The Weight of the Safe

The back room of Kess's fixer front smells like solder and cold noodles, one bare bulb swinging just enough to make the shadows breathe. Kess doesn't answer right away. They lean back against a filing cabinet full of drives that probably shouldn't exist, arms crossed, studying you like you're a line item that just changed price. Behind that narrow-eyed pause you can hear the building's guts, a fan somewhere grinding, a pipe ticking as it cools. You know this look. It's the one people give you right before they decide whether you're a tool or a liability. Your finance company doesn't care which, they just want their eddies, and every job that goes sideways is another month your chrome stays leashed to a repo clause. Kess's silence stretches a beat too long for comfort. "That's the thing about the safe," Kess finally says, voice flat, testing the words like they cost something. "You ask that question, most people, I gotta wonder what they're gonna do with the answer." Their eyes flick toward the door behind you, then back. "You're not most people though. That's why you're standing here and not lying in an alley with your optics missing."

NPCs in play: Kess.

I lose patience, grab Kess by the collar and slam them against the filing cabinet. Their bodyguard in the corner draws a pistol and I don't care.

The filing cabinet booms like a drum when Kess's spine hits it, papers sliding off the top in a lazy cascade. Kess's mouth opens on a wheeze, hands scrabbling at your wrist, boots skidding for purchase they don't find. In the corner, the bodyguard's chair scrapes back hard, and the pistol comes up fast, muzzle tracking center mass on you, thumb finding the safety. Nobody in the room breathes right for a second. Kess's eyes flick past your shoulder toward the gun, then back to you, calculating whether dying over a safe is worth it. Their jaw works, fear and fury both fighting for the same six inches of throat you're not quite crushing.

Ease off, choom, that hardware's got a hair trigger and he's twitchy on a good day.

You want the safe, you're going about this the dumbest way possible.

I attempt the melee/intimidation check.

The bodyguard's pistol wavers, just a hair, when he catches the look on your face, the total absence of bluff in it. Kess reads the room faster than the muscle does. The fixer's bravado cracks like cheap resin, hands going flat and open against the cabinet, all that earlier attitude draining out through the wheeze still caught in their throat. Whatever calculation Kess was running about how far they could push this, it just came back negative.

Okay, okay, chill the chrome, choom. Diamond-grade jewelry, corp-stamped, off a courier who wasn't supposed to be carrying it. That's what's in the safe.

Tell your boy to lower that iron before somebody's insurance gets real expensive.

I shove Kess aside and charge the bodyguard bare-handed before he can get a shot off.

You pivot off Kess's slumping frame and close the gap before the twitch in the bodyguard's trigger finger can finish becoming a decision. He's got maybe half a second on you, the muzzle already swinging your way, but half a second is a lifetime to hardware built for exactly this. The pistol goes off wide, chewing a divot into the wall behind you as you crash into him, driving a forearm into his throat and pinning his gun-hand against his own chest before he can recenter the shot. He's bigger than you, corp-gym bulk under a cheap jacket, and he tries to muscle you off with a shoulder check that rattles your teeth. Kess is scrambling backward against the filing cabinet, breath still ragged, screaming something that isn't quite words yet.

Marek, stand down, stand down, she's not worth your pension!

I attempt the brawling check.

Your fist connects before Marek's arm finishes its swing, a short brutal check to the jaw that snaps his head sideways and buys you the half-second you needed. The pistol barks once, wild, punching a hole through a stack of pallet crates instead of you. Marek staggers, boots skidding on cracked concrete, and you're already inside his guard, grabbing the wrist that holds the iron and driving your knee into his gut hard enough to fold him. The gun clatters free, spinning under the loading dock's sodium light. Kess is on the ground where you shoved them, scrambling backward on their palms, shouting something that dissolves into static in your ears as adrenaline narrows the world down to this one body you need horizontal.

Marek! Stay down, choom, just stay down, she'll flatline you!

While I stand over Marek, I carelessly grab the jagged broken edge of a shattered crate to steady myself and slice my palm open badly. I also pocket Marek's pistol.

Marek's out cold, jaw already swelling purple, and you're breathing hard over him when your hand finds the crate for balance. The wood gives wrong, a splintered edge catching your palm and opening it up in a hot line across the skin. You hiss through your teeth, blood welling fast and dripping onto Marek's jacket as you crouch and pry the pistol from his slack fingers, tucking it into your waistband. The cut throbs in time with your pulse, a stupid, sloppy mistake in a moment that otherwise went clean. Kess hasn't moved, still frozen against the wall where you shoved them, staring at Marek's crumpled shape like they're recalculating every assumption they walked in with. Their eyes flick to the blood on your hand, then back to your face, and something in their posture shifts, less defiant now, more like they're doing math on how bad this could still get.

You're bleeding all over my merch, Static. That wasn't part of the deal.