“All staff must wear visible identification at all times.

  Security tags are color-coded by access level and department.

  Lost or stolen badges must be reported immediately.

  Enforcement is at management’s discretion.”

  — Cassette Nightclub Employee Handbook

  I circled back to the left alley.

  The front line wasn’t moving. VIP entrance required looking like I belonged, and I didn’t. The right side was a dead end, the back offered nothing, and midnight wasn’t getting any further away.

  Which left the staff entrance.

  I’d watched it earlier. Workers unloading crates, too busy to notice much beyond their immediate tasks. It wasn’t a social problem; it was a timing problem and timing problems I could solve.

  The delivery van was still there, its anti-grav humming as two workers hauled crates through the propped-open door. They moved with the resignation of people who’d done this a thousand times, not really looking at anything except the next box and the path to wherever it needed to go.

  I found a spot near the alley’s entrance where I could watch without being obvious about it. Just another guy waiting out the rain, checking his holoband, nothing interesting.

  The door opened and closed every thirty seconds or so. Workers in, workers out. Nobody stationed there specifically to watch for intruders; they were focused on the job, on getting the delivery done so they could move on to whatever came next.

  If I could time it right, slip through during a gap in their rhythm...

  I pulled the MIRAGE app, waiting.

  I was still working out the timing when a second van descended into the alley.

  It came down too fast, the pilot either overconfident or just bad at their job, and the landing wasn’t clean. The vehicle’s rear corner caught the first van’s side panel with a screech of metal that echoed off the alley walls.

  Not a major collision. Just a scrape, really. But the sound was enough to make everyone stop.

  The first van’s driver came out of the storage entrance at a near-sprint, his face already twisted into fury before he’d even seen the damage.

  “What the hell?!” He circled to the impact point, running his hands over the fresh scrape in his vehicle’s paint. “Are you blind?”

  The second driver climbed out of his cab with unhurried movements as if he didn’t particularly care about the chaos he’d just caused. Big guy, rough-looking, and flat face as he’d heard complaints like this before and had never once let them bother him.

  “Relax,” he said, barely glancing at the damage. “It’s a scratch.”

  “A scratch?” The first driver’s voice cracked with outrage. “I’m self-employed! You know what bodywork costs? This is coming out of my pocket, not some corpo maintenance budget!”

  “Then file a claim.” The second driver was already turning away, gesturing to the workers who’d emerged from his van. “We’ve got a schedule.”

  “File a—are you serious right now?”

  The argument escalated, voices rising, both drivers squaring up while their respective workers either tried to intervene or just stood there watching the show. The first van’s crew had stopped unloading entirely, gathered around their boss in a show of solidarity that wasn’t actually helping anyone.

  The staff door was unattended.

  I activated MIRAGE.

  The world shifted slightly as the system engaged, my hoodie’s micro-cameras capturing the environment and feeding it to the projectors. I wasn’t invisible; this tech couldn’t manage true invisibility, but I was hard to notice. The space I occupied became visually slippery, easy to overlook, especially for people whose attention was already elsewhere.

  I moved.

  Quick steps, staying close to the wall, angling toward the door while the shouting match provided cover. Nobody was looking in my direction. Nobody was looking at anything except the two drivers, who seemed moments away from throwing punches.

  The door was heavy, industrial. I slipped through the gap where a worker had propped it open with a crate, my shoulder brushing the frame as I squeezed past.

  Inside.

  Storage area. Shelves lined with boxes and crates, and a smell of alcohol and industrial cleaner mixing in the climate-controlled air hit me. Dim lighting, just enough to navigate by, with brighter patches near what looked like a corridor leading deeper into the building.

  I pressed myself against the nearest shelf, sliding into the shadows between stacked crates of what the labels claimed was premium synthetic whiskey.

  Made it.

  The thought lasted about three seconds before the second van’s workers started pouring through the door.

  They came in carrying crates, despite the argument still audible from outside. I shrank further back, the MIRAGE system working overtime as bodies and boxes filled the space I’d thought was my refuge.

  Then more footsteps, heavy, someone who wasn’t carrying anything.

  A bouncer pushed through the workers, his chrome-plated arms catching the dim light. Not the mountain from the front entrance, this guy was smaller, leaner, but moved with the coiled tension of someone who knew exactly how to use the muscle he had.

  “Hey!” His voice cut through the storage area like a blade. “What the hell is going on out there?”

  The workers exchanged glances but kept moving, clearly not wanting to get involved.

  “You idiots triggered an alarm,” the bouncer continued, his tone shifting from annoyed to genuinely angry. “Every room has a sensor, you aren’t tagged, and the system flagged it as a potential breach. Vauhti is furious.”

  The second driver had followed his workers inside, still wearing that expression of supreme unconcern. “So turn it off. I don’t care about some Vauhti, we’re just doing deliveries.”

