IJas called Niamh from the street before he was halfway ho.
He told her what happened without preamble. A man nad William Langford had been waiting outside Hale Estate in a black luxury car and had offered him a UK national transfer contract. Jas had not entered the vehicle, had not signed anything, and had not accepted any follow-up eting.
Niamh’s voice stayed level. "Did you give him any personal information? Bank details, TRB registration number, ho address?"
"No."
"What did you take from him?"
"A business card. Governnt seal and an encrypted contact number."
A short pause. "Send a photo of the card now. Front and back."
Jas stopped walking, pulled the card from his pocket, and photographed both sides before sending them through. He heard Niamh look at the images while he waited on the line.
"Good," she said. "Don’t et Langford alone if he contacts you again, and don’t share that number until we’ve had a chance to look into it. The approach will be recorded officially on our end."
Jas said he understood before ending the call.
He was not asking TRB to protect him. He was making sure soone official had a record before the pressure changed shape.
Niamh brought the Langford report to O’Shea’s office the following morning.
O’Shea read the summary while sitting behind his desk before setting it down and leaning back in his chair. He did not look surprised. He looked tired in the way soone looks tired when they keep seeing the sa problem repeat itself for years without anyone fixing the cause.
"They went for Ganner," he said.
"Directly. Outside Hale Estate. Waited until after Team Zero’s eting before approaching."
"Which ans they know the team is on a break," O’Shea said while his voice stayed flat. "They know he’s between guilds and uncontracted. They tid this."
Niamh confird. "Jas refused the transfer and did not enter the vehicle. He reported it the sa night."
O’Shea nodded without looking impressed by that, because reporting was the correct response and correct responses were expected. "The Langford card?"
"UK governnt seal. Encrypted line. Not a guild front—this is coming from sowhere with actual national backing behind it."
O’Shea stood and moved to the window while looking out at the Dublin skyline with the Tower visible in the distance. "Jas Ganner cleared Floor 10 on Hell difficulty. Independent. No major guild contract. No family structure protecting him. They see him as the cleanest recruitnt target Ireland has right now."
"And they’re not wrong," Niamh said while her tone stayed neutral.
O’Shea turned away from the window. "I’m taking this to the board. Not just the Langford approach—the whole pattern. Ireland keeps developing talent and richer countries wait until they’re useful and then buy them away. I’m not letting this one go quietly."
Niamh said nothing because she had seen O’Shea bring these argunts to the board before.
She already knew how the room would respond.
The board eting was short and the outco was predictable.
O’Shea laid out the situation clearly. Langford had approached Jas Ganner outside Hale Estate within days of Team Zero’s first eting following Floor 10. He had offered a formal national transfer contract with citizenship, sponsorship, private training facilities, Tower intelligence access, and secured housing. Jas had refused, reported the approach imdiately, and provided TRB with Langford’s contact card.
The board listened without interruption.
One of the senior board mbers spoke first when O’Shea finished. He was a grey-haired man from Lirick with a legal background and a habit of framing every uncomfortable truth in bureaucratic language. "The approach was legal. Jas Ganner was not coerced. No contract was signed. He reported it and we have the card. That is the correct outco."
"The correct outco is Jas still being Irish," O’Shea said.
Another board mber cut in from the far end of the table. She had arrived from a Finance background three years ago and had spent those three years finding ways to avoid expensive diplomatic incidents. "We cannot turn every foreign recruitnt offer into a national ergency. UK programs approach Challengers across Europe. They approached two in Germany last month. Three in the Netherlands. This is not targeted harassnt—it is standard foreign Challenger developnt strategy."
"It is targeted," O’Shea said while his voice stayed controlled. "They went for Ganner specifically because he cleared Floor 10 on Hell difficulty and is not yet signed to a major guild. They tid the approach for when Team Zero was on a break. That is intelligence work, not a standard recruitnt sweep."
"It is still legal," the Lirick board mber repeated.
"My concern is not whether it is legal," O’Shea said. "My concern is that Ireland keeps training and registering Challengers from Awakening through their first ten floors, and then the mont they beco genuinely valuable, foreign programs with deeper pockets arrive and offer them things we cannot match. We absorb the developnt cost. They take the finished product."
The Finance board mber folded her hands on the table. "That frustration is legitimate, but frustration is not a legal strategy. You cannot sanction a UK representative for making a legal offer that was refused."
O’Shea knew the room had already settled before he had finished speaking.
"Then monitor the situation," the Lirick board mber said. "If Langford’s organization contacts Ganner again in a way that constitutes harassnt or coercion, we have grounds to act. Until then, the matter is recorded and we move forward."
The room agreed with that framing without needing a formal vote.
O’Shea left the eting without winning anything, but he stopped in the hallway outside and told Niamh quietly to keep looking into Langford and the organization behind him. Not for the board’s purposes. For his own.
Ganner Corp was preparing for its annual ball.
The ball was not a private dinner or a family gathering. It was a major arms and rchant event that the company hosted every year and used to conduct a significant amount of its actual business under the cover of a formal occasion. Guild representatives arrived to discuss equipnt contracts. TRB officials attended because turning down an invitation from Ireland’s largest Challenger-grade equipnt supplier was politically complicated. Weapons buyers ca from dostic companies and several international contractors. Investors ca because Ganner Corp held enough market share in Tower-grade manufacturing that being in the room mattered.
The venue was being prepared with Tower-grade armor showcases along the main hall walls, private negotiation rooms accessible through a side corridor, a weapons display section near the back, and a formal family seating arrangent near the center of the hall where the Ganner family and their closest personal guests would sit in full view of the rest of the room.
Jas’s uncle reviewed the final guest list while sitting in his office with his secretary standing nearby.
The ball had always been about deals, positioning, and controlling the story the room told about Ganner Corp. This year it was about sothing additional.
Jas had cleared Floor 10. His na was public. His connection to the Ganner family had been printed in articles across every major Challenger network. Investors were already asking questions about whether Ganner Corp had a relationship with the Necromancer of Team Zero.
His uncle studied the guest list and decided the ball was the right stage.
A private eting would give Jas too much room to refuse. A private eting kept the situation away from witnesses and let Jas walk out without consequences. The ball was different because it was public, formal, and surrounded by people whose opinion of the Ganner family mattered to the company’s market position.
Inviting Jas to the ball as a family guest gave Ganner Corp a public display of reconciliation. If Jas attended, the room would see the family reuniting on good terms. If Jas refused, Ganner Corp would tell the sa room that they had made every effort toward family harmony and Jas had rejected it.
His uncle drafted the invitation personally and had his secretary format it with the company’s formal letterhead. The language was respectful and warm in the way expensive stationery sotis compensated for the coldness of the person signing it.
It nad Jas and his mother as honored family guests.
Nyra was not included because Ganner Corp did not know she existed.
The first son arrived at his father’s office twenty minutes after the guest list was finalized.
He had heard from a secretary and had not waited to be called in. His voice was raised before he was fully through the door. "You invited him?"
His father’s expression did not change. "Sit down."
"Why are we inviting him? He is connected to Derek going missing. We know that. Everyone in this family knows that." He put both hands flat on the desk and leaned forward while his jaw was tight and his eyes were angry. "We should be confronting him, not hosting him."
"We don’t have proof," his father said in the tone he used when a point had been made before and he was tired of remaking it.
"I don’t need proof to know what—"
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