The alcove is barely wide enough for three bodies and a weapon between them. Water needles down the tunnel wall, and the Matsuda drones hover farther back, their lights dimmed to a watchful red.
Zara pulls the Matsuda-sealed wafer from her pocket, hands shaking just enough to show it matters. She slots it into the portable deck, and the screen blooms with old mission logs.
Names, timestamps, transfer marks. Then the line that lands like a punch, Mercer Skye, asset rejected, disposal authorized. Not stolen. Discarded.
Zara
No way... they wrote him off.
Kaine
That changes the leverage.
The tunnel goes quiet except for rain and the deck fan. Zara stares at the scrolling proof, then at Mercer, as if waiting for the man in front of her to match the file.
Even the drones hold still, their optics fixed on the screen while the lie on the wafer becomes a fact no one can unsee.
✓ Quest Accepted
Learn why Matsuda rejected Mercer Skye
“I turn to Voss, "whatever I was carrying for you went haywire. That's why my memory is fried, isn't it? You're just trying to salvage what you can."”
FAILURE (Superb Persuasion, rolled -1)
Mercer Skye
Whatever I was carrying for you went haywire. That's why my memory is fried, isn't it? You're just trying to salvage what you can.
Alexandra Voss
No. If I wanted salvage, I would not have brought you this far myself.
Her answer lands clean, but not kindly. Voss shifts one step closer to the deck light, eyes pinned on Mercer instead of the log.
Alexandra Voss
Matsuda rejected a transfer, yes. That is not the same as breaking you by accident.
Kaine
Careful. That wording matters.
Zara’s grip tightens on the wafer slot. The screen keeps cycling the asset file, now paused on a transfer stamp and a checksum line Mercer can almost read by instinct.
Alexandra Voss
Look at the stamp, Mercer. Disposal authorized after a failed compliance route. Someone rerouted you before the rejection became a report.
For one beat, the accusation slips. Not innocence, just a crack, and inside it Mercer can see a usable shape. Voss is not hiding the cause, she is hiding who touched it.
“"West tech interfered..." a spark of memory, my optics went static, but I can't remember what happened”
SUCCESS (Good Reasoning, rolled +2)
Mercer Skye
West Tech. Static in my optics. The memory catches on a hard edge, like my mesh scraping a hidden file.
Mercer’s left eye flickers, the implant washing the tunnel in a brief, wrong tint. The deck’s log line stays frozen, but the checksum suddenly means something, a handoff point, not just a receipt.
Mercer Skye
It is not just a rejection. Someone reroutes the transfer after West Tech touches it.
The shape of it clicks into place, enough to hurt. Matsuda does not break first, it is broken into, and Mercer was caught in the breach.
Kaine
West Tech had access to the route. That changes the trail.
Alexandra Voss
No. It changes where you point the blame.
Zara looks from Mercer to the paused stamp, jaw tight with the strain of believing both versions at once. The red drone light keeps pulsing over the tunnel walls.
Quest Complete
Learn why Matsuda rejected Mercer Skye
Skill Upgrade: Persuasion Superb→Legendary