Apartment 7-G-2847 was on the far side of Section 7, a twenty-minute walk through corridors that got progressively grimmer as Nico went deeper into Level 8's forgotten corners. This was where people went when they'd given up on even Level 8's minimal standards—where the ceiling panels were missing, where the lighting had failed years ago and nobody bothered to fix it, where the smell of decay was so thick you could taste it.
Nico had eaten, finally. A protein bar that cost him two credits and tasted like cardboard mixed with industrial paste. Then he'd scored one more vial from Kade—on credit, which was dangerous, but he'd pay it back once Chen gave him the three hundred—and taken just enough to function but not so much he'd be useless.
The math of addiction: always calculating, always measuring, always one miscalculation from disaster.
The door to 2847 was like every other door on Level 8: dented metal with a physical lock, no biometric anything, just a keycard reader that had probably stopped working years ago. Nico swiped Chen's card. The lock clicked. The door swung open.
The smell hit him first.
Not as bad as he'd feared—no decomposition stench, they'd removed the body days ago—but still bad. Stale air, unwashed clothes, the particular mustiness of a space that hadn't been properly ventilated in years. Nico pulled his shirt over his nose and stepped inside.
The apartment was tiny. One room serving as bedroom, kitchen, and living space, with a bathroom alcove barely large enough to turn around in. Maybe fifteen square meters total. By Level 8 standards, it was luxury—an actual door that locked, actual walls instead of curtains. Park Jin-ho had been doing okay, relatively speaking.
But he'd died alone in this box, and it had taken three days for anyone to notice.
Nico stood in the doorway for a moment, taking inventory. Mattress on the floor in one corner. Portable cooking unit with a single pot. Plastic crates serving as furniture. Clothes hanging from a wire strung across one wall. Personal items scattered on makeshift shelves: photographs, books, a small shrine with incense and offerings.
The photographs caught his eye. Park had been old—older than he'd looked in the image Nico had glimpsed in the medical examiner's report. In the photos, he was younger, smiling, surrounded by other people. Family, maybe. Friends. A whole life before this tiny box on Level 8.
"Sorry, man," Nico said to the empty room. "Didn't mean to end up rooting through your stuff."
But that's exactly what he was here to do. Root through a dead man's belongings, throw away the trash, pack up anything valuable for donation. Reduce a human life to garbage bags and charity boxes.
He started with the easy stuff. Clothes: most of it was worn threadbare, but some pieces were salvageable. He folded them into a box marked DONATION in his tablet. Cooking equipment: the pot had a crack, the portable unit was ancient but functional. Another donation.
The photos he set aside carefully. Chen had said to save anything personal. These counted.
Books: actual physical books, rare on a station where everything was digital and storage space was a premium. Nico pulled them out one by one. Technical manuals, mostly. Accounting textbooks. Financial regulation guides. The tools of Park's former profession, kept even after retirement like trophies or maybe reminders of who he'd been.
One book was different: a journal, handwritten in careful Korean characters Nico couldn't read. He flipped through it. Numbers, lots of numbers. Dates. More numbers. Some words he recognized: "Covenant," "transfer," "Hong." Mostly it was code to him.
He set it with the photos. Personal items.
It took two hours to clear the obvious stuff. Three bags of trash, two boxes of donations, one small pile of personal effects. The apartment looked bigger empty, which only made it sadder. This was what remained of Park Jin-ho: a few photos, a journal, and maybe 200 credits worth of possessions.
Nico was about to call it done when he noticed the floor panel.
Level 8 apartments were built on cheap, modular construction. Everything was accessible, repairable, replaceable when it broke. The floor was rubberized panels over the structural deck, easy to pull up for maintenance access. Most panels were sealed tight. But one, under where the mattress had been, was slightly raised.
Maybe just warped from years of weight. Maybe nothing.
Probably nothing.
Nico pulled it up anyway.
The space beneath was shallow—just the gap between flooring and deck—and mostly empty. Dust, a few dead insects, the expected debris of decades. But tucked against the support beam, wrapped in plastic: a small metal case.
Nico's heart rate kicked up. This was different. This was hidden.
"Don't take nothing that ain't yours," Chen had said.
Nico pulled out the case anyway.
It was small, maybe ten centimeters across, made of brushed steel with a biometric lock. Old military-grade, from the look of it. The kind of case used to transport sensitive equipment or documents. Way too expensive for a Level 8 resident to own legitimately.
Nico tried the lock. His thumbprint did nothing. Expected.
He sat back on his heels, the case in his hands, mind racing. Options:
One, tell Chen about it. The honest play. Chen would probably claim it, maybe give Nico a finder's fee if he was feeling generous. Safe option.
Two, take it. Get Kade to help crack it, see what was inside, decide what to do from there. Risky option, but if there was anything valuable...
Three, leave it. Put the panel back, pretend he'd never found it. Let the next tenant discover it, or let it sit here until the station's entropy finally claimed it.
Nico turned the case over in his hands. It had weight. Something was inside. Something Park had hidden so carefully that even in death, it had stayed secret.
"Sorry, Park," Nico said again to the empty apartment. "But if you hid it this well, maybe you wanted someone like me to find it, yeah?"
The logic was thin, self-serving, exactly the kind of rationalization Nico specialized in. But it was enough.
He pocketed the case.
The rest of the cleanup went fast. He triple-checked that he hadn't missed anything, that no other floor panels were loose, that no other secrets were waiting. Nothing. Just the case.
He carried the donation boxes and trash bags to the appropriate processing centers—there were always people willing to sort through donations, and the station's recycling systems would handle the trash. The personal items he'd give to Chen, who'd supposedly forward them to... who? Park had no family, no friends, or they would have cleaned the apartment themselves.
