The warehouse was dead silent, except for the low whir of cooling fans and the occasional chirp from a pair of pigeons nesting in the rafters.
Cara sat cross-legged on an old army blanket, hoodie off, hair tied up, and visible bruises fading faster than they should. The glow of the system pulsed faintly beneath her skin, like something just under the surface was humming to life.
Wren sat beside her at a salvaged desk, eyes flicking over six monitors. The flash drive was connected to a secure offline laptop—no ports, no network access, no chance of bleeding data.
Air-gapped.
Paranoid.
Perfect.
The drive's encryption was old-school but sophisticated—obviously layered by someone who knew what they were protecting. Wren worked in silence, bypassing each gate with a combination of custom code and sheer persistence.
Cara watched as folders began to open.
One by one.
"Anything?" she asked, voice low.
He signed: One main directory. Timestamped. Early 2000s.
Then another folder blinked open.
/solace-internal/
/classified/
/foundations/
Cara leaned forward.
Wren clicked on foundations.
A single document loaded.
"Inheritance Breach Report – Solace Bloodline"
Cara scanned the first lines:
Subject: Solace Line
Status: Compromised
Event: Extraction of female heir from custody
Date: 18 April 2003
Notes: Internal infiltration suspected. Primary suspect terminated. Secondary (child) missing. Artifact still bonded.
She whispered, "That's me…"
Wren opened another file—this one video.
A shaky handheld camera. A woman running. Gunfire in the background. She ducks behind a vehicle—holding a child, maybe three years old, clutching a necklace.
The woman turns—
Cara gasps.
"That's my mother."
She watches in silence as the woman fires a weapon behind her, shielding the child. Men in black suits close in. One of them is smiling.
Another shot rings out. The woman screams, drops to one knee, turns again—
The footage cuts.
Cara stared at the frozen last frame: her mother's body collapsing over hers, shielding her with her final breath. Blood dripping into her still open eyes.
Wren closed the file, glancing over at her.
Her knuckles were white, jaw clenched.
"No wonder they tried to erase me," she said, eyes burning. "I wasn't some lost kid—I was a threat. A bloodline threat."
More folders began to decrypt.
Inside: documents naming organisations—some she recognised, others buried so deep they may as well have been ghosts.
Helix Core. Order of the Fifth Light. The Iron Glass Trust.
Names with no websites. No records. No public history.
And Foundation files.
Each "Foundation" appeared to represent a global sphere of influence—military, financial, political, cultural, and digital.
One stood out.
"Foundation 7: Silent Dominion"
Cara clicked it.
Inside, a file titled:
"Subject: Wren // Status: Unknown Asset"
She turned to look at him.
He stared back at the screen, frowning slightly.
Cara opened the file.
Codename: Wren72
Alias: Null
Classification: Tier 2 Digital Construct / Phys-Specialist
Status: Disconnected from system
Behaviour: Highly autonomous, silent operative. Observed in multiple system-adjacent zones.
Recommendation: Eliminate upon confirmation of allegiance to Solace Line.
Wren leaned back slowly, exhaling through his nose.
Cara whispered, "You were flagged by them before we met."
He struggled to make out her whispered words as her lips barely moved, then he signed: Guess I made an impression.
The final file decrypted.
A message.
Audio only.
Distorted, but the voice was familiar.
Reeve.
"If you're hearing this, it means either I'm dead… or you've finally come looking. Good. That means you're ready. Cara—Princess—this was never about what they did to you. It was about who you are. The system chose you for a reason, and now it's online. You'renot just some orphan girl with a blade in her arm. You're the nextpiece on the board. And they're going to come at you from every side. So listen carefully…"
Static cut the message off.
Then:
"Look for the First Foundation. Find the archive under Langcroft. And if Wren's with you—trust him."
The screen went dark.
The drive powered down.
Cara sat back, blinking hard.
"Langcroft…" she murmured. "Where the hell is that?"
Wren was already typing.
A minute later, a location appeared on-screen:
Langcroft Estate – Norfolk. Demolished 2004. Former blacksite – MoD affiliated. Officially erased.
Cara's lips twitched.
"So that's where we go next."
Wren signed:
Then we better not be followed.
[System Update: New Legacy Trail Unlocked – Langcroft Archive]
Mission: Travel to Langcroft. Locate First Foundation records.
Warning: Surveillance activity increasing. Risk Tier 3.
Flagged
Somewhere beneath the glass towers of Canary Wharf, in a sub-level that didn't exist on any blueprints, the Silent Dominion's London node pulsed with quiet life.
It was midnight. The city above still wide awake while those in the suburbs yawned and slept.
Here, no one slept.
Banks of servers whispered like restless serpents. Screens flickered with live satellite feeds, packet-sniffing data streams, and encrypted intelligence summaries fed in from dozens of shadow operatives across Europe.
At the centre of the room sat The Auditor—a pale, lean man in an immaculate dark suit. He wasn't tall, wasn't broad, but there was something about the way he sat—perfect posture, stillness like coiled wire—that made the people around him work faster without being told.
One of the analysts, headset crooked against messy hair, looked up from her terminal.
"Sir… we have a breach signal."
His head turned slightly. "Source?"
She tapped the screen. "An isolated flash drive—offline system, but the drive was seeded. Passive telemetry pinged as soon as it powered on."
"What was accessed?"
"Legacy file cluster—Solace bloodline, Tier One archive, Foundation directory…" She swallowed. "…and Subject Null."
The Auditor's fingers drummed lightly against the armrest.
"And location?"
She hesitated. "Temporary bounce nodes, scrambled routing—no fixed trace yet. But the initial ping came from within Zone Delta."
His eyes sharpened. "Delta is hospice territory."
