Page 101 of Fractured Loyalties
"You still have access to the east subgrid?"
"Yeah. Why?"
"Because if he’s pulling shadows through my old tech, I need to see how deep he’s buried."
Rafiq’s fingers twitch like he’s fighting the urge to ask what the hell I’ve walked into. He doesn’t. Smart. That’s why I picked him.
He passes me a chip. "Last forty-eight hours of entry logs on the target nest. I scrubbed faces. Only tags and timestamps. One anomaly last night. Two hours after your name flagged the Berlin node."
"Show me."
He plugs it into a burner slate and turns it toward me. One entry. Mid-height male. Wide gait. Deliberate movements. Timestamp puts him at the location thirty minutes after the Marseille ping Lydia traced.
"He’s testing the buffer radius," I mutter.
"So what’s your plan?"
I look past Rafiq, through the jagged tunnel into the mouth of the alley.
"Find the weak side of his game. And tear through it."
We leave the tunnel behind, the air turning from damp to metallic. The city grows louder the closer we get to the perimeter of the old nest—a warehouse district on the edge of the port, fenced off like it still belongs to someone who gives a damn. Most of the buildings are gutted. A few hum with illegal wiring and the occasional burn barrel. This one? Looks dead. Feels worse.
Rafiq lingers by a rusted-out mailbox while I cross the narrow alley, boots crunching over broken glass and ash. The exterior of the warehouse is tagged with old syndicate symbols—faded and repainted until the meaning is just noise. But I know the bones of this place. I helped design them.
The entry sequence hasn’t changed. Three paces from the storm drain, press the hinge plate on the left, slide in a chipped keycard, then pull back. The outer lock gives with a shudder.
Inside, it’s darker than it should be. Cold too. I shut the door behind me and wait. My eyes adjust slowly.
Nothing has been updated. No heat sensors. No new cameras. No movement.
Except one thing: the terminal. Still warm. Recently used.
I cross over to it slowly. The dust is broken around the base, like someone leaned in with urgency. The screen pings to life before I even touch it—whoever was here last didn’t scrub their exit.
Rookie mistake. Or bait.
My fingers hover. I don’t touch the keyboard. Instead, I reach under the frame and feel for the override bolt I installed years ago. Still there. Still intact.
I tap the inner panel. The screen glitches, then displays the last five user entries. Four are standard check-ins. One isn’t.
Encrypted packet.
Red label. Internal string.
Marked: EIDOLON.
My old tag. Not public. Not even syndicate-registered. This was never meant to be tracked.
My stomach tightens.
I open the packet.
It’s not data.
It’s a message.
No sender. No origin string. Just words:
