Riko led him through a labyrinth of service corridors and maintenance tunnels that smelled of ozone and stagnant water. Koshva, even with his Authority clearance, had no idea places like this existed. They were the forgotten arteries of the station, the dusty spaces behind the walls.
Finally, they stopped in front of a grimy, unmarked door. Riko knocked in a specific rhythm: three short taps, a pause, and two long taps. A moment later, a metallic click, and the door hissed open.
"This is my place," Riko said, a note of pride in his voice.
Koshva stepped inside and had to stop himself from coughing. The air was thick with the smell of burnt electronics, stale synth-caff, and unwashed laundry. It was a tech-den, but a lived-in one. Holographic schematics of Authority security protocols floated like glowing ghosts amidst piles of dirty clothes and empty nutrient packs.
On a battered couch in the center of it all sat a girl. She was tiny, maybe five feet tall, with messy black hair pulled back in a messy bun. She was hunched over a glowing holographic display, her fingers dancing across the interface with blinding speed. She didn't look up.
"He's here," Riko said, by way of introduction.
The girl didn't respond.
"Hey, Wrench! I brought a client," Riko tried again.
The girl—Wrench—lifted her head. Her eyes were sharp and intelligent, and they scanned Koshva from head to toe with a look of utter disdain.
"A suit," she said, her voice flat. "You're bringing Authority to my doorstep now, Riko? You know the rule. No cops."
"He's not a cop," Riko said quickly. "He's a Ment. A Class 4. He needs help."
"I'm retired," Wrench said, turning back to her display.
"The pay is good."
"I have enough credits to live for the next twenty years without ever having to work again. What you got isn't 'good'." She finally swiveled in her chair, crossing her arms. Her gaze was piercing. "So what's a Class 4 desk jockey want that's so interesting he has to come slumming in the Lower Sectors?"
Koshva took a deep breath. He laid out the plan. The body. The need for a resurrection. The "Another Star." As he spoke, Wrench's expression changed from disdain to curiosity, then to something he couldn't quite read. It was a mix of pity and professional interest.
When he was done, she let out a short, sharp laugh. "A resurrection? You want to use a Class-4 catalyst to reboot a Class-2 Deviation's soul? That's like trying to restart a patient's heart with the defibrillator pads you use on a small child. It's a severe mismatch of scale and power. You might get a flicker of response, but the jolt is nowhere near strong enough to properly restart a system as complex and powerful as a Deviation's. You're not just failing to revive the patient; you're risking massive internal damage from using completely the wrong equipment for the job."
"I don't care if it's a waste," Koshva said, his voice firm. "I just need it done."
"And I suppose you want me to create some big distraction, right? Blow up a power conduit? Set off the fire suppression system in the archives?" She sneered. "Amateur. That just brings heat. You don't make noise; you make silence. You create a window where no one's looking."
She stood up. Koshva realized she was even shorter than he thought, but her presence filled the room. She walked over to a large schematic of the Medical Wing, her finger tracing the lines of the security layout.
"Your plan is stupid. Your target is in the central morgue. That place is a fortress. Bio-metric scanners, AI-monitored vitals on every pod, reinforced doors... you couldn't get within fifty feet of that room without a full-squad response."
"So it's impossible?" Koshva's heart sank.
"I didn't say impossible," Wrench snapped. "I said your plan was stupid. I'm not going to create a distraction. I'm going to be the distraction."
She tapped a few keys on her console, and a new schematic popped up—a detailed cross-section of the morgue's life support system.
"Life support systems are the least monitored pieces of equipment in the station. They're old, they're reliable, and they only throw alerts if a catastrophic cascade failure is imminent. They aren't networked into the main security grid for safety reasons."
She pointed to a specific junction box on the schematic. "If I introduce a specific feedback loop into the primary coolant pump, it'll trigger a localized, non-toxic aerosol containment protocol. The system will automatically lock down the room to prevent 'contamination' and suspend non-vital AI monitoring while it awaits a manual diagnostic team. It gives us a fifteen-minute window. Quiet. Clean."
Koshva stared at her. "What's your price?"
Wrench walked back over to her console and pulled up a different file. It was a simple list of stasis-pods. She scrolled down and tapped one. Stasis Pod 7. "Jax." A picture of a young man with a crooked grin appeared next to it.
"He was a friend of mine," she said, her voice suddenly quiet. "Got stuck in a memory-loop during a recon mission. A glitch. The Authority put him on ice. No chance of release. They just forgot about him."
She turned to face Koshva, her eyes burning with a cold fire. "I'll get you your window. I'll get you to your god's body. In exchange, I get half of the 'Another Star'."
Koshva's breath hitched. "For... for your friend?"
"I want him back," Wrench said, her voice leaving no room for argument. "We use it on him first, to make sure the dose is right. Then we use the other half on your dead god. That's the deal, suit. Take it or leave it."
"No deal, at best i can do is both at the same time."
"Deal", she's reluctant but has no other option"
Koshva looked from Wrench's determined face to Riko's worried one. He was a Ment of the Authority. He was supposed to uphold the system, not subvert it. He was helping a wanted criminal break into a secure morgue to resurrect two anomalies, one of whom was his own failure. He was so far past the point of no return he couldn't even see it anymore.
"Take it," he said, his voice barely a whisper.
A slow, predatory grin spread across Wrench's face. "Excellent. Let's go commit a felony."