The archive room wasn't just pressing in; it was suffocating Gene, a living tomb built not of stone, but of forgotten knowledge. The air didn't just smell of dust and stale paper; it clawed at her nostrils with the tang of corroded metal and ozone-sharp static, a ghostly echo of an electrical apocalypse centuries past. This place wasn’t a library, it was a mausoleum for truths that were so volatile and dangerous that they had been buried alive. Overhead, the fluorescent tubes didn't merely flicker; they throbbed, each pulse a sickly, arrhythmic heartbeat in the suffocating darkness. The light they cast wasn't steady; it was a shivering, feverish dance of shadows that writhed, not just with secrets, but with a discernible, hungry energy. She could almost hear them whisper.

  The chill radiating from the cracked linoleum seeped into Gene's bones, a constant, unwelcome reminder of the archaic machinery surrounding her. She was an anomaly, a single spark of life in this mausoleum of metal and forgotten code. Her slender fingers, a blur of motion, hammered at the yellowed keys of a keyboard that reeked of dust and the ghosts of punch cards. Above, the bank of monitors pulsed with an eerie, emerald life, spitting out rivers of raw data that threatened to engulf her.

  Each line of code was a breadcrumb, leading her deeper into the digital catacombs. "Obsolete," "Containment" - the labels screamed danger, forbidden zones where White Angel operatives feared to tread, especially not a rookie like her. But Gene wasn't deterred. A thrill, sharp and intoxicating, coursed through her veins. This was not merely data; it was a secret, hidden beneath layers of bureaucracy and fear. And she was about to unearth it. The air crackled with anticipation, the silence broken only by the frantic tap-tap-tapping of the ancient keyboard - a frantic heartbeat in the cold, dead heart of the machine. What would she find lurking in the abyss? And more importantly, what would it do to her?

  Jack had officially tasked her with a job so dull it seemed to radiate boredom: prepare the Alucard detainment intel package for the operation at the Fremont safehouse. Tuesday's special of the espionage world - bland and predictable. But Gene hadn't deployed with the team. Instead, she was a lone wolf in the digital den, held back by a disquiet that felt less like logic and more like a swarm of angry bees under her skin. It wasn't just unease; it was a primal scream in the back of her mind, a warning she couldn't ignore. Something about this "routine" Alucard's snatch felt wrong.

  A chill, colder than the server room's hum, snaked down her spine. She wasn't just seeing glitches; she was witnessing a digital violation. Phantom file signatures, like undeniable truths that echo through the darkness, dissolved the instant she tried to snare them, leaving behind only the residue of her paranoia. Then there were the command strings, razor-thin threads of code vanishing down the rabbit hole of ghost terminals, each departure mocking her attempts to follow. But the real tremor started with the orders. Each one bore Jack’s digital seal – a fortress of encryption, a complex latticework she knew intimately, worshipped even. Yet, each one was a hollow imitation. The voiceprint. Gone. Missing. Erased. Jack always left a voiceprint. It was as inherent to his commands as breath was to life. This wasn't just a discrepancy; it was a gaping wound in the fabric of reality, a silent scream echoing across the digital landscape. A feeling burrowed deep, icy, and insidious: something was deeply, terrifyingly, wrong with Jack.

  A frigid dread clawed at her throat, urging her forward. She chased the digital breadcrumbs, each one a lure into the abyss. Encryption protocols weren't lines of code; they were fortress walls, forged from obsidian and spite. Her fingers flew across the keyboard, a desperate ballet of intrusion. Each layer breached, each digital lock splintered, felt like flaying the skin from a living machine, exposing the festering, unholy thing beneath. The room turned glacial, the air thick with a detectable wrongness, mirroring the leaden weight sinking deeper into her soul. She pressed on, a shiver that had nothing to do with the cold racing down her spine. A certainty, sharp and terrifying, bloomed within her: she was teetering on the precipice of something monstrous, something that should have remained buried. The edge was close, and whatever waited on the other side threatened to consume her.

  Until, at last, she hit a wall. An impenetrable digital barrier.

  The screen went stark red, bleeding across the glowing green text.

  ACCESS RESTRICTED: CLEARANCE ALPHA-1.

  Higher than Jack's. Higher than almost anyone she knew.

  She tried to override it. A nervous bead of sweat traced a path down her temple.

  Attempt one: Denied. Attempt two: Denied. Attempt three: Denied.

