SSS-Rank Corporate Predator System

The clone was a ghost in a palace of noise.

It stood just inside the entrance of The Gilded Cage, a silent, unmoving shadow in a river of beautiful, laughing people.

Miles, sitting in a sticky diner booth miles away, felt a wave of sensory data so intense it almost made him drop his fork.

The music was a deep, physical thing.

A bass line that vibrated not in his ears, but in his bones.

The air was thick.

It smelled of a hundred different perfumes, of spilled champagne, of money.

So much money.

Clara was saying something about the Yalta Conference.

He tried to focus on her voice, a calm, steady anchor in the storm of the nightclub.

"So, Roosevelt's primary goal was to secure Soviet support against Japan," she was saying, her finger tracing a line on a map in her textbook.

Miles nodded, pretending to listen.

"Right," he said. "Support."

"Very supportive of him."

Through the clone's eyes, he was taking in the architecture.

The place was all black marble, gold trim, and lights so dim they seemed to absorb sound.

It looked like a villain's secret headquarters from a movie he couldn't afford to see.

The system in his head, a shared consciousness between him and his double, was already at work.

Its tactical overlay painted the room in a web of faint, colored lines.

It was identifying system users.

And there were a lot of them.

A woman at the bar had a faint, green aura the system tagged as a low-level botanical manipulation signature.

Probably a socialite who could make flowers bloom on command to impress her friends.

A man in a sharp suit, laughing too loudly in a VIP booth, pulsed with a red energy.

[SYSTEM DETECTED: TIER-2 ADRENAL MANIPULATION.]

[PROBABILITY: CORPORATE RAIDER. USES SYSTEM TO INTIMIDATE RIVALS IN THE BOARDROOM.]

"So, it's a whole room full of people with superpowers and questionable morals," Miles thought, a wave of dry sarcasm washing over him.

"My kind of place."

"It's like a high school reunion for people who peaked in a lab accident."

The clone began to move.

It flowed through the crowd with an unnatural grace, never bumping into anyone, never drawing a second glance.

It was just another shadow in a room full of them.

Its mission was simple.

Find the hunters.

And listen.

[NEW SUB-SKILL AVAILABLE,] the system announced, its text scrolling across his shared vision.

[ACQUIRED VIA SYSTEM CORE LEVEL 3.]

[AUDIO FOCUS LVL 1: ALLOWS ISOLATION AND AMPLIFICATION OF SPECIFIC SOUNDS WITHIN A 30-METER RADIUS.]

"Well, that's handy," Miles thought.

"It's like having super-hearing, but without having to listen to everyone chewing."

The clone focused its new skill on a booth near the dance floor.

Two men, both built like professional wrestlers, were talking.

"…heard the target is just a kid," one of them said, his voice a low growl that the clone's new skill picked up perfectly over the pounding music.

The system highlighted the man in a pulsing red light.

[TARGET IDENTIFIED: VOIDRIPPER. BOUNTY ACCEPTED.]

"So, that's VoidRipper," Miles mused.

"He looks less like a 'ripper of voids' and more like a guy who got held back in gym class a few too many times."

The second man snorted.

"A kid with a speed system," he scoffed. "Nothing a well-placed energy net won't handle."

"This is the easiest quarter-million we'll ever make."

The clone moved on, its new hearing sweeping the room like a radar dish.

It was a river of whispers, of plots, of deals being made in the dark.

He heard a corporate executive planning a hostile takeover.

He heard a politician making a deal with a known criminal.

He heard a young woman complaining that the champagne wasn't cold enough.

It was a symphony of the city's secret sins.

And then, he heard it.

A voice that was as familiar and as irritating as a pebble in his shoe.

Julian Cross.

The clone turned its head.

Julian was in the largest VIP booth, the one in the very center of the room, like a king on a gaudy, velvet throne.

He was surrounded by his usual fan club of sycophants and a few of the other bounty hunters Miles recognized from the Echo Chamber forums.

They were all listening to him, their faces a mixture of greed and amusement.

"I'm telling you," Julian was saying, his voice loud and slurring slightly from the expensive-looking drink in his hand. "The little freak is completely obsessed with me."

Miles felt a shared surge of pure, unadulterated rage.

It was so strong that back in the diner, he clenched his fist, rattling the table.

Clara looked up, startled.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"Your knuckles are white."

"Just a cramp," he lied, forcing his hand to relax.

The clone's audio focus was locked on Julian's booth.

"He's a ghost, right?" Julian continued, taking a dramatic sip of his drink.

"And what do ghosts do?"

"They haunt people."

"And who is the most important person at Northwood High?"

He paused, a smug, self-satisfied smirk on his face, waiting for his audience to answer.

"You are, Julian," one of his friends said, his voice dripping with the kind of fake admiration that made Miles's teeth ache.

"Exactly," Julian said, pointing a finger at him.

"He's probably hiding in a corner right now, watching me."

"Wishing he had my money, my style, my incredible good looks."

"It's pathetic, really."

The clone's hand tightened into a fist.

The urge to walk over there and perform a live demonstration of what a [Pulse Break] could do to a human face was almost overwhelming.

But the mission was clear.

Information.

Not a fight.

Not yet.

The clone forced itself to relax, to melt back into the shadows.

It needed to hear more.

Julian, now fully warmed up, leaned forward, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper that his new skill picked up perfectly.

"But don't worry," he said to the bounty hunters.

"This little pest is about to become irrelevant."

"My father is overseeing a shipment that's coming in next week."

"Something big."

"Something that is going to change the game for our family."

"Once that's done, we'll have the resources to hunt down every last little freak in this city."

"Starting with our ghost."

Miles felt a jolt, not of anger this time, but of pure, cold focus.

This was it.

This was the reason he had come.

[KEYWORD 'SHIPMENT' CROSS-REFERENCED WITH PREVIOUSLY ACQUIRED DATA,] the system announced, its voice sharp and alert in his mind.

[HIGH PROBABILITY OF CONNECTION TO ILLEGAL ARMS OR SYSTEM-RELATED TECHNOLOGY.]

[PRIORITY INTEL.]

The clone's gaze was fixed on Julian.

The arrogant, entitled fool had just handed him his next target on a silver platter.

Julian, completely oblivious, seemed to sense that he was losing his audience's attention.

He needed a new trick.

Something to prove his own importance.

He lifted his wrist, a dramatic, theatrical gesture.

"And speaking of changing the game," he said, his voice booming again.

"Check this out."

On his wrist was a watch.

But it wasn't just a watch.

It was a monstrous, gaudy thing of gold and black metal, with a face made of a swirling, holographic energy.

It looked like a tiny galaxy was trapped on his arm.

"A little gift from my father," Julian boasted.

"Custom-made."

"One of a kind."

"It's a spirit-tech chronometer."

"It doesn't just tell time," he said, his voice filled with a childish glee.

"It tells you the probability of a successful outcome for any decision you're about to make."

The bounty hunters leaned in, their eyes wide with greed and fascination.

A piece of tech like that was priceless.

It was the ultimate gambler's tool.

The ultimate weapon for a man who made his living betting on violence.

The clone stared at the watch.

It was a symbol of everything he hated.

Unearned power.

Arrogant privilege.

The casual, careless cruelty of the Cross family.

And in that moment, a new plan formed in its mind.

A shared, silent, and deeply satisfying plan.

The mission had just been updated.

First, information.

Then, a little psychological warfare.