Limitless Evolution As a Snake

Harden finally appeared on the collection foreman’s screen, looking furious enough that I briefly understood why the camera kept trying to adjust its exposure.

Getting him there had required less magic than I expected and more ordinary gate maintenance than I wanted to admit.

After returning from the depot, I joined Lyra and Bridget at the quarry access. Cherry stayed with the club staff, keeping the cooling bay secured while we blocked the collection vehicle at the physical freight barrier.

The worker who operated the gate knew which controls mattered. We followed his instructions instead of assuming four useful skills qualified us to redesign industrial traffic.

When the foreman demanded entry, I took his separable hand controller with Mine Now from within three meters and put it on our side of the barrier. That forced him to call somebody with authority rather than simply waving the truck forward.

Harden answered before the man finished explaining.

”Take the plant and collect whatever else covers the balance,” my uncle said. ”The snake already took enough from us.”

Bridget recorded the call from cover, and Lyra watched my face change.

”You could come explain that yourself, Uncle. I would enjoy hearing which part of my equipment became yours because you were bad at attempted murder.”

Harden recognized my voice and stopped pretending this was ordinary debt recovery.

”You stripped our accounts, humiliated us over Channel, and turned the casino against us,” he said. ”Do you expect us to crawl away and thank you?”

”I had hoped you would crawl somewhere quieter, but I accepted that gratitude might be ambitious.”

[System: He’s financing revenge with money he reckons he’ll steal afterward, mate. That’s not a comeback, that’s a bloody overdraft with hostages in the business plan.]

He hadn’t managed the hostages yet, and I preferred keeping that part theoretical.

The foreman looked toward Harden’s screen. ”You said the title dispute was settled. We don’t work for free if this turns into another unpaid family problem.”

There it was, the missing fortune explained in one angry sentence. Harden didn’t own this convoy. He had promised its contractor a cut of recovered assets and fed the crew a story about a rich nephew withholding family property.

I had plenty of faults, but refusing to finance my own kidnapping wasn’t one I planned to correct.

While they argued, the gate worker used the existing recovery winch to secure the stopped truck’s tow bar against the freight barrier. The public side passage remained clear, leaving the crew a way to retreat without dragging its heavy equipment through us.

Lyra moved beside me, ready to use her portal if we needed to cross the dry platform quickly. We kept that option unused because an available escape was more useful than showing off a cooldown.

The foreman assessed the locked load, the recording, and his employer’s obvious lack of money. He chose to withdraw his people through the side passage and settle the payment argument elsewhere.

I sent Harden a picture of his borrowed truck stuck against a gate.

[System: Break Their Collection Run completed, mate. Ten thousand EXP and forty-five IP puts you on forty-five thousand of a hundred thousand and three hundred thirty-five IP. The fridge remains yours, which is excellent because I’ve grown emotionally attached to the spearmint.]

You could tell the cheese later, once we were away from the armed argument.

We reopened the separate public lane after the crew left. The worker kept the truck secured pending the contractor’s legitimate recovery arrangements, and I didn’t claim the entire vehicle as a prize because touching its controller felt satisfying.

Harden called me directly before we reached the return boat.

He said the final race would settle the matter. The course damage required repairs and inspections, giving the organizer three weeks to reset the event. Harden had promised the contractor the resulting broadcast income and any recoverable property if his entry won control of the disputed route.

The arrangement was desperate, ugly, and held together by people who all expected somebody else to take the first loss.

It also put Harden physically on the command vessel for the final, because the contractor refused to accept more remote promises.

For the first time that day, I smiled without trying to make it funny.

Lyra noticed. I told her exactly what he had said, then admitted I wanted him close enough to regret it personally.

She didn’t ask me to pretend otherwise. She asked me not to disappear without telling them again, and I promised the part I could honestly keep.

The organizer confirmed that no public section would reopen until the damaged controls were checked. That delay annoyed Harden because borrowed equipment still cost money while it waited, and his creditor wanted him present for the next inspection. I hadn’t regained my uncle’s fortune for him; I had helped make his remaining promises more expensive to keep. Old Mate called that excellent family budgeting and asked whether we could send him a sympathy milkshake.

Lukas called the delay a chance to recover properly, although he tried making that sound like a strategic decision instead of following medical advice. Cherry threatened to put the medic on his contacts list under Team Captain.

The three weeks gave us something besides waiting. Lukas recovered under actual medical follow-up, the club settled into ordinary opening hours, and I took Lyra on two more outings that involved neither paperwork nor anybody shooting at us.

Bridget and Cherry joined one promenade trip, with Bridget teaching them a local game she was delighted to win. I paid for dinner because the loser always discovered the rules last.

Lukas finally showed me a freight route he had been studying during recovery. Beyond the serviced coast, abandoned industrial stations and old salvage grounds stretched across a ten-to-twelve-week journey with ordinary supply stops.

”Just you and me,” he said. ”No audience, no crew, and nobody asking you to open a nightclub before lunch.”

I wanted it immediately, which meant telling the girls before my enthusiasm became a departure notice.

Then Harden sent the final route. It passed beneath our club district, and the command vessel’s attached cargo sheet listed a grafted hauling beast beside a sealed emergency escape pod.