Noem pressed his shoulder into the unlocked but pressure sensitive door to his home as a bio-scanner took in his genetic code. He frowned at it when it took far longer than normal, then muttered in annoyance and pulled down his hood.

“Right, right. Do your thing.” He chided the very much inanimate scanner. “Don’t get hacked again, alright? Last time you almost got us killed, you dodgy bastard.”

The door hissed open for a split second. Noem rolled his shoulder along the frame and pulled his spoils in with him before the door could close on him, threw the box off to the side, and tapped his fist against the wall. A deluge of near indecipherable text erupted over his eyes, scrolling by so quickly that he couldn’t read anything. But everything flowed correctly, which was a sign of absolutely no intrusive attempts.

“All good, then.”

He clapped his hands to dismiss his gloves and stripped out of his combat gear as he made his way to the kitchen. If anyone stumbled onto his house, carved into a rocky hill with only a thin outline that marked anything out of the ordinary, they’d have thought it was some eccentric billionaire’s wilderness getaway. Not the hideout of the Great Quarry’s self-proclaimed number one skyrail thief.

He was also its only skyrail thief, but Noem left that part out when he bragged to himself. He preferred to think of it as cornering the market for this region, not as hiding out where almost nobody shipped goods. Most people used system-linked inventories anyway, but for people that were rich enough to care about digitally tainting their precious goods, skyrails and caravans still made the treks. Horribly expensive and risky treks.

He threw open the cupboards to reveal plenty of fruit trapped in localized stasis at the peak of ripeness. His gut told him he was looking for something sweet and crunchy after the brief adrenaline rush, and the gold-peeled apples he’d stolen a few months back were perfect for the occasion. He swiped one of the juicy and crisp fruits and closed the cabinet, tossed it once in the air, then swiped it towards his mouth and bit into the thing’s pristine flesh.

Juice dripped down his chin as he threw himself over a couch that doubled as a bed when he didn’t care to leave the ground floor. Which was most nights. Soft mechanical whirring emerged from a room down the hall along with sterile beeps at perfect intervals. Noem resisted the urge to go see his sister, but she would want him to finalize the spoils and sales before anything else.

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“Call the regular buyers. Tell them I’ve got dust-rose and stoneberry seeds, and enough goldlily bulbs to keep them making circuits for a decade.” He said aloud to the small room, which connected to the alcove he called a kitchen and a ladder that led to the loft on the second floor. It did nothing visible in response, but a trio of soft beeps from his interface told him he had three buyers interested.

Less than usual, but about what he’d expected. Few people had the kind of dirt and climate needed to grow anything in the big cities, and that was where his main clientele tended to work from. He held up three fingers for a second, then curled his thumb and index finger into a ‘0’ to tell the system to schedule a call in thirty minutes.

One more dropped out, leaving only two possible buyers. Noem felt his throat tighten in worry. He needed this influx of credits; things were getting more expensive, and he needed more of them than ever. Minutes passed in agonizing slowness. Neither of the two remaining buyers confirmed if they were attending or canceling.

“Fucking hell.” He half-laughed and ran his hand down his face. “Bastards tell you they’re looking for something, then leave you high and dry when you actually get it. Fuckers probably used me to get under Ajiana’s skin.”

Soft whirring grew louder for a moment, then returned to normal.

Noem bit the last of the flesh from his apple. “Yeah, yeah, I know. Never trust a packing list. These rats would gnaw my ankles off if I tried to sell ‘em something I didn’t have.”

He ripped the stem from the apple and crunched right through the core. Seeds burst between his teeth with an acrid nutty flavour, and the other half followed as he bent down in front of the box of mystery. It was a little smaller than he’d expected. He summoned a knife, which was accompanied by a light thump from the loft, and set to slowly cutting apart the tape matrix that held the box together.

With each cut, the tech holding the box together weakened. By the time he reached the last piece, the sides of the box were barely holding on. He slid his knife under the tape and flicked it up, then held out a hand so the panel wouldn’t fall on him. A simple push toppled the panels away from him, revealing a few smaller boxes filled with–

The panels fell away to mounting dread as Noem realized what was actually inside all of that security. A dark brown stone the size of both his fists held together, strewn throughout by coppery and moss green flecks.

Noem’s blood ran cold. He lifted a trembling hand to touch the stone that just had to be a replica. It had to be one of Ajiana’s tricks. Yeah. She had to be tired of losing thousands of credits to ensure her cargo got through safely. He couldn’t be touching the real thing. Only five of them had ever been found, after all, and they were all bonded to apexes or incarnations.

Burning warmth stuffed with a core of absolute cold lanced up Noem’s arm.

“No. Fucking hell, no!” He turned and grabbed onto the back of his couch as his throat grew tight. “Why the fuck was it in that car!?”

The crater corundum said nothing. Stones couldn’t speak, after all. Even if they were worth close to a billion credits.