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After considerable effort, Ethan finally managed to convince his Bureau security detail that he was capable of eating a meal without armed supervision.
They retreated to a discreet distance. Not far enough that Ethan couldn't see them. Far enough that he could pretend they weren't there.
His stomach had been growling since the armor came off, and the bruised ribs made every growl feel like a personal insult. He needed food. But he didn't plan on eating alone.
He pulled out his phone and dialed.
Ryan Calloway arrived in eighteen minutes, out of breath and slightly wild-eyed.
"Mr. — Mr. Mercer, how did you find the time to —"
Ethan cut him off with a look.
"What's with the formality? Since when am I 'Mr. Mercer'? And why are you out of breath?"
"I ran six blocks. I thought it might be urgent."
"It is urgent. I'm starving."
Ryan stared at him.
"You just survived a missile strike, destroyed two fighter jets, broke the world altitude record, and got escorted home by the Bureau of Internal Affairs. And you called me because you're hungry?"
"Are you coming or not?"
It was past midnight. Most restaurants in the capital had closed hours ago. The two of them walked for nearly twenty minutes before finding a small shop with its lights still on, the kind of place that survived on the desperation of people who needed food at two in the morning and weren't going to be picky about the ambiance.
They sat down. The server handed them menus.
Ethan didn't hesitate.
"Premium crawfish. The good kind. Don't try to pass off the frozen ones as fresh, I'll know."
"Braised pig's trotter. Two orders of roasted pigeon."
He was reaching for the second page when Ryan snatched the menu away.
"We can't eat all that! There's two of us, not twelve!"
Ethan gave him the specific look of a person who was about to say something that would cause an argument.
"You're treating, right? Don't be stingy."
Ryan's eyes went wide.
"I never said I was treating!"
"You just became the most famous reporter in the Republic. Every outlet in the country wants your footage. And you can't cover a late-night meal for the guy who made you famous?"
"You just got handed a hundred million marks by the government! And you're making me pay for crawfish?"
"The hundred million comes with responsibilities. I've got research costs, development costs, operational costs. The next project alone will eat half of it."
"So you're telling me that you, the wealthiest teenager in the Republic of Valoria, are short on the few hundred marks for a meal."
"That's exactly what I'm telling you."
Ryan was momentarily speechless. Then, despite himself, he shouted to the server:
"Add two bottles of your best spirits!"
The food came fast. Not many customers at two in the morning. Within minutes, the table was covered with dishes, and Ethan was eating with the focused intensity of someone who hadn't had a proper meal in three months of laboratory isolation.
Ryan didn't eat. He uncapped the bottle, poured a glass, and drank it in one swallow.
Ethan noticed. He set down his utensils, poured himself a glass, and matched Ryan's pace.
"You're not even of legal drinking age," Ryan said, glaring.
"My birthday's in January. Technically I turned eighteen months ago."
Ryan gave up trying to enforce responsible behavior on a kid who'd been flying at Mach 6 that afternoon and started on his second glass.
After the third round, something in Ryan's expression loosened. Not relaxed, exactly. More like a wall coming down.
"You know, for the first half of my career, I was invisible."
His voice was different now. Quieter. The professional polish gone, replaced by something raw underneath.
"Overlooked. Talked down to. Passed over for every assignment that mattered. I watched people with half my talent and a quarter of my work ethic climb over me year after year because they had the right connections, the right family names, the right friends in the right offices."
"That kind of frustration — the powerlessness of knowing you're good enough but the system doesn't care — it was suffocating."
Ethan said nothing. He drank and listened.
"Before you came along, I used to lie awake at night and wonder if it was my parents' fault. Why couldn't they have been somebody? Why were they just regular people, working regular jobs, living regular lives?"
He poured another glass.
"Then I met you. And everything I believed about what it took to succeed got demolished."
"Your situation was worse than mine. Orphan. Raised by an uncle who couldn't keep his own job. No connections. No money. No safety net."
