They emerged in an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of the city, the night rain now a gentle drizzle that washed away the neon glow. The warehouse was a relic of the old world, its walls lined with rusted crates and forgotten machinery. In the center, a battered workbench waited, its surface scarred from countless repacks over the decades.

They were here for one thing: the . In the neon‑lit world of Khandri, a “repack” wasn’t just a simple resale. It was the art of taking a piece of forbidden tech, stripping it of its original firmware, and rebirthing it with new, untraceable capabilities. The object of their attention was a prototype V-5 Core —a compact, quantum‑entangled processor rumored to be able to break through any encryption, even the city’s legendary “Blackwall” firewall.

Mamin’s eyes narrowed. “The Core’s encrypted with a triple‑layer quantum lock. I’ll need to overlay a quantum‑phase bypass. It’ll take… a few seconds, maybe longer if they trigger an alert.”

Mamin, the youngest, was a prodigy of the underground code‑forge. At twenty‑one, she could rewrite an AI’s core personality in the time it took most people to brew a cup of tea. Her hair was dyed a shifting violet that caught the light every time she moved, and her eyes glowed with a soft teal when she interfaced directly with the holo‑table.

“Five minutes until the transport arrives,” Vargesh repeated, glancing at his wrist cuff. The cuff’s faint pulse synced with the holo‑table’s countdown, each tick a reminder of the risk they were taking.

Jarek grinned, his boots kicking up a thin cloud of dust. “I know a place. There’s an old safe house near the river—no drones, no eyes.”

Selene slipped out of the shadows, her suit returning to its default hue. “We should split the loot. The city’s market will be buzzing for weeks. And we’ll be the legends they whisper about.”