Adventure of Jostan Ordomo 1

Rodney guides Jostan through a narrow service corridor beneath the lobby. Behind them, the Outsiders remain above with the building’s public routes watched, while the maintenance door seals against the rain.

The neglected maintenance room smells of dust, hot wiring, and old coolant. A wall terminal flickers awake beneath tenant directories and obsolete building-record interfaces.

Rodney slots the damaged contract chip into the terminal. Its fractured seal unfolds into partial authorization trails, branching toward a corporate account that monitored her movements.

A warning blooms across the display: ACCESS WILL BE RECORDED. The terminal can extract the useful portion, but the building will log the operator, timestamp, and authenticated interface.

Jostan studies the branching trails without touching the terminal controls. The primary authorization belongs to the building, but a secondary corporate credential repeatedly queried Rodney’s movement profile before the Outsiders were linked.

He follows the timestamps and permission paths, separating routine resident access from deliberate surveillance. One branch bypassed tenant services and opened a protected records interface through an authenticated corporate proxy.

The pattern identifies the proxy’s access class and its last successful query, giving Jostan a clean evidentiary trail before any new record is created. He opens the recorded interface.

The terminal accepts the authenticated interface and begins displaying the preserved account trail: timestamps, access scopes, and the corporate proxy’s connection to the Outsiders’ profile. The building logs the opening, exactly as warned.

The terminal continues copying the proxy trail while the building hums around them. Rodney studies Jostan for a moment, then taps the damaged chip against her palm.

She opens a tenant-service channel through the terminal, routing the request through an old resident account instead of the corporate proxy. The order confirms immediately.

The account trail finishes copying into the terminal’s local buffer. Somewhere above, an elevator begins its slow climb, while the maintenance room fills with the faint promise of arriving food.

Jostan keeps the maintenance terminal’s local buffer open while the elevator climbs. He strips the proxy trail into a clean copy before the building can finish logging the session, preserving timestamps, access scopes, and the complete route into the Outsiders’ profile.

The exceptional extraction exposes an attached payment reference hidden beneath the access records: a recurring corporate disbursement routed through Sela Marr’s purchaser account and authorized by a second, masked beneficiary.

The elevator chimes one floor below. Jostan closes the corporate interface, leaves the ordinary tenant request intact, and follows the service corridor toward the quiet delivery point.

A sealed thermal carrier waits beside the residential service hatch, its delivery tag authenticated through the old resident account. Steam fogs the transparent lid, and no courier remains in sight.

Jostan lifts the carrier and returns through the maintenance corridor with the copied evidence secured in his cybernetic buffer. Above, the elevator doors open onto the residential floor as Rodney watches the approach.

Jostan gives Rodney a stupid wink as he comes down the hall with the sealed carrier. She catches the performance, rolls her eyes, and waves him inside.

They carry the food into the apartment and settle at the nearest table. The carrier opens with a soft hiss, releasing heat, spice, and the first convincing comfort either of them has had all night.

For a while, they eat without discussing Sela Marr, the masked beneficiary, or the corporate trail nested in Jostan’s buffer. Rain ticks against the glass while the building’s failing lights hum beyond the door.

The smell fills the small room, pushing dust and hot wiring into the background. Evidence waits in sealed systems, worries wait outside, and for one brief stretch, the food wins.

Rodney catches Jostan looking at her for too long. One pink eyebrow rises above her rain-damp sunglasses, and the corner of her mouth threatens a grin.

Jostan draws the Jimmy revolver and feeds Nen through its frame. The weapon answers with a low blue-white pulse, contained and steady above the table.

She leans closer without touching the revolver, studying its charge instead of the evidence waiting in Jostan’s buffer. Her guarded amusement gives way to careful attention.

Jostan feeds more Nen into the Jimmy while Rodney lets her own current follow his, giving the revolver a shared circuit. Blue-white light swells between their hands.

Jostan pushes as much Nen as he can into the revolver. The Jimmy loses its shape in a silent flare, collapsing into harmless metallic dust across the table.

The effort leaves Jostan’s focus briefly hollow; his hand hesitates before he extends it. Rodney places her palm against his, her expression shifting from amazement to concentration.

Rain hangs in fractured beads beyond the window, each drop briefly suspended in the blue city glow. Jostan gathers Nen from the room and steadies the tether between their joined hands.

The current passes through Jostan’s cybernetics and into Rodney’s chest as a controlled warmth, not a shock. Her pulse settles into the shared rhythm, and the room’s scattered energy gathers around them.

Rodney focuses on that shape. Nen coils through the tether, condensing between her palms into a dark compact pistol with a matte frame and a faint blue line along its barrel.

The weapon finishes forming without a flare or recoil. Rodney closes her fingers around its grip, and the tether remains stable as rain continues falling beyond the glass.

Rodney studies the compact pistol in her hand, then lowers it onto the table with the muzzle turned safely away. Her answer comes without her usual dodge.

She turns the newly formed pistol once, testing its balance, then meets Jostan’s mismatched eyes across the cooling food. The weapon remains solid in her grip.

The pistol’s blue line steadies. Rodney does not ask for a promise, a confession, or permission. She leaves the truth between them, plain and unarmed.

Jostan taps Rodney’s compact pistol. Its solid shape dissolves into pale Ki-Nen, flowing back through his fingertips as he sweeps both hands through the air.

The energy condenses again into two finished weapons. Rodney’s pistol returns as the Angel, pure white with pink lining, while a new Jimmy-pattern pistol forms in silver with a wood-varnished grip, a thicker barrel, and eolite-infused rounds.

Jostan sets the Angel within Rodney’s reach and places the silver Jimmy beside it. Music spills from the apartment speakers, softening the rain beyond the glass.

Jostan reaches one hand toward her and starts the rhythm himself, palm open. Rodney studies the gesture, then rises, leaving both weapons safely on the table.

Jostan lifts Rodney’s sunglasses from her face as they move together. Her broad smile catches the apartment’s soft light, unguarded for once, while the music carries them past the table.

A light chuckle leaves Jostan as his hand settles around Rodney’s waist. He draws her close and kisses her on the lips, giving the question its answer before the room can interrupt.

Rodney kisses him back, then keeps one hand against his chest when they part. The smile remains, but her unshielded eyes measure the cost of letting him see her this clearly.

She places the sunglasses on the table beside the Angel and keeps hold of Jostan’s hand. The favor becomes explicit: her trust is his, but future silence will cost him it.

The dance continues for several minutes. Jostan lifts Rodney and carries her to the bed; the room’s music keeps playing as the apartment door remains locked against the rain.

Jostan removes his shirt and presses against her. Rodney’s hands catch at his shoulders, her expression tightening as the playful rhythm breaks into something she did not invite.

The sexual encounter is handled off-camera. Music, rain, and failing city light continue while the room gives no account of what happens within it.

Two hours later, the music has stopped. Rodney sits on the edge of the bed with her clothes gathered around her, pink hair disordered and her sunglasses still on the table.

She retrieves the Angel and keeps it low, pointed toward the floor. The corporate trail remains in Jostan’s buffer, but the room’s balance has changed more sharply than any account record.