"But you never — not once — compromised. Not when the school tried to break you. Not when the media turned on you. Not when a billion-mark corporation framed you for theft."
"Settling for less, accepting what the system gives you, making peace with mediocrity — I thought those were just what normal people did to survive. Coping strategies. The price of being nobody special."
"But you made me realize they were choices. And I'd been making the wrong ones."
He met Ethan's eyes.
"Because of you, even if my career in journalism ends tomorrow, I can hold my head up. Because for the first time in my life, I stopped compromising."
The words hung between them, honest and heavy.
Ethan put down his glass.
"Ryan. What happened?"
Ryan's expression shifted. The vulnerability retreated behind a layer of practiced indifference, but not fast enough to hide what was underneath.
"It's nothing dramatic. The established journalists — the big names, the anchors, the network stars — they noticed that you and I have a relationship. That I've had exclusive access to both of your major demonstrations. That I've been in the room, and the cockpit, for every story that mattered."
"They're worried that every piece of first-hand coverage about you is going to come through me. And they can't have that."
He took a drink.
"So they coordinated. Reached out to every major outlet, every network, every platform. Got them to agree, quietly, that Ryan Calloway doesn't get hired. Doesn't get published. Doesn't get credentials. Industry-wide blacklist."
He said it calmly. The way a man says something he's already processed and filed under "things I can't change."
Ethan's jaw tightened. The bruise on his face darkened as blood rose under the skin.
He'd intended his support of Ryan to help the man's career. Instead, it had painted a target on his back. The same journalists who'd been sitting in the last row at the verification meeting, mocking Ethan and predicting his failure, were now using their institutional power to punish the one reporter who'd believed in him from the beginning.
Public figures. People who appeared on screens every night, talking about integrity and fairness and holding the powerful accountable. And behind the cameras, they were petty, jealous, and vindictive enough to destroy a colleague's career because he'd gotten a story they wanted.
"They want to push you out," Ethan said. His voice was flat. "I'm not going to let that happen."
Ryan took it as the anger of a teenager who didn't understand how the media industry worked. He appreciated the sentiment, but the kid was a physicist, not a political operator. Against an industry-wide blacklist organized by people who controlled the platforms, the networks, and the credential systems, good intentions didn't count for much.
Then Ethan reached into his pocket and pulled out a USB drive.
"Take a look at what's on this."
Ryan's curiosity overrode his skepticism. He pulled out a laptop, connected the drive, and opened the files.
His eyes went wide.
"This is — this is the original footage from the Signal Bee?"
"Everything. Full resolution. Every angle. The speed test, the altitude record, the missile impact, the aerial combat. All of it."
Ryan's hands were shaking slightly as he scrolled through the file directory. This footage was, without exaggeration, the most valuable piece of media in the Republic. Networks would empty their budgets to license even thirty seconds of it.
"There's another file on there," Ethan said. "A video I recorded during the development process. Behind-the-scenes. Three months of work, condensed. The only copy."
Ryan looked up from the screen.
"For me?"
"For you."
"Ethan, this is — do you understand what this is worth?"
"I understand exactly what it's worth. That's why I'm giving it to you and not to anyone else."
Ethan's voice was steady.
"I poured everything I had into Mark One. Three months of my life. Every waking hour. It's the closest thing I have to a child."
"I wouldn't trust that story to anyone else. I wouldn't feel right about it."
Ryan looked at the USB drive in his hand. Then at the kid sitting across from him, eating crawfish at two in the morning, bruised and bandaged and apparently unconcerned about the fact that he'd just handed over footage worth more than most media companies.
His eyes, which had stayed dry through the blacklist conversation and the career retrospective and the third bottle of spirits, went red.
"Absolutely not," Ethan said. "You are not crying. You're almost thirty years old."
Ryan wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and immediately pointed at Ethan.
"If I don't drink you under this table tonight, I'll change my last name."
Ethan grinned.
"Deal."
They stayed until the sun came up.