---
Wandering through the city in search of leads wasn't how I imagined this assignment would play out. Even after preventing a city-wide blackout, the whole operation still felt incomplete. Something bigger was moving beneath the surface—something I couldn't yet identify, let alone stop.
After the staged incident at the lighthouse, I split off from Mara and Kade. No follow-up messages, no encrypted warnings to pull back. Maybe the case was finally wrapped for good.
My team slipped back into their routine at headquarters, waiting for the call to regroup. But I couldn't shake the feeling that there were still layers left unseen—angles I hadn't explored. Time slipped past me quicker than I realized. Nearly a week had gone by without a single attempt to chase down the remaining loose ends. Maybe I'd just decided, intentionally or not, to take a breather.
So there I was, standing in front of a hotel receptionist, who looked at me with thinly veiled disgust, as if she couldn't understand why an undercover cop would be grinning in the middle of a supposedly finished case.
---
Her expression didn't bother me. I'd worn worse faces in worse places. Besides, a smile was safer than looking like a cop who'd just clawed his way out of a conspiracy.
"Checking in?" she asked, tapping impatiently at the keyboard.
"Yeah," I replied. "Something quiet. Corner room if you've got one."
She slid a keycard across the counter with a sigh, already looking past me to the next guest. Fine by me. Being forgettable was part of the job.
The elevator ride up felt too smooth, too calm—like the world was pretending nothing had happened. But cases like this don't just disappear. If there was one thing I'd learned working undercover, it was that silence usually meant someone was rearranging the pieces where I couldn't see them.
I unlocked the room and stepped inside, scanning instinctively: vents, corners, under the bed, behind the curtains. Old habits. Necessary ones.
Just as I tossed my jacket onto the chair, my burner phone—one I'd nearly forgotten I had—buzzed twice. Not the standard three-beep call from the department. This was something else.
Unknown sender. Encrypted. A single line:
"You missed something at the lighthouse."
My stomach tightened, that old familiar pull of adrenaline uncurling in my chest.
Vacation was over before it ever really started.
I stared at the message, knowing exactly what it meant: the case wasn't just alive—it was changing shape.
And someone out there knew I wasn't done.
---
I read the message again, slower this time, letting each word sharpen in my mind. You missed something at the lighthouse.
There were only a handful of people who knew about that operation—and even fewer who knew how to reach me on this line.
Whoever sent it wasn't just informed. They were close.
I stayed still for a moment, listening. The hum of the mini-fridge. Distant traffic outside the window. Nothing else. Good. I powered down the phone, cracked open the back, and removed the battery. If someone was tracking me, that would buy time.
I'd gone to the lighthouse expecting a simple intercept job—stop the blackout, stop the leak in our intel network, arrest the mole. We pulled it off. Or so I thought. But the message gnawed at me, pulling back memories I'd pushed aside.
Mara's uneasy glance during the takedown.
Kade's sudden insistence on leaving first.
The missing thirty seconds of camera footage the tech team never explained.
I grabbed my jacket and headed back out. Rest time was over.
The city had a different feel at night—like it was holding its breath. Streetlights flickered against puddles left by an earlier rain. I kept my hands in my pockets, blending with the low-tier nightlife that haunted the block. A couple of early drunks, a vendor closing shop, a taxi honking into the void.
I walked until I reached the alley behind a closed hardware store, where a magnetic keybox sat hidden under a rusting pipe. I popped it open. My backup comms device was still there. Untouched.
Good.
I connected it to the local network scrambler and powered it on. Within seconds, a coded ping appeared—originating from the western docks, just a mile from the lighthouse.
Someone wanted me to go back.
Someone knew I couldn't resist.
A figure stepped out from behind a dumpster, the scrape of a shoe giving them away. I swung around, hand near the holster tucked inside my coat.
"Easy, detective," a familiar voice whispered.
Mara.
She looked troubled—eyes darting, breath unsteady, like she'd sprinted the whole way.
"You shouldn't be out here," she said. "They're watching you."
"Who?" I asked.
She hesitated. That alone set alarms off in my head.
"The same people we thought we stopped," she said. "The blackout wasn't the end. It was the beginning."
The night felt colder suddenly.
"What did we miss, Mara?" I asked.
She stepped closer, lowering her voice.
"At the lighthouse… there was a fourth person."
My pulse kicked. "Where?"
Her answer was barely more than a whisper.
"Inside the walls."
