Dr. Haider's HQ, the mansion, ranked fourth on Kelly's list of the most luxurious places she had ever seen.

  Most of the best-defended and expensive properties sat northeast of the city, but still near its center, on artificially elevated land that overlooked places like the outskirts or the Mist Market. The neighboring district catered to the world’s most physically powerful superhumans. This one catered to the supremely wealthy elite of New York. Dr. Haider apparently qualified.

  The mansion was wide. A seven-floor central building rose from its middle, with three-floor wings on either side. The structure was half penthouse skyscraper, half luxury hotel. Half lab, half manufacturing facility. The lower portion was wider than the top. It housed terraced hydroponic gardens, a massive zero-edge pool with multiple balconies, and a dedicated helipad area. The upper floors contained offices and private residences.

  The building’s design took its cues from minimalist neo-brutalism. The mix of luxurious, reflective surfaces and stark geometric shapes gave it the distinct appearance historians called the ‘bond villain aesthetic’.

  Kelly’s assigned room was on the second floor. It was a warm, cozy lounge area complete with a gas fireplace, floor-to-ceiling windows, and a private balcony. The space was a very large, family-style penthouse room that looked and felt extremely comfortable.

  Through the window, Kelly had a perfect view of the actual Jupiter Tower. It was a garish, portal-ridden, monster-sieged, reinforced glass monument to corporate hubris that stabbed the sky and oversaw the entire city. Dr. Haider's mansion and its whole complex couldn't hold a candle to it. They lacked at least eighty floors and several billion dollars' worth of glowing arrogance. How fitting that the corporate fortress got a front-row seat to watch both New York and the apocalypse currently dismantling it.

  A closer look confirmed Jupiter Tower was a self-sufficient fortress built like a battleship designed to be launched into space. It had greenhouses, water reservoirs, and probably its own atmosphere generator. Above a certain floor, the glass turned opaque—a deliberate, view-blocking composition that prevented the vacationing battle-maniac scientist from seeing through it. How suspicious. The only thing more annoying than a transparent evil lair was one that remembered to close the blinds.

  Both buildings were protected by private security elites. These were not the downtown variety. These soldiers wore full combat armor, carried mounted weaponry, and displayed sanctioned enhancement gear implanted in their right arms, shoulders, chests, and legs. Their equipment was current-generation military issue. Unlike their lesser cousins who ran around the city playing hero or collecting interesting mutations, these guards were a professional military force. Their training was thorough, and they were ferociously loyal to their employer's interests; their obedience purchased outright.

  She had heard they didn’t even accept bribes! The scandal. It was almost pathological.

  Turning from the organized chaos outside and the private army desperately trying to contain it, Kelly returned to the genteel horrors of the game she was currently playing with Joe Haider’s “family.”

  Kelly played Monopoly with a glass of wine, which she found difficult to completely enjoy without downing, thanks to her natural regeneration. She guzzled her wine, completely ignoring the delicate sipping ritual she’d once admired.

  It had been a while since Kelly last sat with a group of people without a brief, tense Mexican standoff ending in mass murder.

  This fact spoke volumes about the specific mental state her apocalyptic time-looping had caused her to skip into without noticing. She often had peaceful interactions with one or two people, especially during a mass shootout—or the one time she’d been wine-drunk in a firefight and made a few friends—or the several occasions she worked as a getaway driver for data-chip robberies. A large, relaxed group was a complete rarity.

  Dr. Joe Haider wore tailored black slacks and a dark sweater. Stacy stood at his side in what appeared to be real clothes—a comfortable-looking jumpsuit. Kelly noted the change. She was pretty sure, but it was hard to tell. The woman’s nanotech body could reconfigure its surface to mimic any texture and color, appearing normal to the naked or lesser-enhanced eye. That meant she was technically always naked. But could a swarm of intelligent machines simulating a human form even be considered nudity? Even if the mimicry was anatomically perfect?

  If so, it counted as the most disturbing streaking incident Kelly had ever witnessed.

  Stacy pointed a finger across the Monopoly board, her eyes narrowed. “You’re cheating, Time-Nut. I’m one hundred percent sure of it.”

  Dr. Haider had suggested the game before poker, at a thousand bucks a head with real cash. They were all now gathered around a massive table littered with wine, beer, and some of the best pizza Kelly had eaten all year.

  “Someone is a sore loser here,” Kelly replied. She was already a few hundred dollars richer. Time-Nut. She decided she liked it. It was better than ‘Doctor,’ and significantly more accurate than ‘ma’am.’