  Her fingers hovered over the final sequence. Her heart hammered against her ribs.

  This time, she didn't even get a denial. Before the command could fully execute, the screen didn't just reject her, it died. The familiar green text evaporated, sucked into a void replaced by a supernova of white light. It burned, not just on the monitors, but directly onto her retinas, searing itself into her vision. A heartbeat later, the digital death scream hit. Not a simple error buzz, but a physical shockwave of agonizing static that clawed its way through her earpiece. It felt like an ice pick driven straight into her brain, a surge of pure, blinding pain that short-circuited thought.

  Gene cried out, a sharp, choked sound, and yanked the earpiece free, the plastic warm and humming faintly in her trembling hand.

  Just as the ringing faded from her ears, the heavy metal door behind her creaked open, grating loudly against the floor.

  “Still chasing shadows, Gene?” Jack’s voice sliced through the lingering static in the air. It was casual, perhaps too casual, holding a carefully measured neutrality that set Gene’s teeth on edge.

  Gene whirled, adrenaline spiking, and plastered a mask of casual interest on her face. Beneath it, her heart hammered a frantic tattoo against her ribs. "Detainment logs," she said, the words a practiced balm against the chaos within. "Just... the Fremont case. Seemed to dance outside the usual lines. Had to make sure I wasn't missing anything, that all the i's were dotted and t's crossed." A subtle tremor threatened to betray her, but she clamped down on it, forcing her voice to remain a deceptively smooth, unwavering line. The lie hung in the air, razor-thin and dangerous.

  The doorway swallowed Jack for a heartbeat, a black void framing his lean silhouette against the room's dim, dust-choked haze. Then, he materialized within, the air seeming to thicken around him like a stalker sensing prey. The smile he wore wasn’t kind. It was a slow, predatory curve, the habitual expression of a man both arrogant and weary, a man who'd seen too much and understood too little. “That’s it, Gene, isn’t it?” he breathed, the words like the rasp of steel on bone. “That’s why I dragged you into this festering hole. You’ve got the eye of a scavenger. You see the rot, the fractures, the subtle give that everyone else misses. Just remember," he said, his voice dropping to a dangerous purr, "that before you start tearing down the house, you know damn well who laid the bricks, and why."

  The linoleum swallowed the sound of his boots, each step a ghostly whisper against the tense silence. He moved like a vulture, not with speed, but with a calculated stillness that made her breath hitch in her throat. The air in the small cubicle seemed to thicken as he loomed closer, his presence a sudden, suffocating weight. Kneeling beside her, he obliterated the space, making her acutely aware of her smallness. He dominated the frame, a shadow eclipsing her. No word escaped his lips, but the silence was a weapon, sharper than any reprimand. Then, his fingers, cool as steel and just as unforgiving, descended. They landed not aggressively, but with a chilling precision, tapping, just tapping, over hers on the keyboard. Each tap was a hammer blow, a silent declaration. This wasn't a lesson; it was a demonstration. A deliberate reminder of the chasm of training that separated them, the rigid hierarchy that defined their world, and the knowledge he, and only he, possessed. A knowledge he could withhold, or unleash, at his whim. The weight of his implicit threat settled over her, cold and heavy as a shroud.

  The air crackled with a sudden, barely contained threat. "Gene," he murmured, his voice dropping to a dangerous rasp, the easy charm vanishing like smoke. "You're a live wire. A force of nature. And that's precisely why you need to listen to me. Don't squander that potential by getting yourself burned. There are places you're not meant to dig. Ladders that lead straight down to hell if you haven't been cleared to climb them." His eyes narrowed, a glint of steel flashing within. "Consider this a friendly warning... for now." His cool, steel blue eyes were boring into hers.

  The words hung in the air, heavy and laced with something she couldn't quite decipher. The half-smile flickered back, a predator's fleeting amusement. "Fremont mission’s yours." The pronouncement landed with a sickening thud in her gut. "Solo recon. Clean extraction." Each word was a precise, calculated bullet. "Consider it… a test run."

  He leaned in a fraction, the air thickening between them. The unsettling amusement in his eyes intensified, a glint of something preying and knowing. "You'll like this one," he purred, the word 'like' echoed with such force it left goosebumps trailing down her arms. His gaze locked onto hers, holding her captive. “It’s someone you already know.” A dark threat pulsed beneath the words he didn’t say. Suddenly, it wasn’t just about the mission. It was about her—uncomfortably personal, and steeped in a threat she couldn’t yet define. His voice dripped with pleasure, laced with the promise of not just danger, but a sadistic game.

