Page 160 of Fractured Loyalties
I step forward, pull a disposable contact disc from my belt. Kinley watches as I fit it to the scanner. My eyes. The disc glows red, scans, then burns itself out in a curl of ash.
Access granted.
The wall behind the first server shifts. Not back—down. A platform descends like a stage curtain, revealing something worse.
A screen. Wall-sized, seamless, humming with static.
It flickers.
Then plays footage.
Not news. Not archives.
Us.
Mara, in the hallway, days ago. Talking to someone on the phone. Her expression frayed, barely composed.
The timestamp shows it’s real. Not doctored. But the angle—
“Where is that feed coming from?” Kinley asks.
I don’t answer.
The image changes.
Me. Killing someone. Brutal. Messy.
Then again. Another kill.
Then footage from Marseille.
All of it. All of it catalogued. Edited. Scored.
Mara turns slowly toward me.
Her voice is a thread of breath. “This Volker guy and his people have been watching since before we met.”
“No,” I say. “They’ve been watching me. You were the side effect.”
“What does he really want?” she asks, sounding more angry than curious.
Kinley’s voice cuts in, sharp. “He wants to own Elias all to himself, to do his bidding exclusively.”
Mara doesn’t look at him. She’s still watching the screen.
“You said we were ghosts,” she murmurs. “But ghosts can’t be seen like this.”
The screen blinks again. A final clip loads.
My body clenches.
It's someone standing beside a body half-shielded by firelight, Jori.
Alive.
Or it was. The frame flickers. The clip ends.
Then the feed dissolves. And the room lights dim.
