The cold hit harder the next morning. Not just in temperature, but in the weight of decisions waiting to be made. Ethan stood on the roof of the safehouse, scanning Geneva's skyline through binoculars. Below, the city buzzed in ignorant motion—businessmen, tourists, couriers. A hive with no idea a blade hovered inches above it.
The air was sharp, clean, and almost too quiet. The kind of morning that made the world feel like a still photograph.
Behind him, Darius emerged from the stairwell with a thermal coat and a steaming thermos. "Weather says clear skies," he said. "Not that it helps us."
Ethan didn't respond right away. He tracked a white panel van three blocks down, turning left on schedule. "That van's passed the same block three times since six a.m."
"Operative sweep," Darius muttered. "They're nervous. Good. Let's make them paranoid."
Back inside, they spread out equipment on the table. Drones, wiretaps, disruptors. All compact, clean, disposable. Ethan checked the frequency intercepts one last time. The glow of the screen painted his features in cold light.
The LionSphere relay was housed in a building disguised as a cloud services company—LevelByte Data Holdings. From the street, it looked like a standard co-working hub. But inside: heavily encrypted comms, rotating access codes, and biometric authentication. A fortress wearing the mask of a startup.
"We're not breaching," Darius said. "We're infiltrating. Quiet, clean. No weapons unless absolutely necessary."
Ethan nodded. "We walk in, get the packet, walk out. In and out in ten."
Darius offered a wry grin. "Said every dead agent ever."
They moved at noon.
The entrance was busy—workers entering with laptops, suit jackets, and insulated coffee cups. Ethan and Darius passed through dressed as consulting auditors. Their forged IDs pinged as secondary security clearance—enough to grant elevator access but not trigger attention.
Inside, the air smelled of citrus cleaner and new carpet. A receptionist nodded as they passed, bored and distracted. The security layout was modern—clean walls, retina scanners at certain key points, and small silver globes on the ceiling that tracked motion.
Ethan leaned close as they entered the lift. "Security camera dead?"
Darius tapped his smartwatch. "Looping since 11:45."
The elevator dinged at floor 7.
Suite 713 looked like a server room from the outside. Frosted glass. Keycard lock. No signage.
Darius inserted a spoofed card. Nothing happened.
"Backup," he muttered.
Ethan opened his briefcase, pulled a pulse driver, and aimed it at the lock. A soft hum. Then a faint click.
They slipped inside.
The air inside the relay room was cold, the hum of servers omnipresent. Blue indicator lights blinked like distant stars. Rows of machines blinked in rhythm, a quiet heartbeat of secrets and shadows. Darius went to the wall terminal. Ethan circled the room, checking for redundancies.
"Encrypted feed is bouncing through six countries," Darius said. "Whoever built this didn't want traceability."
Ethan reached a side console and began a background download. "Get the live logs."
Darius tapped keys rapidly. "I've got packet trails. Names. Transaction pings. This—"
He froze.
"What?"
Darius turned the screen to Ethan.
A list of code names appeared. Below them, a recent access log. One entry stood out:
G02-SHADOWSIGNAL // Zurich // Access Date: 2 days ago
Ethan's pulse quickened. "Ghost 02 already pulled this?"
"No," Darius said. "They're still pulling it. They installed a worm. Real-time sync."
Ethan's voice sharpened. "So they know we're here."
As if on cue, a silent red light blinked to life above the door.
They were compromised.
"Kill the feed," Ethan barked.
Darius yanked the portable drive. "Trace?"
"Minimal. If we're lucky."
They exited fast—back down the stairwell, bypassing the elevators. Ethan scanned each corridor. No movement. But the silence felt different now. Loaded. Heavy.
At the lobby, things looked normal. No security shift. No lockdown. The receptionist was still at her desk, typing slowly.
"Either they didn't flag us," Ethan muttered, "or they want us to leave."
"Let's oblige them."
Outside, the wind bit their faces. They turned three corners before entering a parked utility van. Ethan opened a secured tablet and began decrypting the files they stole.
Names appeared. Transactions. Communication threads. Most of it encoded in secondary cipher.
But one line appeared in plain English:
TARGET: PRIMARY – ALDEN_HEIR
ORIGIN: G02-NODE / RELAY ECHO
Darius frowned. "Why would they leave that unsecured?"
"They didn't," Ethan said, jaw tightening. "They wanted me to see it."
A trap. A message.
He leaned back, eyes narrowing. "They want me to know they're watching. Always one step ahead."
Darius remained quiet.
Back at the safehouse, Ethan dove into the rest of the files. Over the next hour, patterns emerged. Contracts issued from shell firms. Travel logs matching operatives across three continents. But one thing stood out:
An open channel ping from inside Marcus Alden's old Geneva estate.
The estate had been sealed for years—sold to a legal trust no one had touched. But someone had turned on a line. Briefly. Then off.
Ethan stared at the screen.
"This place... I don't know why, but it feels familiar," he murmured. "Like something I should remember—but can't."
Darius turned to him, puzzled. "You've been there?"
"Maybe. I was five when he died. Some memories... they come in flashes. I can't tell if they're real or just stories I imagined."
Darius studied him for a moment, then nodded. "Could be implanted. Or Marcus left you just enough to find your way back."
Ethan didn't answer. He kept staring at the coordinates.
"Either way," he said finally, "someone's using that house. Maybe them. Maybe someone else."
Darius stared at the map. "Or someone wants you to think they are."
Ethan walked to the window. Snow drifted lazily in the wind, coating rooftops like dust on secrets.
He turned back to the map.
"We check the estate. But no backup. No delays. If Ghost 02 is there, I want to look them in the eyes."
Darius gave a slow nod. "Then we plan carefully. That place is wired. Marcus designed it as both fortress and trap."
Ethan grabbed a burner phone, loaded one magazine into a compact pistol, and checked the suppressor. His movements were deliberate. Purposeful. No hesitation.
He spoke quietly.
"Time to go home."
And somewhere across the city, beyond snow and silence, an unseen watcher sipped tea and smiled at a screen.
The game had moved to its next board.