  The blood seemed to ice in Gene's veins. No one saw it, but she felt the shift—the quiet crumbling of everything she’d held in place.

  She was a statue, petrified, her fingers imprisoned beneath his on the antiquated keys. Her breath hitched. The single word clawed its way out of her throat, a strangled rasp heavy with impending doom. "Who?"

  Jack didn’t answer. His eyes locked on hers, a slow, venomous crawl of a wink sliding across his face. It was not playful at all. It was a mark that tightened around her like a noose, whispering of a future where she had no control, no way out. An icy ripple wound its way down her back, sharp and unwelcome. Then, with a deadly calm, he lifted himself from the crouch, exuding the quiet menace of a lurking hunter. He moved towards the door, each step deliberate, each movement radiating a silent power that choked the air. The heavy door slammed shut behind him, the sound echoing in the vast archive like a death knell, leaving Gene swallowed whole by the oppressive silence and the chilling certainty that something terrible was about to begin.

  Gene didn’t go to Fremont. She went down.

  The elevator in Sublevel 3 wasn't just hidden; it was entombed. She found it lurking behind a cleverly disguised wall of service panels, a ghost structure absent from every schematic she'd sweated over, even the supposedly infallible maintenance logs. A sinking fear clenched her belly like a fist. What secrets was this place so desperate to keep? The only key was a generic technician's pass, a morally gray acquisition from the night before. She could still smell the cheap whiskey clinging to the plastic, a phantom stench of regret clinging to her fingertips as well. The pass belonged to a maintenance worker she'd found slumped in a bar booth, a nameless casualty drowned in his oblivion. He hadn't even registered her presence, let alone the theft of his lifeline. Now, that lifeline was her only hope, and the weight of his lost future pressed down on her as she held it, wondering what horrors awaited on the other side of those steel doors.

  The bare metal walls closed in, not just around her body, but tightening around her sanity like an unseen noose.

  A harsh, clawing scent filled her nose—a mix of antiseptic and something stranger still: the sharp, metallic charge of frozen lightning, alive with silent energy.

  On the surface, it felt sterile—but beneath that calm, her mind sensed a volatile energy barely held at bay.

  Her heart hammered a frantic rhythm against her ribs as she swiped the stolen badge. A low, guttural hum erupted from the bowels of the machine, a primal growl that vibrated through her bones. The doors hissed open, revealing an abyss.

  Down. Not just down a few floors, but down into the earth's gullet, farther than any sane architecture should allow. Each meter was a transgression, a descent into madness. The pressure built in her ears, a suffocating blanket. The silence wasn't mere quiet; it was a vacuum, broken only by the ancient, grinding thrum of the lift's machinery, lowering her into the organization's forbidden heart. Every revolution of the gears was a countdown, a whispered threat drawing her closer to the literal and metaphorical depths, where secrets festered and nightmares took root. This wasn't just a descent; it was a plunge into the unknown, a one-way ticket into the belly of the beast.

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  When the doors finally opened again, it wasn't just silence she stepped into; it was absolute silence, broken only by the faint, high-pitched whine of unseen machinery. The air was frigid, unnaturally still.

  The white walls, blinding in their purity, stretched into an infinite, sterile abyss. A merciless, stalking light throbbed faintly, its harsh rays carving the darkness into shadows that slithered like restless spirits.

  The corridor wasn't a passage, but a macabre gallery. Instead of doors, towering sheets of glass lined the way, each a window into a starkly illuminated hell. They weren't just cells; they were meticulously curated dioramas of confinement, each holding secrets that the suffocating silence dared you to uncover. The air hummed with a silent, electric tension, promising either revelation or madness with every step.

  She advanced cautiously, the faint clatter of her boots on concrete slicing through the stillness, eyes locked on the ominous light within the boxes.

  The first chamber pulsed with a sinister, stagnant energy. Inside, a nightmarish parody of life hung suspended in a viscous, amber tomb. It was an Alucard, or what was becoming an Alucard. He was young, barely more than a fledgling, his budding wings clipped, not by steel, but by cruelty. The fluid, thick as coagulated blood and glowing with an unnatural inner luminescence, encased him completely. His form, shockingly pale, bordered on translucent, revealing the grotesque network of veins that pulsed beneath his skin.