  “I have eyes everywhere,” Stacy said, gesturing to a tiny, almost invisible black speck hovering near the board. “You’re cheating.”

  Kelly promptly switched her active Title to Mimic Hunter. Her eyesight sharpened, the world gaining a faint, diagnostic overlay. She could now see them—subtle distortions in the air, heat-shimmer ghosts where Stacy had placed solitary nanotech pieces like sentinel flies. No direct evidence, but the implication was clear.

  “A surveillance state for board games. Admirable,” Kelly noted.

  “I’m never wrong about this,” Stacy insisted.

  “You're right. I'm using my Title 'Capitalist Goblin.' It's very effective.” Kelly had no such Title, and those present interpreted her words as pure nonsense.

  “So you accuse her of cheating by first admitting you spying on us all?” Dr. Haider asked, his tone utterly unsympathetic.

  “If I were cheating, you'd be bankrupt and crying. This is just talent,” Kelly stated openly. Dr. Haider and Stacy both blinked. “And instead of spying on me to catch me out, you should learn from it, my young protégé. You can scan me all you want. You'll just find a superior business mind and a low tolerance for whining.”

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  “I'm good because I iterate,” Kelly said.

  “There’s nothing more human than iteration,” Kelly said, looking at Stacy. “Our history is just a series of attempts—each one slightly less fatal than the last. A little better. We improve because we survive our mistakes.” She glanced at Manuel. “Dinosaurs didn’t get that option. You seen any T-Rexes around, Manuel?”

  “I’ve been to the old Jurassic parks. They were boring. Nothing even broke out,” Manuel shrugged, not looking up from his cards. “And I’ve met smarter people than you in a bar fight.”

  “A bar fight is just a group project for people who show up unprepared.” Kelly said. “I'm not surprised you've seen plenty.” She mimicked his shrug. “Your contribution was probably the concussion.”

  Dr. Haider sighed at their bickering. “Let’s try video games instead.”

  The balcony gave her a front-row seat. Out past the rail, the world was having a very bad, no-good day.

  In the distance beyond the balcony, bright explosions rocked the earth next to a fortress of stone composite and steel, though Kelly and those inside felt nothing. The building where the explosion took place was surrounded by creatures.

  “They’re redecorating,” she said, not turning from the view.

  Dr. Haider shifted, a tense silhouette. “That is a sustained assault.”

  “Tomato, tom-ah-to. It’s a statement.” Kelly leaned toward the window.

  The balcony's energy shield—just basic superheated air with outward pressure—absorbed the distant overpressure, leaving her air perfectly still. A very considerate apocalypse.

  “He’s using the miniguns wrong. You fire in three-second bursts. Not one long scream.” She watched another ammo belt run dry in a distant, sparking trail. “That’s a thirty-second scream. Amateur hour.”

  The assailed building had been some kind of football stadium before the last war, until her employer Vaughn took it over a few decades ago to turn it into something of a landmark. The whole setup—a multi-layered monstrosity of blast doors and visible surface-to-air missile pods—seemed closer to a pre-war army base to Kelly. A lot of Vaughn’s grunts swarmed the perimeter in hectic patrols, armed with the corporate dystopia’s greatest hits: wielding shotguns, grenade launchers, and miniguns.

  She also noticed a few sensor turrets on the roof, their barrels tracking every corner of the streets around the complex. Vaughn was one of the few corporations that could afford football stadiums and then spend triple the budget to turn them into a bunker that needed that many automated guns.

  Kelly watched the bright explosions rock the earth next to Vaughn's stone-and-steel fortress. She saw an armored vehicle with a bright Helix on its side join the fray, helping the monsters assail the structure. Genecorp? The building’s really bad day continued to get progressively worse. "Promotion's not worth it," she said to her glass. “And there goes the executive gym," Kelly noted the sky alight with another bright flash. She took a drink.

  From this high up, the swarming creatures just made the place look busy.

  Apparently, it was an open secret that Vaughn’s interstellar export division operated there—everyone knew, and no one was stupid enough to attack, not even Han Cybernetics or Crystal Nanotech. Its presence had kept New York’s fragile Cold War–style détente intact.

  That had changed, and the Cold War-like era New York had always existed within was officially over. Open war was now on the menu, available immediately, no reservation required.

  It was also quite close to the east grid Kelly had struggled against in previous loops. Kelly usually ignored it, as it was one in a chorus of lesser explosions today that had nothing to do with her goals, but this vantage point allowed her to see an interesting sight: not only did the location have orbital support, clearing the sky of creatures and assailants, but it had a secret off-planet shuttle in its center.

