The morning after the surreal dinner at L'Étoile began exactly like every other morning in the subterranean depths of VanceTech. Down in Sector Zero, the air was a thick, unbreathable cocktail of ozone, stale hydraulic fluid, and the metallic tang of grinding gears. I was wearing my standard issue, faded flannel shirt and the heavy, steel-toed boots that marked me as a Level Zero logistics courier. My brittle white plastic badge dangled from my neck, a stark reminder to the world that I was nothing more than the parasitic husband who had crawled into the Vance family's pristine tower from the gutters.
I stood by the loading docks, effortlessly lifting hundred-pound crates of copper wiring and stacking them onto a rusted steel pallet. Jerry’s replacement—a nervous, bespectacled junior mana