  The translucent limbs, alive with a dark, writhing hunger, gripped his arms and legs like cruel glass shackles, condemning him to a nightmarish purgatory of endless suspension.

  His wings, pathetic and incomplete, twitched with a frantic, desperate energy, like dying insects caught in a spider's web. They fluttered against the invisible walls of their prison, a silent scream of embryonic power denied.

  But it was the tubes that truly chilled the blood. Metallic tendrils plunged deep into the base of his spine; others snaked around his neck, feeding, draining, changing him. God knew what vile concoctions coursed through his veins, what abominations were being forced into his very soul. He was no prisoner here. He was a canvas, a sacrifice, a specimen being meticulously, agonizingly, unmade. The amber glow reflected in his unfocused eyes, turning them into bottomless pits of silent horror. Whatever was being done to him, it was far worse than death.

  In another, smaller chamber further down, an older model, bulkier and less defined, was hooked to a web of thick black electrodes. They snaked across its chest, its temples, its limbs. Its mouth had been crudely sewn shut with thick, dark thread. Yet, horrifyingly, its eyes were open, blinking slowly, watching the empty wall opposite it. It was awake. Fully, terribly awake.

  Something cold and hard settled in Gene’s stomach. This wasn't detention. This was something else. Something far worse.

  The corridor stretched before her, a suffocating tunnel of metal and shadow. Each step hammered against the cold floor, a frantic drumbeat urging her onward. Something unseen, malevolent, yanked at her soul, a terrible magnetism drawing her deeper into the labyrinth. Her breath hitched, a ragged gasp in the tomb-like silence. She had to know.

  Finally, she reached the end: a control room. A sterile, claustrophobic cube packed with flickering monitors and banks of consoles hummed with barely contained power. Hope, fragile and fleeting, flickered within her. She typed in the access code, fingers trembling – an obsolete string of numbers and letters pulled from the forbidden archives. A clearance that should have been useless, a ghost key to a long-dead lock.

  Then, the monitor blinked. Grunted a confirmation tone. A green light bloomed on the console.

  A muted wave of unease passed over her. It worked. But what doors had she just unlocked? And what horrors lay waiting on the other side?

  The main console screen sprang to life, displaying a single, stark project title:

  PROJECT ECHELON — HEAD RESEARCHER: DR. SELENE MARROW

  A frozen unease crawled upward through her spine, each vertebra awakening with cautious anticipation.

  Her hands, suddenly leaden, trembled so violently she could barely control the cursor. The name reverberated in the silence, a phantom echo that stirred something ancient and unsettling deep within her. It was a blank slate, utterly meaningless, yet it radiated the undeniable weight of forbidden knowledge, the key to unlocking a world shrouded in secrets. Her finger hovered over the most recent entry, each pulse a frantic drumbeat against the abyss of the unknown. She hesitated, a whisper of self-preservation urging her to flee, but the irresistible pull of the mystery held her captive, a moth drawn to a deadly flame. With a sharp inhale, she braced herself, the click of the mouse a gunshot in the expectant air.

  Video Log 641-B

  A video feed flickered into existence on the main monitor. A woman appeared – sharp features, a crisp white lab coat, silver-rimmed glasses that reflected the harsh light, and a voice like stainless steel, precise and utterly devoid of warmth.

  “Batch 7-Alpha successfully initiated bonding simulation,” the woman, Dr. Marrow, stated clinically, looking directly into the camera as if reporting to an unseen superior. “Behavioral patterns suggest full imprinting is successful. Subject Igor exhibits adaptive memory reformation under duress, proving resilience to external psychological stressors and environmental variables.”

  Gene’s breath hitched. Igor. So that was who Jack meant.

  Marrow continued, her voice utterly detached. “Subject 003-M—Maisie Lennox—remains unaware of her proximity role within the framework. Psychological seeding is progressing on schedule. Infiltration protocols of key elite networks nearing completion, utilising Subject 003-M as the primary vector.”

  Maisie. Unaware? A vector?

  “Field agents report no deviation from established operational mandates,” Dr. Marrow concluded, her gaze unwavering. “Director Smack continues to serve effectively as the designated figurehead. Operational decisions remain centralized under my direct supervision. Any breach protocols will be handled with… surgical efficiency.”