---
"Inside the walls?" I repeated, staring at Mara. "That place is solid concrete. No crawl spaces. No maintenance tunnels. Nothing."
"That's what we were told," she said. "But Kade found something during the blackout sequence. He didn't report it. He didn't tell you because…"
She looked away, jaw tightening.
"Because he didn't know who to trust."
My chest went cold. If Kade—our most by-the-book guy—was keeping secrets, things were worse than I thought.
I scanned the alley. Shadows were just shadows… for now. "Where is he?"
Mara exhaled slowly. "Gone off-grid. Left me a location drop before he disappeared. He said if anything happened, we'd have to go back to the lighthouse together."
"Did he say why?"
Her expression didn't change, but her eyes flickered with something close to fear.
"He said the fourth person wasn't working alone."
A siren wailed in the distance—too far to matter, but close enough to remind me how exposed we were. I motioned for her to walk with me, keeping to the darker side of the street.
"When did you last hear from him?" I asked.
"Three nights ago. After—"
She stopped herself.
"After what?"
She swallowed. "After he found the hatch."
I stopped walking.
"There's no hatch in the lighthouse," I said. "I walked every inch of that place."
"That's exactly why he checked the walls," she said. "He said there were hairline seams. A hidden chamber, sealed from the outside. He thought it was an old smuggler's mod. Maybe pre-war. But what he found wasn't old."
"What did he find?"
Mara looked up at me with eyes that had seen something she wished she could forget.
"A chair," she said. "Straps. And equipment that didn't look like anything I've seen in department gear. He thought it was used recently."
My stomach turned. "Used for what?"
She didn't answer.
We reached my parked sedan—a nondescript black model, government-issued and unremarkable. Mara checked behind us before getting in.
As soon as I started the engine, my backup comms device pinged again.
Another encrypted message.
"Western docks. 00:17. Come alone."
Mara leaned over. "That's them. It has to be. They want you."
I put the car into gear.
"No," I said. "If they wanted me dead, they wouldn't be sending invitations."
"Then what do they want?"
I turned onto the main road, heading straight for the waterfront.
"They want to show me what we missed."
---
The docks were nearly abandoned at this hour—just the groan of shifting metal, the slap of waves against pilings, and the lonely hum of a sodium lamp buzzing like a bad memory. I pulled up a block away, killed the lights, and let the engine tick itself quiet.
00:12.
Five minutes early.
Mara scanned the waterline, her hand hovering near her sidearm. "This feels wrong," she muttered.
"It is wrong," I said. "But we don't get to walk away now."
I stepped out, keeping to the shadows cast by stacked cargo crates. Mara followed, quieter than I expected—her training kicking in, or maybe fear sharpening her senses.
The message had pointed to Dock 7, the oldest pier on the waterfront. Half the boards were warped, the railings corroded. A perfect place for someone to disappear without a trace.
We reached the midpoint of the pier when I spotted it—a lone figure standing at the edge, silhouetted against the dark water.
A man.
Still. Hands in pockets. Waiting.
Mara hissed under her breath. "That's not Kade."
No. It wasn't.
Kade was taller, broader. This man was lean, relaxed, like he had all the time in the world.
When we approached, he didn't move, didn't speak. Just turned his head slightly, as if acknowledging us without granting us the courtesy of a greeting.
"Are you the one sending messages?" I asked.
The man finally spoke, voice low and disturbingly calm.
"You're late."
"Funny," I replied. "Because you're not the one who sets my schedule."
A faint smile tugged at his mouth. "Detective, we've been watching you since the lighthouse. We know you're persistent. That's why you're here. That's why he chose you."
"He?" Mara asked.
The man's eyes shifted to her. "The one you call Kade."
Mara stiffened. "Where is he?"
A pause. Then:
"He found something he shouldn't have. And now he's trying to fix a mistake that wasn't his to begin with."
My hand edged near my gun. "What mistake?"
"The chamber beneath the lighthouse," the man said. "It isn't a room. It's a relay."
Mara frowned. "A relay for what?"
He finally turned to face us fully. And in that moment, I realized something unsettling—his pupils were wide, too wide, swallowing the color in his irises like he'd spent hours in total darkness.
"A relay," he said, "for information. For extraction. For persuasion."
"Persuasion?" I asked. "Sounds like interrogation."
"It's…" He searched for the word. "Optimization."
The hair on the back of my neck rose.
