Apocalypse Trade Monopoly
Chapter 78: : Exit or Empire

Chapter 78: : Exit or Empire

Finish. Ava stepped back from the wall projection. Her system was already rerouting a clean path out—one that didn’t intersect with Angel’s rising panic. The corridors would soon be flooded with enforcers chasing ghosts, trying to stabilize a system already built to fall.

Lucas tapped his wrist once, closing the live schematic.

"It’s time to move."

Ava nodded. "We’ve stayed long enough."

Lucas nodded then led the way, his coat fluttering slightly with each turn. He didn’t look back until they reached a sealed steel grate halfway down the tunnel. He tapped it twice, then once more—a rhythm keyed to an override sensor buried beneath the wall panel.

A click. A hiss.

The gate unlocked.

"We’re at the branch point," he said, pausing without turning around.

Ava stopped behind him. Locke followed, quietly.

Lucas glanced over his shoulder, smirk curling at the edges of his mouth.

"Captain," he said, tone almost amused, "you’ve got a decision to make."

Locke folded his arms. "Go on."

Lucas raised a hand, two fingers extended. "Option one: You disappear as we agreed. I let you vanish clean. I’ve got an exit shaft that leads outside Level One’s perimeter. I’ve even arranged a drop for you—gas station, western edge of Sector Eight. You’ll find a new ID packet, bunker tokens, clearance slips, travel rights. Fresh slate."

Ava arched a brow. "That’s generous."

Then, his tone shifted—colder now, sharper. "Option two: You stay. And we empty Angel’s storage cache before she figures out half of it exists. There are sealed vaults even you never saw—black zone materials, stolen tech, next-gen Shifter trials. The good stuff."

Locke said nothing.

Lucas leaned against the tunnel wall, golden eyes gleaming in the dim light. "The kind of loot that can fund an army or destroy one."

Silence.

Then: "So what’s it going to be, Captain? Quiet retirement—or one last dance?"

Locke looked between them. Ava’s system was pinging lightly, background scans monitoring every signal in the shaft above them. Far behind, the first signs of internal instability flickered through Level One—small, subtle, but spreading.

Ava watched him closely. She didn’t say a word.

Locke finally exhaled.

"I leave."

Lucas didn’t argue. He didn’t mock. He simply nodded. "Good choice. Honor has its price, after all."

He turned back to the gate, tapped a second code into a recessed panel, and the grate lifted slowly with a growl of gears.

Beyond it was another tunnel—darker, colder. The walls narrowed sharply, descending into a sloped path that turned west through the service layers of Level One and toward the outer rim of the settlement infrastructure.

Lucas gestured to it. "That shaft’ll take you out past the perimeter. No eyes, no scans. No patrols."

Locke stepped forward, gaze steady. "What’s the catch?"

Lucas’s smile thinned. "Beasts roam those tunnels. Lets just say there is a risk you’ll never make it out."

Ava frowned. "You’re sending him through that?"

"It’s still safer than going back up top and letting Angel sniff him out in fifteen minutes," Lucas said with a shrug. "This way, he’s off the board. And alive."

He looked at Locke one last time, voice cool and even. "My butler—William—he’ll be waiting at the gas station on the outer rim. The drop is scheduled. You’ll get the new identity, bunker tokens, currency chips, forged docs, and your med clearance papers. After that?"

Lucas gave a half smile. "You’re no longer my problem. Unless, of course... you want to be."

Locke raised an eyebrow. "Meaning?"

"Meaning," Lucas said smoothly, "my door’s never closed to people who can get things done. You ever feel like doing more than surviving?"

He tapped the side of his head. "You know how to find me."

Locke nodded once. Without a word, Locke turned and walked into the dark.

The grate sealed behind him.

Lucas stared at the door for a moment longer than Ava expected.

"You trust him to keep quiet?" she asked.

Lucas smiled faintly. "No. But I trust him to survive."

His words hung in the air, thin and sharp, like a wire stretched too tight. The quiet that followed wasn’t peaceful. It was loaded—a silence waiting to crack.

Ava didn’t move. Her system was still scanning, still listening, still crawling. She kept her eyes on the now-closed grate Locke had disappeared through, the echo of his footsteps already gone.

Something felt wrong.

Too quiet. Too easy.

Lucas exhaled slowly, golden eyes narrowed—not at Ava, not at the closed gate—but at nothing at all. He was thinking. Deep. Focused. Watching invisible lines shift in a game he’d designed.

