The walk to Sublevel 9 wasn’t long, but it felt longer when you didn’t know why you’d been summoned.
Hernan kept his pace steady, hands loose at his sides, boots echoing against the sterile polyr floor. His field badge had been temporarily suspended for this visit, replaced by a disposable ID chip clipped to his collar. No gear. No wrist rig. Even his biotric access had been hardwired through surveillance routing.
They wanted him disard.
He’d agreed. It made it easier to pretend he wasn’t a threat.
Two internal agents t him at the checkpoint — standard gray uniforms, no rank, no nas. Silent. They scanned him with a molecular sweep, then wordlessly led him down a long, cara-free corridor to a single door at the end.
The door hissed open.
Inside: a steel-gray table, matte-black walls, a too-bright ceiling panel, and a pane of mirrored glass reflecting nothing. Hernan didn’t need a briefing to know soone was watching. Always.
At the table sat Agent Dorne.
Zodiac liaison. Mid-forties. Graying just enough to signal authority without age. No code na. No mask. The kind of person who didn’t need one.
"Rook Vale," she said. "Sit."
He did.
Silence held just long enough to set the temperature in the room.
Then Dorne activated the interface embedded in the table. A series of logs blinked to life—low-res waveforms, encoded sweeps, flagged anomalies.
"You’ve been busy," she said evenly.
"Depends who you ask."
"We’re asking you." She rotated one log slowly. "The sweep you initiated — Rael’s approval. Level-five. Precautionary, yes?"
"That’s right."
"A half-second tick was logged mid-sweep. sh tistamp drift. Temporary node insert. No registry. No return ping."
"Could be hardware latency."
"Could be," she echoed, eyes still on the log. "Or soone inserted sothing."
She let that sit, watching for a twitch.
None ca.
"You ran the sweep," she continued. "Selected the tech. Held comm override."
"Are you accusing of sothing?"
"I don’t accuse," Dorne said. "I observe. And I docunt patterns."
She flicked the interface again. A classified matrix unfolded — six red blinking entries.
At the top: PROJECT CROSSFIRE – STATUS: REACTIVATED
Hernan’s breath didn’t change, but his chest tightened behind his ribs.
"Containnt protocols," Dorne said, as if reviewing supply chain manifests. "Crossfire, Eclipse, Black Coda. Most were shelved after the Gemini hearings. But systems under pressure reactivate old reflexes."
"And you think soone inside the tower triggered that pressure?"
"I think soone is moving in ways that don’t match their file." She looked at him. "And I think if I noticed... others have, too."
"Maybe you should tighten security," Hernan said.
Dorne smiled thinly. "Maybe we should."
She closed the logs. The room returned to neutral — a void, as if nothing had been said.
Then she leaned in just a hair closer, voice quiet but clear. "Tell , Hernan. Are you still one of the good ones?"
He looked back at her.
And smiled. "Depends on the question."
She stood without replying. No handshake. No formal dismissal.
"Let’s hope you are," she said, and walked out.
Hernan didn’t move.
The logs were gone. The walls blank again. But the ssage was loud as a siren.
That wasn’t a debriefing.
It was a warning.
And a countdown.
The auxiliary tech lab wasn’t locked — which told Tessa exactly what she feared.
Nico was still here.
She stepped inside quietly. The lab was lit only by the low flicker of a diagnostic feed, casting shadows over scattered tools, stim wrappers, and cooling holopanels. Nico sat alone at the far end, hunched in a spin-chair, muttering to himself.
"If you’re another Zodiac bot here to check my badge clearance, let at least finish my snack first," he muttered without looking up.
Tessa held up a capsule drive. "I’m worse."
He turned halfway, squinting. "Tessa?"
She stepped forward, dropped the drive beside his console. "Decrypt it. Now."
"Wow. No foreplay."
"Just do it. It’s urgent."
The tone in her voice made him go quiet. He slotted the capsule, bypassed two firewalls, then stopped.
"This encryption’s heavy."
"I used your contingency key."
Nico stared at her. "The one I buried under a triple-failkill? If soone tracked that—"
"I know. Just open it."
He did. The interface unfolded with a whisper. Crossfire files filled the screen: trial readouts, bioscan logs, and one label burned into the header.
H-VALE_01 / Sector 12 / Termination Order
Tessa watched his expression darken. She didn’t interrupt.
Then his fingers moved faster.
"There’s a second layer," he muttered. "This isn’t just black-level obfuscation. This was ant to be buried permanently."
He bypassed another string. The interface stuttered — then flashed red.
ACCESS GRANTED — CLASS: DEEPBLACK / GENETIC CONTROL SPECS
The screen reloaded.
"What is this?" Tessa whispered.
"Proof," Nico said. "That Crossfire wasn’t a surveillance project."
He opened the first file. A nervous system schematic blinked into view. Then a trigger string.
Echo Burn Clause: Active | Cellular Cascade Protocol
"They built a kill-switch," he said. "If triggered, his body would self-destruct. No chance of rescue. No external weapon. Just... deletion. Cell by cell."
Tessa stared. "Execution disguised as safety."
"He doesn’t know," Nico added. "If he knew, he’d never be operating like this. He’s not just being tracked — he’s been prid."
She looked away, hands braced on the console. Her breath ca shallow.
"How soon could they use it?"
"Any mont. It’s ping-sensitive. Could be days. Could be one wrong login."
He tapped the schematic again. A deep-sealed location tag blinked.
Tower Zero / AURORA_HUB / GenOps 12.3
"It all traces back there," he said. "Hernan wasn’t an accident. He was a prototype. Crossfire wasn’t about him. It started with him."
Tessa straightened. Cold fury glinted in her eyes. "Then he’s not just in danger. He is the project."
Nico nodded once.
She looked at him. "We have to tell him."
"Yes. But not fast. Not loud. If he thinks he’s already compromised—"
"He’ll vanish," she said. "Or burn the whole place down."
"Exactly."
They stared at each other — allies who had always kept one eye open. Now fully aligned.
Tessa whispered, "We get to him first."
Nico’s jaw tensed. "Before Zodiac does."
The screen blinked. A quiet heartbeat of the system they were standing inside.
And the countdown began.
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