Adventure of Sion: Freelancer Swarm

Two weeks later, Sion stands in the dust heat of Arda, outside a private training facility lit by harsh white panels. Inside, the air hums with ozone and the clatter of heavy equipment.

He follows the trail to a glass-walled weight room, where a tiny sphere of an eye watches a giant woman through reflected metal and sweat.

A seam in the facility wall pops with a dull metallic crack. One support strut shivers, then settles. Nobody in the room looks relieved.

Sion steps into view, badge catching the light, right between Jorvik’s deal and the exit.

Sion’s pistol clears his holster. The room goes still except for the faint vibration shivering through the corridor plating.

Jorvik freezes mid-hover, the deal forgotten. Abby’s massive hands lift off the rack, slow and visible.

Sion keeps the muzzle trained between them. The shivering wall strut pops once louder, dust ticking from the seam behind Abby.

The structural groaning subsides into a dull, rhythmic hum, revealing the facility is far sturdier than the initial tremors suggested. Sion holds his position, the silence of the gym floor confirming that the building remains secure.

Sion names him, and the uncertainty in the room drops away. Jorvik is the broker from the ledger trail, small against the training mats and workbenches, while Abby keeps her distance near the weight rigs and watches both of them.

The floor plating gives a faint vibration under the silence, then settles again. Jorvik lifts his tiny hands, careful and deliberate, as if even a wrong gesture might be costly.

Sion has the answer he came for, but not the whole chain. Both suspects stay put, waiting to see whether he questions Jorvik first or turns to Abby.

Abby’s jaw tightens. Jorvik stays small and still, but his hands hover in front of him like he is already counting exits.

A faint tremor runs through the floor plating again, brief this time, and all three of them feel it.

Jorvik stiffens, then obeys. He pivots toward the bench and spreads his arms for the cuffs, his small frame suddenly rigid with calculation.

Sion steps in and locks the cuffs on. The metal clicks shut, and Jorvik’s hands settle behind him.

The floor plating gives another faint shiver under all three of them. Abby’s eyes flick toward the far corridor, where a service door rattles once in its frame.

Sion holsters the pistol long enough to work Jorvik over with quick, practiced hands. Metal, fabric, pockets, seams, he checks them all.

A thin data wafer slides free from an inner cuff seam and clinks onto the bench. Jorvik goes still.

Sion keeps one hand on Jorvik’s cuffed wrists while he pulls a compact keycard from the broker’s ankle pocket.

The floor plating shudders again, and the rattling service door answers with a sharper metallic knock from the corridor.

The words land clean and flat. Jorvik’s shoulders tighten as if the cuffs suddenly weigh more. Abby’s gaze snaps from him to Sion, measuring the charge like a blade.

A sharp vibration runs through the corridor plating. The rattling service door bucks again, and the bench edge rattles under the loose wafer.

Jorvik swallows, then shifts his cuffed hands behind his back a fraction as if testing the metal. The keycard in Sion’s grip feels suddenly too small for the moment.

Sion turns his attention to Abby, keeping Jorvik pinned in the same breath. The question lands in the cramped room like a formal invitation.

She says it without softening, chin lifted, shoulders squared against the rig frame. The service door keeps rattling somewhere out in the corridor, and the floor shivers through the training mat seam.

Jorvik’s cuffed hands twitch behind his back. He angles his round body toward Abby, then stops, listening.

She folds one thick arm across her chest, eyes fixed on Sion with wary irritation. The bench still holds the data wafer between them, small and bright under the harsh lights.

She turns her palm up toward the bench, where the tiny wafer sits between them. The corridor vibration crawls through the floor again, making the rig bolts sing.

Jorvik shifts in his cuffs, stopping himself short. Abby does not look away from Sion, but her jaw tightens at the broker's movement.

The service door rattles hard enough to dust the frame. Abby's hand lowers a fraction, not surrender, just readiness, and the next decision hangs on the trembling threshold.

She taps the bench with two fingers, then points past it, toward a sealed side cabinet bolted into the wall. The corridor vibration shivers the floor in a clean pulse.

Jorvik freezes in his cuffs, turning his oversized eye toward the cabinet. Abby notices and steps half a pace back, shoulders squaring.

The service door rattles again, harder this time, and the cabinet latch ticks once inside the wall.

Sion crosses to the wall cabinet while the floor keeps shivering under the corridor plating. Abby tracks him from a cautious distance, and Jorvik stays trapped at the bench, eye flicking between Sion and the latch.

At the cabinet, the latch is not just ticking. It is venting a thin seam of cold vapor from inside the seal, and the panel seam shows fresh tool scoring around the edges.

The transparent inner rack comes into view through the crack, packed with ampoules, injector cartridges, and labeled stabilizer pods, all neatly slotted in foam.

A second glance shows the rack is complete. No empty bays, no missing trays, just a full clinical cache locked behind a manual release.

The door rattling spikes once more, and Abby shifts her weight toward the exit while Jorvik tenses in his cuffs, both of them now watching Sion for the next move.

Sion pulls a small, illicit neural-interface module from the back of the rack, its casing etched with forbidden GPO-blacklisted encryption symbols.

Sion snaps the laser pistol up from his holster, the barrel steady on Abby Stone. The module stays in his other hand, its red pin-light reflecting off the training mirrors.

Abby freezes, then raises her palms slowly, jaw tight. The floor shivers under both of them, a faint vibration running through the corridor plating outside.

Jorvik jerks back against his restraint, eyes flicking from the gun to the cabinet. The cracked wall cabinet ticks again, and cold vapor spills lower across the floor.

Abby’s gaze hardens on the module in Sion’s hand. She does not move, but her weight shifts toward the cabinet, as if measuring one fast decision against another.

Sion moves in behind Abby, using her raised arms as cover. One cuff snaps around her wrist, then the other catches as he folds her hands back and locks them behind her spine.

Abby jolts hard enough to shake the mirror wall, but the second cuff holds. The laser pistol stays trained on her shoulder while the module slips tighter in Sion’s other grip.

Jorvik’s eye widens at the click of metal on metal, and the cabinet’s cold vapor rolls lower across the floor.

A sharper vibration shudders through the corridor plating, rattling the service door hard enough to buzz the frame. Abby tests the cuffs once, then stills, breathing through clenched teeth.

Sion crosses to the cracked cabinet while the room shudders again. The cold vapor curls around his boots as he hooks a hand under the warped metal lip and yanks it fully open.

Inside, stacked serum canisters sit behind the ruined inventory tray. He pulls the tray free, exposing the cache, then gathers the container with the labeled ampoules into his grip.

Abby stays pinned in place, wrists locked behind her, eyes tracking every movement. Jorvik leans as far as his cuffs allow, his attention snapping from the cabinet to Sion's hands.

Another vibration ripples through the corridor plating, and dust slips from the mirror wall in a thin gray veil. Sion has the serum in hand, but both prisoners are still boxed in, staring at him while the service door rattles harder offscreen.