"The vault..." Ava started.

Lucas turned toward her.

"It was too easy," she said plainly. Her tone wasn’t suspicious—it was matter-of-fact. Calculated.

Lucas didn’t argue.

"I thought that too."

Ava tilted her head, brows furrowed. "You said Angel hoards everything. Secrets. Leverage. Control. But we walked out of there with no resistance. That’s not like her."

Lucas’s jaw tensed slightly.

"She’s controlling," he murmured. "Micromanaging. She doesn’t even let her guards carry untracked ammo."

He paced slowly, boots quiet against the steel floor. His voice was quieter now. Less amused.

"I’ve known girls like her. They tag their boyfriends with biometric trackers and call it affection. They trace every outgoing call and then accuse you of ’withholding’ if you don’t log your list."

Ava raised an eyebrow. "You sound like you’ve got experience."

Lucas gave a wry smirk. "You think she only ever did it to Locke?"

A beat passed.

"You had a tracker?"

"Buried in the seam of a custom cufflink. I sold it to a Black Market tech for a bottle of real scotch and a fake virus."

Ava folded her arms, watching him now with a different gaze. "And she never noticed?"

"She noticed," Lucas said with a soft shrug. "But she never let me know she noticed. That’s her game—she doesn’t yell. She waits. Baits. Then burns."

Ava’s system pinged.

Nothing urgent. Just pressure shifts. Temperature fluctuations. Minor anomalies in corridor airflow.

But too many minor things add up to something deliberate.

Ava looked up, her voice low and sharp. "What if she wanted us to take that data?"

Lucas didn’t flinch. He’d already thought it. She could see it in his eyes—the wheels turning behind that smirk that never quite reached his thoughts.

"Then we’ve got three choices," he said calmly. "One—we run, leave Level One now. Fast and messy. Two—we go hunting, try to find her before she finds us."

He paused, then met her gaze.

"Three—we go back to the apartment."

Ava blinked. "Seriously?"

Lucas gave a slow nod. "Let the enemy come to us. Make her think we’re either arrogant or blind. It throws off the rhythm."

He stretched slightly, like the tension hadn’t been gnawing at his spine for hours.

"My pick is three," he added. "I want her to send someone. It’ll tell me exactly how scared she is."

Ava studied him for a moment. His confidence wasn’t a mask—it was an invitation. He wanted the fight to come to his doorstep.

She shrugged. "You’re the boss. What you say goes."

Lucas smiled, but only for a second. The tension between them didn’t ease—it just shifted.

Ava rolled her shoulders, fatigue creeping in now that the adrenaline was fading. Her body ached from the hours of tension, the crawl through the vaults, the constant threat hanging over their heads.

"I could use some sleep," she said, half-laughing, half-warning.

Lucas gave her a sidelong look. "You’re the only one I know who says that after a job."

She smirked. "That’s because I’m not like the others."

But then her expression changed—more serious, sharper around the edges.

"If you’re picking three, then my vote is this—we do the opposite of what people expect."

Lucas tilted his head. "Which means?"

"We disappear. Not like cowards—like ghosts." Her voice dropped. "Let them panic. Let them wonder where we went. Let them make mistakes trying to guess."

Lucas considered that for a beat, his golden eyes locked on Ava like he was measuring something behind her words.

Then, slowly, deliberately, he nodded.

"Alright. We’ll vanish."

Ava exhaled, the tension in her shoulders easing for the first time in hours.

But before she could take a step toward the next exit route, Lucas raised a hand.

"But first—" he said, tone shifting. Sharper now. Focused.

"I need to check something. And you’re going to help me."

Ava blinked. "Now?"

Lucas turned on his heel, already walking down the dim corridor without waiting for a yes.

"Yes. Now."

She groaned under her breath and followed, boots echoing lightly against the bunker steel.

"Why do I feel like you’ve been waiting for just the right moment to say that?" she muttered.

"Because I have," he said without looking back. "There’s one thread still loose. And if I’m right, it leads to something Angel never meant for anyone to see."

Ava caught up beside him, her voice quieter now. "You really don’t stop, do you?"

Lucas flashed a grin. "Only when it’s over. And trust me—this isn’t over yet."

And whatever Lucas needed to find?

Ava had the sinking feeling it wasn’t buried in data.

It was alive.