  Gene recoiled from the console as if burned. The video log flickered on, a phantom voice she could no longer register. Her blood wasn't just hammering now, it was a full-blown rebellion, a thunderous stampede against the walls of her skull. The sound threatened to shatter her eardrums, a deafening roar that not only drowned out the log but threatened to swallow her whole, leaving her adrift in a terrifying ocean of internal noise. Each pulse was a hammer blow, each breath a desperate gasp for air in the face of the encroaching storm.

  Jack might wear the White Angels' colors, but he was no leader. He was a puppet, a hollow facade. The real power didn't reside in his brute strength or carefully rehearsed speeches. He was a mask, expertly crafted, concealing the chilling truth: he was being played. He danced, oh so convincingly, but the strings weren't tied to ambition or loyalty. They were thin, invisible threads, controlled by something far more clinical, more terrifying than any gangland boss. The hand wielding those threads, the mind orchestrating the chaos, belonged to one person: Dr. Selene Marrow. And beneath her cool, precise gaze, Jack wasn't a man, but a disposable tool, a screaming void filled with her terrifying will.

  She was the architect. The true power behind the facade.

  The truth about Igor wasn't a whisper of rebellion on the wind, but a scream echoing from the depths of a twisted creation. He wasn't a runaway, a shadow flitting to freedom. No. He had been unleashed. The locks hadn't given way; they had dissolved at a touch, revealing the meticulously crafted purpose that lay beneath. Igor wasn't escaping being an Alucard; he was the most lethal extension. Forged in the crucible of bonding simulations, hammered into shape by the relentless pressure of memory reformation, he was a weaponized empathy, a Trojan horse of the soul. He wasn't just a player in a game; he was the carefully manufactured element in a grander, horrifying design, a key turning in a lock that would unleash something unspeakable. And the implications? They clawed at the mind, chilling it to the bone.

  Maisie was nothing but a pawn, her strings pulled without mercy, stripped of fury, strategy, or any spark of life beyond obedience. No, Maisie was a mere anomaly, a glitch deliberately injected into the system. She had been meticulously crafted and groomed for a single, devastating infiltration. And the cruelest twist? Even her desires, her deepest motivations, were likely nothing more than phantom limbs, manufactured yearnings planted within her mind like insidious seeds. She thought she was acting, but she was only ever being acted upon.

  And they didn’t know.

  Igor didn't know he was a product. Maisie didn't know she was a vector. They didn't know any of it. They were walking blindly through a world manufactured around them, their struggles and triumphs merely data points for Dr. Marrow.

  A jolt of cold fury, keener than any static burst, cleared Gene’s head. Action. Now.

  A clammy sweat coated her palms as her fingers fumbled at the belt buckle.

  Her fingers, clumsy and traitorous with fear, scrabbled for the encrypted drive – the one Jack himself had entrusted her with. A lifeline. She slammed the drive into the console port, the plastic clicking into place with a sound that echoed in the oppressive silence of the server room. The screen flickered to life, displaying the labyrinthine directory structure of the lab’s main server. Everything. She needed everything. Her heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic drumbeat urging her onward. Logs, surveillance footage, personnel dossiers riddled with secrets, the dark underbelly of their projects… Names, fail-safes, the chilling blueprints of this insidious place, research notes overflowing with twisted ambition… it all poured into the tiny chip, a volatile torrent of damning evidence against them. The progress bar, a cruel mockery of her desperation, inched forward with agonizing slowness. Each percentage point felt like a lifetime, a gamble against the rising tide of discovery. Every second stretched, taut and dangerous, threatening to snap. Any moment now, alarms could erupt, doors could slam shut, and the hunters would become the hunted. This wasn't just downloading files; it was stealing their future, and the price of failure was etched in the fear clawing at her throat.

  And then the door behind her opened again.

  Jack’s voice. Close. Too close.

  “She’s in the vault,” he said, his voice tight, speaking into a comm unit. Sublevel 3. Accessed Echelon.”

  Gene didn't hesitate. The instant the progress bar kissed 100%, she ripped the drive free, the raw data a prize clutched tight in her hand. A silent exhale escaped her lips as she melted behind a stainless-steel surgical caddy, a mountain of gleaming, sterile instruments looming above. The cold metal bit into her back, contrasting with the fire raging within. Her pulse hammered against her ribs, a frantic drumbeat echoing in the sudden silence, each throb a warning siren. She was a predator, but now, she was also prey. Somewhere in this sterile labyrinth, eyes were watching, waiting. And the data in her hand had just painted a target on her back.

