddenly lit up with bright red emergency warnings. He looked at Zayn, his face turning a sickly shade of grey. "You... you brought them here?!"
"No," Zayn corrected, turning his head back toward the forge door. "Your security sub-routines are just as sub-optimal as the plumbing. Now... about that shirt?"