"Yes, sir. That aligns with Wellings' file—"
"Or aligned." His tone was flat. "Send the capture team to sweep the site. Full spectrum. Burn what's left."
"Yes, sir."
He stood slowly, smoothed his tie.
"Deploy two trackers on the network. They have the drive, and they're heading somewhere with it. They'll think it's clean. It isn't."
The analyst blinked. "You planted a—"
"Of course I planted a worm," he said mildly, as if explaining gravity. "That flash drive was never meant to survive without my eyes on it."
His voice dropped.
"Now find them. And tell Sage he has twenty-four hours before I send someone else to finish his job."
Above ground, traffic lights cycled on empty streets. Somewhere in Southwark, a black sedan slipped silently into the night, its passengers already triangulating two names:
Cara Solace. Wren.
Asphalt Ghosts
The night air cut cold against Cara's face, the bite of speed mixing with the tang of petrol and damp earth.
Her motorbike purred beneath her like a coiled predator—matte black, stripped for speed, no plates. Wren rode ahead, his taller frame hunched low over a silver-and-black Yamaha that looked like it had rolled out of a street racer's fever dream.
They'd left London an hour ago, winding east through empty B-roads, keeping off motorways where cameras loved to watch. Every so often, Wren would raise a hand, signalling a route change—down a dirt track, through a narrow farm lane, weaving between hedgerows under the cover of shadow.
Cara had to admit it—he was good. Too good for someone who supposedly worked behind a screen.
Her mind kept circling back to the files.
Her mother's face.
The gunfire.
Reeve's voice on the drive.
And Langcroft.
A blacksite, wiped off maps. MoD-controlled once, now erased like it had never been. Which meant whatever was left would be dangerous—or valuable enough to kill for.
She twisted the throttle, closing the gap between her and Wren.
When they stopped at the next fork, she pulled up beside him.
"Route?" she called over the engine noise.
He signed one-handed: Thirty miles. Forest track. Then estate ruins.
"Forest track" was generous. If it rained, it'd be a mud trap.
"Lead on."
Five miles behind them, a matte-black SUV prowled the same B-road, running lights off, its driver wearing night-vision goggles.
In the back seat sat one of Silent Dominion's field trackers—a wiry woman in tactical gear, hair buzzed close, an augmented reality rig strapped over her left eye. A holographic map floated in her lens, a soft red pulse marking a signal.
She smiled.
"They're moving fast," she said into her throat mic. "But not fast enough."
Back on the bikes, Wren cut down a half-hidden turning that looked like it led nowhere. The tarmac ended after two hundred yards, giving way to gravel, then dirt.
Trees crowded close, their branches forming a tunnel overhead. The smell changed—earthier, wetter.
Cara's eyes scanned the dark. Old instincts flared.
She flicked her head toward Wren. "We're being tailed."
He didn't ask how she knew.
He just raised two fingers, then made a slicing motion through the air. Split.
Cara veered left onto a deer track so narrow her handlebars almost kissed the trunks. Wren gunned it straight ahead, tearing into the deeper dark.
The SUV's driver cursed as they hit the fork, hesitated—then swerved to follow Wren.
Cara smirked.
"Good," she muttered, twisting the throttle and vanishing into the trees.
Running Dark
The forest swallowed sound.
Wren's bike tore through the narrow track, its engine a low growl swallowed by damp leaves and the press of trees. He kept his head low, shoulders loose, eyes flicking constantly between the dirt ahead and the shadows to his flanks.
The SUV behind him wasn't built for this terrain. Its tyres chewed mud, suspension groaning, but it was gaining in short bursts—heavy, relentless, a predator that didn't need finesse to kill.
The woman in the passenger seat—the tracker—watched Wren's heat signature bloom in her AR lens.
"Target's fast," she said, calm as a surgeon. "But he's not leaving this forest."
The driver grinned. "Want me to clip him?"
She shook her head. "Not yet. I want him breathing when we ask who the girl is."
Wren pulled hard on the brake, skidding into a side path so tight the SUV almost overshot. He was already weaving between moss-covered stumps, forcing them to slow to avoid snapping an axle.
He dropped a hand to his belt, pulled a small metal tube, and flicked it open.
A flash mine.
He thumbed the timer, tossed it over his shoulder.
Two seconds later—
A burst of white light and a concussive pop ripped through the undergrowth.
The SUV swerved violently, clipping a tree, its bonnet crumpling against bark.
Wren didn't wait to see if they'd recover. He was already gone.
Two miles north, Cara's bike ate up the track in silence. She'd killed the headlight, riding by instinct and the faint silver wash of moonlight through the canopy.
Every bump and dip shuddered through her frame, but she stayed low, balanced.
Her system overlay flickered faintly in her vision—her new vision. Directional markers. Distance estimates. Topographical outlines ghosting over the terrain.
It wasn't perfect, but it meant she could move faster than human eyes alone.
Back in the forest, the SUV's engine coughed, roared back to life. The tracker's voice was sharper now.
"He's leading us off the primary trail. He's protecting her."
The driver smirked. "Then we're close."
The tracker adjusted her rig, pulled up a second red pulse—Cara's signal, faint but moving north-east.
Her smile returned.
"We'll take him down… then we'll take her."
Wren reached a fallen log blocking the path. Instead of braking, he stood on the pegs, gunned the throttle, and launched the bike over it, tyres slamming into the mud on the other side.
The SUV wouldn't be able to follow.
Good.
He cut right, disappearing into a tangle of pines, circling back on a line that would put him behind them.
Cara's system pinged a faint warning: Risk Proximity Increase – Hostile Vector Predicted.
She pushed harder, the forest track widening now, the air opening with the faint scent of salt and marsh.
Langcroft wasn't far.
She didn't know Wren was doubling back, about to make the hunters his.