  “I don’t turn it off.” The bouncer stepped closer, and I noticed the tag hanging from a lanyard around his neck. Laminated plastic, slightly worn at the edges, with bold text that read: ENFORCER. “Everyone in this building wears identification. Staff, security, entertainment, even the delivery guys get temporary passes. That’s protocol.”

  He jabbed a finger at the driver’s chest. “Where’s your tag?”

  The driver glanced around and there was actually a bowl with tags. So he pulled a crumpled badge, flashing it with obvious irritation. The workers were getting their own tags now, clipped to belts or hanging from lanyards, all of them marked with DELIVERY - TEMPORARY.

  “See? Tagged. Happy?” The driver’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “Now can we finish our job, or do you need to verify my blood type too?”

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  The bouncer’s eyes swept the storage area.

  I stopped breathing.

  The MIRAGE system was good, but it wasn’t perfect. If he looked directly at me, really looked, he’d see the distortion. The way light bent wrong around my outline. The shimmer that meant someone was hiding where no one should be.

  His gaze passed over my position.

  Paused.

  Moved on.

  “Just get it done fast,” he muttered, already turning back toward the corridor. “And tell your boss to wear it all the time. I don’t need alerts going off every five minutes.”

  He disappeared deeper into the building, and I let myself breathe again.

  But the relief was temporary.

  Everyone wears identification.

  I looked down at myself: yellow hoodie, tactical pants, no badge, no tag, no legitimate reason to be here. The MIRAGE could hide me in shadows and chaos, but it couldn’t forge credentials, only steal them. It couldn’t explain why I was standing in a storage room with no delivery to make and no staff access to justify my presence.

  The bowl sat on a shelf near the door, almost mocking me with how casual it was.

  Temporary tags, piled together like party favors, waiting for anyone who walked in to grab one. The delivery workers had snagged theirs without breaking stride, treating security credentials like an afterthought.

  I waited until the workers’ backs were turned, focused on stacking crates, and slipped closer to the shelf. My hand darted out, fingers closing around one of the laminated badges.

  DELIVERY - TEMPORARY

  Not ideal. Delivery tags probably didn’t grant access to the second-floor VIP section, but it was better than nothing, better than being the only person in the building with no identification at all.

  I clipped it to my hoodie’s collar, the plastic cold against my chest, and deactivated the MIRAGE system. The power cell couldn’t run forever, and walking around as a visible distortion would attract more attention than a guy in a yellow hoodie with a delivery badge.

  The workers were finishing up; their crates disappearing onto shelves. Soon the storage area would be empty, and I’d need to be somewhere else.

  I moved toward the corridor the bouncer had disappeared into.

  The hallway was narrow, pipes and conduits running along the ceiling in a tangle that suggested the building’s infrastructure had been retrofitted multiple times with no one bothering to clean up the previous installations, and flickering strip lights cast everything in dancing shadow.

  The corridor ended in a kitchen.

  I stopped at the threshold, pressing myself against the wall to observe before committing.

  The space was anarchy organized into something functional. Stainless steel surfaces cluttered with prep work, steam rising from vats that bubbled with sauces or soups or something I couldn’t identify from this distance. The ventilation system hummed overhead, a massive industrial unit that looked like it had been salvaged from a factory and bolted to the ceiling with more optimism than engineering.

  Staff moved through the space at random but it probably made sense to them.

  Cooks at stations, runners grabbing plates, someone shouting orders in a language I didn’t recognize. The lighting was harsh fluorescent, mixed with an orange glow from heating elements, creating pockets of brightness and shadow that shifted as people moved.

  Everything was chrome and grease and steam. Holographic displays flickered above each station showing order queues, timers, temperature readouts. A large pan sat on one of the stoves near the corridor entrance, its handle jutting out into the walkway at an angle that made me wince just looking at it.

  I needed to cross to the hallway on the other side.

  Through the kitchen, past all these people. With no one wondering why a delivery guy was walking through their workspace instead of staying in the storage area where he belonged, or if I turned on MIRAGE, why an incursion-looking distortion was moving through the kitchen.

  Let’s try option one, confident Dash.

  I watched the patterns. Counted the rhythm of movement. Waited for the moment when backs were turned, attention focused elsewhere, the chaos creating a gap I could slip through.

  Now.

  I moved.

  Quick steps, confident posture, trying to project the energy of someone who had every right to be here, someone on an errand, someone not worth noticing.

  It was working. I was halfway across, weaving between stations, nobody giving me a second glance—

  The pan.

  I saw it too late. My hip caught the handle as I passed, the contact sending the heavy cookware spinning off the stove with a clatter that cut through the kitchen noise like a gunshot.

  I didn’t stop. Couldn’t stop. Stopping meant attention, questions, someone asking why the delivery guy had just knocked their equipment onto the floor.

  I kept moving, slipping into the hallway on the other side as shouts erupted behind me.

  “Jun! What the hell?”

  The head chef’s voice was like watching Abyss’ Kitchen, and I pressed myself against the corridor wall, heart hammering, as the tirade continued.