Maybe they'd just be thrown away too. That's what happened to people on Level 8 eventually. They became trash.
Nico found Chen in his usual spot, overseeing his pod block like a small-time feudal lord.
"Done?" Chen asked.
"Done. Apartment's empty, cleaned, ready for the next tenant." Nico handed over the box of personal items. "Found some photos and a journal. Figured you'd want them."
Chen glanced in the box. "No family to send them to. I'll keep the photos for the community board, in case anyone knew him. Journal goes to recycling." He pulled out his credit chip. "Three hundred, as agreed."
The transfer pinged. Nico checked his balance: 318 credits total. Enough for food and vials for a week if he was careful.
"You did good work, Nico. Honest work." Chen's weathered face almost smiled. "You need more cleaning jobs, I've got other tenants who could use help."
"Yeah, maybe. I'll let you know."
Honest work. Funny, since the most valuable thing in that apartment was currently hidden in Nico's jacket pocket.
He left before his guilt could override his greed.
Kade's apartment had never looked welcoming, but that evening it looked particularly grim. Nico stood outside the door for a full minute before knocking, second-guessing everything.
This was theft. Real theft, not dealing drugs or moving questionable merchandise, but taking something from a dead man who couldn't protest. If there was anything valuable in this case, it rightfully belonged to... who? Park's estate? Chen as the landlord? The station authorities?
Definitely not Nico Chen, junkie and dealer.
He knocked anyway.
Kade answered, looking worse than usual—eyes bloodshot, hands shaking, the signs of someone deeper in withdrawal than Nico had been this morning. "Kid. Wasn't expecting you. You got my credits?"
"Not yet. Got paid, but I need to buy food first." Nico pushed past him into the apartment. "I need your help with something."
"Course you do. Nobody visits unless they need something." But Kade was already moving to his workbench, the cluttered surface covered in drug paraphernalia and tech components. "What kind of help?"
Nico pulled out the case and set it on the bench. "Found this cleaning out that apartment. It's locked, biometric, and I want to know what's inside before I decide what to do with it."
Kade picked it up, turned it over with professional interest. "Military-grade security case. Probably twenty years old, judging by the model. Biometric lock's hackable if you have the right tools." He glanced at Nico. "Which I do, but it'll cost you. My time isn't free."
"How much?"
"Fifty credits. Or two vials if you're short on cash."
Nico didn't have fifty credits to spare, not really. But the alternative was leaving the case locked, and that was worse than not knowing. "Fifty. But after I sell tomorrow."
"Credit's fine. I know you're good for it." Kade was already pulling out tools—a small device that looked like a modified scanner, cables, a tablet. "This'll take maybe an hour. You want to wait or come back?"
"I'll wait."
"Suit yourself. There's water in the cooler if you want."
Nico grabbed a bottle—Kade kept them cold, a small luxury—and settled into the apartment's only chair. Watched Kade work with the focused intensity of someone who'd done this a thousand times. Military logistics officer, Kade had said once. Before the war, before the discharge, before Level 8. He'd been someone competent, someone useful.
They all had been, once.
"Got it," Kade said after forty minutes. The case clicked open.
Inside: a data core. Just one, nestled in foam padding. Small silver cylinder, maybe five centimeters long, with the telltale iridescent coating of quantum-locked storage.
Nico's excitement deflated. "That's it? A data core?"
"That's it." Kade picked it up carefully, holding it to the light. "But check the casing. See those serial marks? This is corporate-grade encrypted storage. Not the cheap consumer shit. This is the kind of core companies use for sensitive financial data."
"So it might have something valuable?"
"Might have anything. Financial records, personal files, encrypted messages, or absolutely nothing if the data was wiped." Kade set it back in the case. "Only way to know is to crack the encryption and look. Which is beyond my skill set. You'd need a specialist."
"You know a specialist?"
"I know a guy who knows guys. Specs, runs a tech shop in the market quarter. Does data recovery, encryption cracking, forgery work. Expensive but reliable."
"How expensive?"
"For something like this? Five, maybe ten thousand credits if it's complex."
Nico laughed, bitter. "I don't have five thousand credits. I don't have five hundred credits."
"So you're stuck." Kade handed back the case. "Keep it as a memento, I guess. Or sell it to someone with deeper pockets."
"Who would buy it?"
"Specs might, if he thinks there's something valuable. Or one of the gangs, if they think it's corp intel. But kid, honestly? Leave it alone. Data cores like this, they're usually more trouble than they're worth. Someone hid this for a reason, and that reason probably involves people who'd hurt you to get it back."
Sound advice. Sensible advice.
Nico pocketed the case. "I'll think about it."
"Yeah, you'll think about it right up until you do something stupid." Kade sighed. "Just... be careful, okay? Dead man's secrets have a way of killing the living too."
"Noted."
Nico left with the case still in his pocket, heavier than it had been before. Not physically—physically it weighed maybe 200 grams. But metaphorically it weighed tons.
A data core. Corporate-grade. Hidden so carefully that even death hadn't revealed it.
What was on it? Financial records, Kade had said. Sensitive data. The kind worth hiding.
The kind maybe worth dying for.
Nico walked back to his pod through the late-evening corridors of Level 8, past the night-shift workers and street vendors and other dealers working their corners. Normal people living normal Level 8 lives, unaware that he was carrying something that might be significant or might be nothing.
Tomorrow, he'd think about whether to pursue this. Whether to spend money he didn't have trying to crack open a dead man's secret.
Tomorrow, he'd be sensible.
Tonight, he just climbed into his pod, set the case under his mattress next to his remaining vials, and tried to sleep.
But sleep didn't come easy.
Because something about that case felt like possibility.
Like maybe, just maybe, his life could be different.
And that was the most dangerous thought of all.