The Sanjaya Consortium building towered like a glass needle stabbed into Murniarta's belly of sky, and the conference room at its peak was designed to make anyone who entered feel small.
Its walls were entirely glass, revealing the city glittering beneath a haze of acid rain. But what truly set the room apart from an ordinary corporate conference room wasn't the walls—it was the floor. Beneath the glossy black marble, digital sigils glowed faintly, blue neon lines pulsing like veins as they flowed from one corner of the room to another, forming a constantly shifting pattern. Cyber-shamanism. That was what people called the Sanjaya Consortium's style: ancient magic polished into corporate architecture, spells projected through luminous panels instead of etched onto paper.
Karel stood in the doorway, wearing the standard Cleaner suit—neutral, cheap, designed to be remembered by no one. He let his eyes move slowly around the room before anyone noticed he was observing them, as if he were merely a nervous man entering a building this tall for the first time.
"Ah. The new Cleaner." The voice came from the head of the table.
The Don of the Sanjaya Consortium sat there like a man who had never once questioned his right to occupy that seat. His dark suit was tailored to perfection. The ring on his finger gleamed not because of diamonds, but because of the thin sigils etched into its surface, pulsing in time with the floor beneath all their feet. He smiled at Karel—a smile designed to look friendly but feel like someone appraising a dog's price at a market.
"Karel," Karel replied, bowing slightly—enough to look polite, not enough to look obedient. "Thank you for the opportunity, sir."
"Arcane Blindness, I hear." The Don leaned forward, looking at him as if examining a rare specimen. "Strange, isn't it? In a city where half the people can sense a Khodam's presence from across the street, there's one human being who can't sense anything at all." He chuckled softly, and several people around the table joined in—a laugh that was clearly rehearsed, not spontaneous. "Don't worry. That's exactly what makes you useful to me. You'll never be tempted to steal what you can't see."
Karel gave a faint smile, letting the Don enjoy his own assumptions. Behind the Waskitha Glasses, disguised as ordinary prescription lenses, the world invisible to the Don lay fully revealed before Karel. The neon lines on the floor weren't merely digital decoration, but genuine sigil circuits flowing upward into the body of every capo in the room, pulsing in sync with the heartbeats of the entities bound to them.
He read the room like a map.
In the left corner, a young capo with neon lines flickering erratically. Its Khodam was restless, perhaps newly bound and not yet fully tamed by Tirakat Opium. On the right, an older woman in a gray suit with neon lines as thick as electrical cables, flowing calmly and deeply. A powerful Khodam, bound for a long time, already weary of fighting back. And in the center, directly behind the Don's own chair, was the strongest pulse of all—a line so bright it was almost blinding, even through lenses made from ancient wulung amethyst.
Karel stored it all in his head, one detail at a time, like someone memorizing a building's floor plan before robbing it.
"We're dealing with a minor problem," the Don said, leaning back into his chair again, his tone turning more serious.
"Several of my capos have been getting too confident lately. They think they can play around in territory that doesn't belong to them." He glanced toward one of the capos at the end of the table—a dark-skinned man with a scar along his jaw, who quickly looked away when the Don's gaze landed on him. "I want this building clean. You understand what I mean, Cleaner?"
"Completely, sir."
"Good." The Don waved a hand, signaling that the conversation was over. "You'll start in the west wing. There are several... remnants that need to be handled discreetly. I hear discretion is your specialty."