The evening maintenance routine had become a ritual for Lyra. While the others prepared for sleep or took watch shifts, she would run diagnostics on their equipment, checking for damage from the day's activities and making minor adjustments. It was a habit formed in Sector 17, where equipment failure often meant death.

  Tonight she sat cross-legged at the edge of their camp, a small array of tools spread before her. Most of the team's gear was stored in their Game inventory, but certain items stayed in physical form for immediate access—percussion analyzers, stability testing tools, and personal interfaces.

  "Almost done?" Riva asked, pausing on her way to her sleeping spot.

  "Just finishing up," Lyra replied, not looking up from her work. "Everything's holding together, considering what we've put it through."

  "Thanks for checking my stuff too," Riva said with a yawn. "That colpse predictor saved my ass twice today."

  Lyra nodded absently, already refocused on her work as Riva walked away. The camp had settled into night routine—Alexander reviewing maps with Valeria on the far side of camp, Elijah organizing medical supplies, Riva now preparing for sleep.

  She ran her modified diagnostic tool over her percussion analyzer, checking for stress fractures in the resonance chamber. The tool dispyed readings in a pattern only she could interpret—modifications she'd made to standard Game equipment using scavenging techniques from Sector 17.

  As she swept the diagnostic tool near Valeria's discarded jacket—the woman had removed it during the evening briefing—something unexpected appeared in the reading pattern. Lyra paused, then casually repositioned herself to scan more deliberately.

  There it was again—a signal pattern that shouldn't exist.

  Keeping her movements casual, Lyra adjusted her diagnostic tool's sensitivity. The pattern crified—an encrypted communication burst, brief but distinctive, emanating from Valeria's neural interface at regur intervals.

  Lyra's heart rate increased, but her face remained impassive. Years in Sector 17 had taught her to hide reactions. She continued her maintenance routine while processing this discovery.

  Game neural interfaces could communicate with the system and between pyers in proximity, but this was different—a directional signal aimed outside their immediate environment, using encryption that didn't match standard Game protocols.

  Someone was watching them. And somehow, Valeria was the conduit.

  Lyra carefully completed her maintenance tasks, mind racing through implications and options. Her instinct was to tell Alexander immediately—he was team leader and had proven surprisingly reasonable despite his corporate background.

  But she hesitated. This was about corporate surveilnce, and Alexander was the son of a corporate leader. The same corporate leader who might be receiving these transmissions.

  Her eyes drifted to Elijah instead. He was Alexander's twin, but different—more thoughtful, less automatically in charge. And he'd been kind to her from the beginning.

  Lyra packed up her tools and stood, stretching casually. "I'm going to check the perimeter before turning in," she announced to no one in particur.

  As she passed near Elijah, she murmured, "Need help with those supplies? I have a question about medical protocols."

  Elijah looked up, slightly surprised. "Sure."

  They walked to the edge of camp where Elijah had id out his medical inventory. Once they were out of earshot of the others, Lyra's demeanor changed completely.

  "I need to show you something," she said in a low voice, "away from camp."

  Elijah's expression shifted from confusion to concern. "What's wrong?"

  "Not here. Can you take a 'bathroom break' in about two minutes? Head to the fallen oak twenty meters east."

  Without waiting for a response, she returned to her casual demeanor and asked a pointless question about bandage supplies before walking away.

  Two minutes ter, she waited by the designated oak, alert for any sign of surveilnce. Elijah appeared shortly, his face questioning.

  "What's going on?" he asked once he confirmed they were alone.

  Lyra pulled out her diagnostic tool. "Valeria is sending communications outside the Game. Regur encrypted bursts."

  Elijah's expression tightened. "Are you sure?"

  "Yes. Look." She activated her tool, dispying the signal pattern she'd recorded. "This isn't standard Game communication. It's on a hidden frequency band."

  "You can detect this?" Elijah asked, studying the pattern.

  "Modified interface," she expined briefly. "In Sector 17, we had to identify corporate surveilnce signals to avoid raids."

  Elijah ran a hand through his hair. "Who is she sending it to?"

  "Can't tell without decryption. But the protocol structure resembles corporate security standards." She hesitated. "Possibly VitaCore."

  The implication hung between them. Alexander and Elijah's father could be monitoring them through Valeria.

  Elijah paced a small circle, thinking. "Have you told Alexander?"

  "No. I came to you first."

  He looked at her, seeming surprised by this decision. "Why?"

  Lyra chose her words carefully. "Alexander would confront her immediately. That might be the right move, but... it's complicated when it involves your father."

  Elijah nodded slowly. "You're right about that."

  "I don't know what kind of data she's sending," Lyra continued. "Could be just location tracking or detailed reports on everything we do."

  They fell silent for a moment, both considering implications.

  "We need to know more before deciding how to handle it," Lyra finally said.

  Elijah nodded, his expression troubled. "Alexander should know, but..." He trailed off.

  "But it involves your father," Lyra finished for him.

  "Yeah." Elijah sighed. "I need time to figure out how to tell him."

  "What do you suggest?" she asked.

  "Let me monitor her transmissions first. Maybe identify patterns in when they occur."

  "I can help with that," Lyra said. "My diagnostic tool can track when signals are sent."

  "Good," Elijah replied. "Let's gather more information before we approach Alexander."

  "We should head back before they notice we're both gone," Elijah said, gncing toward camp.

  "One more thing," Lyra added. "Until we know more, assume everything we say or do is being reported."

  Elijah nodded grimly. "I will. And... thanks for coming to me with this."

  "You'd have done the same," Lyra replied simply.

  They walked back separately, Lyra detaching first to complete her perimeter check, Elijah returning a different way. As she circled the camp, Lyra cataloged potential blind spots and surveilnce options. The Game environment wasn't designed for privacy—that was part of its purpose, after all.

  As she finally returned to camp, Valeria was preparing for her watch shift, organizing her documentation materials. She nodded perfunctorily to Lyra, expression unreadable as always.

  Lyra returned the nod, keeping her face neutral while noting the neural interface beneath Valeria's skin at the base of her skull.

  She positioned her diagnostic tool within range of Valeria's station before settling into her sleeping spot. It would log transmission times throughout the night, beginning the intelligence gathering they needed.

  Across the camp, Elijah caught her eye briefly. In that gnce was a shared understanding—they were now linked by knowledge the others didn't have, a responsibility that created its own kind of bond.

  The familiar sounds of the camp at night continued around them—Alexander's quiet murmuring as he reviewed maps, Riva's soft snoring, the endless creaking of Floor 6's unstable structures. But beneath that normalcy, something had fundamentally changed.