  “Wait… is that a shuttle?” Kelly asked.

  “Yeah,” Stacy said. “Totally illegal. Probably for emergencies… or people tired of being eaten by sky creatures.”

  Had that always been there? Everyone in New York used the Hyperloop and the orbital transit hub—colloquially called the hub—to get off-planet. It was illegal to use any other method or area, or the skies would have been an even more polluted, chaotic mess of a deathtrap and toxic than they already were.

  “Where does it go?” Kelly asked.

  “Don’t ask me,” Stacy shrugged.

  Perhaps it was only for emergencies.

  But it was nice to know that if she ever needed to get off-planet while the Hyperloops or the off-planet hub were down, Kelly had a backup option.

  Kelly threw her cards down. They slid across the polished table. “Also, I want to say I am disappointed in the rest of you,” she announced, swiveling her head to pin Manuel and Dr. Haider with a look. She turned her attention back to the game chips, stacking them with sharp, precise clicks. “Only Stacy recognized that I’m grossly overpowered and tried to cheat! You guys didn’t even try to bribe the dealer.”

  Dr. Haider blinked, his fingers pausing over his own stack of chips. “Why would we cheat with real money when the apartment has cameras on us?” He gestured vaguely toward the ceiling corner where a glossy black dome lens watched the room.

  Across the table, Stacy wasn’t listening. A shimmer, a faint distortion in the air near her hand, resolved into a cluster of silver particles. They swirled and solidified into a perfect, tiny comb. She used it to scratch behind the ears of the three-eyed wolf cub sprawled in her lap. The creature’s third eyelid slid shut in bliss, a low rumble of contentment vibrating through the floor.

  “We could check the footage later,” Haider continued, his tone genuinely puzzled by the inefficiency. “Building security runs full forensic audits. They even know the locations of our secondary safe houses. The tertiary ones, too.”

  Manuel grunted, not looking up from his cards. “Cheating’s for amateurs. If you’re overpowered, you just take the pot.” He pushed a massive stack of chips into the center. “Call.”

  Kelly looked at the bet, then at Manuel’s stone-faced expression. A slow smile spread across her face. “Now that’s the spirit. Finally, someone who gets the point of the game.”

  The wolf cub yawned, revealing a mouthful of needle-teeth, and batted at the nanite comb dissolving back into Stacy’s sleeve.

  “And,” Manuel replied, his voice a low gravel, reinforcing his point. He leaned back, the chair creaking. “It’s a wasted effort. You’d need to pull off a whole circus act just to cheat here. For what? A bigger pile of plastic chips? Play the hand you’re dealt and take the money. Anything else is extra work for the same result. Stupid.”

  “It’s not about practicality,” Kelly shot back, brandishing her cards like they were a winning hand—or a weapon. “It’s about looking good. It’s about having style.” Her tone shifted, theatrical and sharp. “Without differences, without a bright and colorful style, what are we? Dumb animals?! Culture is what elevates—”

  A monstrous roar tore through the room.

  The sound didn't come from outside. It was inside. The bass from the music system choked off. The roar shook the crystal in the decanters. Kelly’s head snapped toward the empty center of the lounge.

  Nothing.

  Then the air rippled, a heat-haze distortion that solidified into a figure as if stepping through a curtain.

  Kelly’s vision was already tinted. Ever since the angel, she kept her lenses viewing mana at a soft 20% opacity, a constant background readout. Now, she cranked the focus. Her Mimic Hunter Title engaged, layering instinctual tracking data over her sight. Her Mana Attuned trait parsed the raw energy.

  She saw it. The energy in the room was swirling, microscopic patterns reacting, weaving light and sound into physical form. It wasn't true invisibility. It was perception-filtering—a complex, active mana field bending awareness away until the creature chose to be seen.

  Everyone saw it now.

  Seven feet of muscle and matted grey fur stood on two thick muscular legs. A three-eyed werewolf, its physique like wide knotted rope and steel cable. Saliva dripped from a muzzle lined with yellowed fangs. Its claws scraped grooves in the polished floor. It wore tattered remnants of clothing—a leather jerkin, a corroded metal pauldron—crafted in a style that spoke of an ancient, intelligent species. Not human. Medieval, but alien.

  It had been standing there. Watching. The building’s state-of-the-art security had seen nothing.

  Kelly didn't point a gun. She just stared.