"What happened to Kade?" I asked.
The man's smile returned—colder this time.
"He went back inside the relay."
I stepped forward, voice sharp. "And if he doesn't come out?"
The man shrugged. "Then he becomes part of the system."
Mara's breathing hitched. "Tell us where he is."
"Oh," the man said, lifting a small device from his pocket—metallic, triangular, glowing faintly along its edges—
"I'm not here to tell you."
He pressed a button.
The device emitted a pulse—silent, but powerful enough to make the air ripple.
Then, from across the pier, floodlights snapped on—blinding white—
and shadows began to move.
Not one.
Not two.
A dozen.
All stepping out from behind crates, trucks, and the hulls of docked ships—
surrounding us.
The man slipped back into the light, expression unreadable.
"You're here," he said, "because you're next.
---
The floodlights washed the pier in brutal white, flattening every shadow and wiping out any hope of cover. Mara drew her weapon instantly, but I grabbed her wrist before she fired.
"Wait," I muttered. "We don't know what they—"
A figure stepped forward from the ring of bodies. Broad shoulders. Upright stance. Familiar silhouette.
My pulse slammed in my throat.
Kade.
But something was wrong.
He moved with a rigid precision—like every step was calculated, rehearsed, controlled. His face was half-lit, half-shadowed, but even in that harsh brightness I saw it.
His eyes.
Blank. Too blank.
"Detective."
The word left his mouth like an echo from someone else's voice.
Mara's breath shattered into pieces. "Kade…? What did they do to you?"
He didn't answer her. Didn't even acknowledge her.
His gaze locked solely on me.
"You weren't supposed to return," he said.
The man with the device—let's call him the Messenger—smiled lightly at Mara's horror. "Your partner volunteered. In a manner of speaking."
"What the hell does that mean?" I snapped.
The Messenger tilted his head. "The relay beneath the lighthouse… it doesn't just collect information. It rewrites it. Patterns, memories, loyalties."
He tapped his temple.
"People."
Mara shook her head, stepping toward Kade. "No. Kade, listen to me. You're not—"
Kade raised a hand in a swift, mechanical gesture. The figures around us shifted, readying weapons—batons, tasers, something metallic I didn't recognize.
He spoke again.
"Stand down. Both of you."
Mara ignored him and took one more step—
"Ka—"
The Messenger snapped his fingers.
The world detonated.
A wave slammed into us—a high-frequency impact, invisible but vicious. My ears burst into static. My knees hit wood. Mara dropped beside me, clutching her skull.
Pain threaded through my nerves like barbed wire.
Through the ringing, I heard footsteps approaching.
Kade's.
He stopped inches from me. I forced my head up.
"You shouldn't have come back," he said, voice empty.
I gritted my teeth. "Then why send the message?"
His expression flickered—not emotion, not thought—just a micro-glitch, like a skipped frame in a corrupted video.
"I didn't," Kade said.
The Messenger crouched beside me, smiling like this was all a friendly reunion.
"He's telling the truth," he said softly. "Kade didn't call you. The relay did."
My blood went cold.
"The system wanted you here, detective. It recognizes your pattern. Your persistence. Your mind. You'd be… compatible."
I spat blood. "For what?"
"For expansion."
Behind him, several figures approached with a metal case—about the size of a briefcase, but heavier-looking, reinforced, humming faintly.
Mara pushed herself to her feet, still shaking. "Don't touch him," she growled.
The Messenger sighed. "Restraint," he ordered.
Two of the figures grabbed Mara and forced her down. She kicked, twisted, fought like hell—but she was outnumbered and weakening.
Meanwhile, Kade stared at me, motionless, like he was waiting for a command.
The Messenger opened the metal case.
Inside was a headset-like device—sleek, cable-lined, with needles so thin they almost shimmered.
"You see," he said, lifting it toward my head,
"we're done hiding in walls."
I jerked backward, but rough hands pinned my shoulders to the pier.
The Messenger lowered the device—
And then—
A deafening crack split the air.
One of the floodlights exploded in sparks.
The Messenger froze.
A second shot rang out, dropping one of his men instantly.
Then a third.
Figures scattered for cover.
The Messenger hissed, "Who—"
From the shadows at the far end of the pier, a voice cut through the chaos:
"Get your hands off my detective."
Mara's eyes widened.
Mine did too.
It was a voice I hadn't heard in months—
But one I'd know anywhere.