He didn’t run. He raised the bottle high—the golden liquid catching the emergency strobes—and poured the rest of the Ambrosia No. 7 into the vault’s ventilation intake. The sweet, hoppy vapor flooded the entire SkyTower.

Kaelen wanted it not for profit, but for memory. He remembered his grandfather’s homebrew—a hazy, citrus-bomb IPA that tasted like sunshine and sawdust. He wanted to taste something real again.

Kaelen looked at the bottle. He had taken only one sip. The rest was still pure, still alive. But Hoppulence security was already swarming the elevator.

“They patched the handshake!” Jinx yelled. “The Spire is fried! Get out!”