  “Damn it,” Jack muttered, his voice audible even behind the caddy. “She’s not ready for this level. Not yet.” There was a pause, a rustle as he presumably adjusted his comm. “If she’s cracked the surface, we’ll bury her before she sees daylight. Containment protocols are active.”

  Each footfall echoed, amplified in the vast control room as Jack moved. He swept his gaze across the banks of inactive consoles, a hunt for shadows in a space that should have been humming with life. Silence hung like a leaden veil, thick and suffocating, concealing threats just beyond perception.

  A faint click echoed, the door closing softly, a muted caress compared to its earlier roar.

  Footsteps faded, a deliberate retreat down the corridor. The silence that followed was different. It wasn't empty anymore. It was a taut, strained awareness, the held breath of a place that knew it was no longer alone, a place that had been violated and now waited, poised for anything.

  After she left, the air became oppressive and motionless, a smothering cloak that swallowed everything.

  Every nerve in her body screamed, a taut wire stretched to the breaking point. A full, agonizing minute clawed by, each second an eternity of potential discovery, of alarms blaring and capture imminent. Only when the silence became absolute, a vacuum where his footsteps should have echoed, did she dare move.

  Her limbs, locked in place by fear and tension, protested with a chorus of pops and creaks. She peeled herself from behind the caddy, the cold metal a fleeting comfort. The drive, heavy with stolen data, felt like a brand against her skin as she slid it into the hidden pocket, a clandestine compartment she'd painstakingly sewn into her jacket's lining during training. This wasn't just theft; it was treason.

  Time was bleeding away. She moved with a desperate, practiced grace, her eyes darting, seeking the next lifeline. The auxiliary duct panel, glimpsed in the lab's schematic during her treacherous data heist, beckoned. It was a gamble. Small, designed for ventilation, not a human being, but it was her only chance. A claustrophobic nightmare awaited, but that was preferable to capture. Every breath was a stolen one, every movement a silent prayer against discovery. The escape had begun.

  She didn’t breathe again, not truly, until she surfaced in a derelict alley two blocks from HQ, pushing aside a grate covered in grime and dead leaves. A cool breeze mixed with the acrid scent of exhaust and the earthy dampness of concrete outside.

  The sky was a battlefield, night's inky black receding in a brutal, beautiful surrender to a crimson and gold dawn. But the victory felt tainted, the colors bleeding like a fresh wound across the horizon. A train shrieked in the distance, its wheels clawing at the rusted tracks, a desperate, mechanical cry echoing the fear clenching her gut. Closer now, a siren wailed, a mournful, keening lament cutting through the pre-dawn stillness. It was a lonely sound, yet it felt like a spotlight, drawing attention to secrets best left buried. The city was stirring, stretching, yawning itself awake, blissfully unaware of the darkness festering just beneath its vibrant skin, The horrors were lurking, watching, waiting.

  The alley reeked of stale beer and desperation, the rising sun painting the overflowing dumpsters and fire escapes with long, skeletal shadows. Gene didn't dare breathe too deeply. Every rustle of trash, every screech of a distant car, clawed at her nerves. The drive in her pocket felt like a lead brick, a burning brand pressed against her thigh. It wasn't just weight; it was the burden of secrets, the potential for chaos, the price she might have to pay. It pulsed against her, a frantic heartbeat mirroring her own escalating fear. Something was coming; she could feel it in the prickle of the morning air, the suffocating silence that preceded the storm.

  Gene stood motionless.

  She could turn the drive in. Be loyal. Stay safe.

  Or she could do something else.

  She thought of Igor: how he’d looked in the van after the rally. Broken, shaking, still trying to protect someone else.

  She thought of Maisie: smug and sharp-tongued, yes—but with cracks showing through. A girl raised to rule a machine she no longer believed in.

  She thought of the look Jack gave her, like she was an asset. Not a person.

  She made her decision.

  Gene pulled up a contact ID. One that had been buried in her memory cache for months.

  "Maisie Lennox – Restricted Line"

  She tapped it.

  And for the first time since joining the White Angels, she let her hand tremble.