  “How many times do I tell you? Handle in, not out! You want to burn someone? You want grease all over my floor?”

  “I didn’t—” A younger voice, bewildered. “Chef, I swear I put it—”

  “You swear? You swear?” The chef’s voice rose another octave. “Clean it up! And if I see another pan like that, you’re on dish duty for a month!”

  I let out a breath, guilt twisting in my chest.

  Sorry, Jun.

  I’d make it up to him somehow. Probably not. But the thought made me feel slightly less terrible as I continued down the corridor, putting distance between myself and the kitchen chaos I’d caused.

  The first door I tried was locked.

  The second was a supply closet.

  The third opened into what looked like a changing room.

  I slipped inside, easing the door shut behind me, and leaned against the wall as my heartbeat slowly returned to something approaching normal.

  “I’m terrible at this,” I muttered to no one.

  The room was small, clearly meant for staff to store personal belongings.

  Rows of lockers lined the walls, their surfaces a mix of brushed metal and cheap polymer, some personalized with stickers or graffiti, others dented from years of casual abuse.

  A vending machine hummed in the corner, offering energy drinks and stim patches, and something called “FOCUS+” that promised “enhanced cognitive performance for up to 6 hours.”

  I glanced around, shifting from panic mode to problem-solving.

  Maybe they had better tags here.

  The delivery badge clipped to my collar might get me through the kitchen, but it wouldn’t explain my presence on the second floor. I needed something with more access, something that belonged to someone who actually worked here.

  The lockers were secured with keypads. Small ones, built into each door, their displays showing simple four-digit entry fields.

  I smiled.

  The first locker I approached had a keypad manufactured by Kovara Technologies. I recognized the design instantly: the slightly rounded corners, the specific shade of gray they used for the housing, the way the display flickered almost imperceptibly between refresh cycles.

  Third generation.

  They were on ninth gen now, had been for years, but places like this didn’t upgrade security hardware unless something actually broke.

  I pulled out my multitool, selecting the flathead screwdriver attachment, and went to work on the plastic casing. It popped off with minimal resistance, revealing the circuit board beneath.

  Basic anti-tampering mechanisms. A simple alarm trigger if the casing was removed while the lock was engaged, easily bypassed by anyone who knew what they were looking at and shorted the contact.

  Then I brushed aside the thermal paste someone had applied too liberally during installation, exposing the main chip. Kovara’s up to fifth-gen security processors had a flaw. A debug mode that was supposed to be disabled in production units but often wasn’t, accessible by bridging the first and fifth pins while holding the reset button.

  The company had quietly patched it in sixth-gen. Never acknowledged it publicly, never issued recalls, just fixed it and hoped nobody would notice.

  I’d noticed.

  Back when I was twelve and bored and curious about how security locks worked and if it really was as easy as in the holo-movies.

  My screwdriver touched the pins. My finger found the reset button.

  Click.

  The lock disengaged.

  “Easier than movies,” I said, allowing myself a small smirk as I pulled the locker open.

  … but the locker was empty.

  I stared at the bare interior, no badge, no personal effects. Just dust and the faint smell of disinfectant.

  Right. Not everyone left things behind.

  I moved to the next locker, repeated the process. Screwdriver under the casing, pop the housing, brush away the paste, bridge the pins, hold reset.

  Click.

  Also empty.

  I was starting to wonder if the staff here owned anything at all when the third locker finally yielded something useful.

  The interior was cluttered with the debris of someone’s work life. Lipsticks in three different shades rolling loose on the bottom shelf. A cracked compact mirror. Hair ties tangled together in a nest. A half-empty bottle of perfume that smelled like synthetic flowers. Energy bar wrappers crumpled into the corner. A hoodie that had seen better days, stuffed onto the top shelf like an afterthought.

  And tucked behind the hoodie, almost hidden, was a lanyard with a laminated badge.

  WAITSTAFF

  I pulled it free, turning it over in my hands. The photo was of a woman, dark hair, features that looked nothing like mine, but the picture was small, the lamination scratched, and people rarely looked that closely at badges anyway. They saw the category, the color coding, the general impression of legitimacy.

  That was usually enough.

  …well in movies.

  I unclipped the delivery tag from my collar and replaced it with the waitstaff badge, adjusting the lanyard so it hung at the same angle I’d seen on the workers in the kitchen. Visible but not prominent. Like I’d been wearing it for hours and had stopped thinking about it.

  I caught my reflection in one of the spotted mirrors.

  Not exactly the club vibe, but close enough to the “casual Friday” energy I’d seen from some of the staff. Other people also wore bright colors, so I could work with it. Keep moving, stay confident, don’t give anyone time to wonder why the new guy dressed weird.

  I straightened my collar, rolled my shoulders and took a breath.

  The door to the main area waited.

  I pushed it open and stepped through, the bass from the club hitting me like a physical force, lights, sound and bodies filling the space beyond.

  “This is going to be easy.”

  TODAY’S CHAPTER IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY Jun

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