The silence left by the fall of Sector K was a physical weight in the Berlin cistern. It was a thick, suffocating blanket woven from static and the memory of a final, severed transmission. Despair was a variable Ksenia Morozova could not afford to calculate, so she filed it under acceptable losses and moved to the next problem. The problem was that they were trapped. The walls were no longer just concrete; they were the Archive State’s patient ambition and Maximilian Voss’s predictive models. They were the ghosts of their own failed tactics.
Ansel sat staring at the floor, a man made of rust and memory. Zora paced, a furious, wounded animal in a cage too small for her rage. Sineus was a statue of quiet fury, the psychic echo of Ansel’s capture still a raw wound behind his eyes. They were waiting for an end. Ksenia decided to build a beginning instead. She moved to the comms unit Ansel had pieced together from scrap, its casing a patchwork of mismatched plastics. It was their last, most fragile connection to the world that hunted them. Her objective was simple: to carve a wedge out of the solid, seamless sky of their enemy’s control.
She bypassed the public networks, diving into the deep, encrypted back-channels she had mapped during her time with the Archive State. Her fingers moved with cold precision, typing commands that were less like code and more like prayers to a dead network. She was looking for one man. Ambassador Vargas of the South American Federation. A man whose file she had memorized years ago. His official psych profile read: Cautious, Principled, Loyal. Her private annotation had been simpler: Ambitious. It was the only variable that mattered.
The connection resolved. The screen shimmered, not with a clear image, but with a quantum-dot field that painted a face from light and probability. Ambassador Vargas appeared, his office behind him a sterile panorama of white and chrome overlooking a city that was probably also white and chrome. He looked composed, his expression a carefully neutral mask of diplomatic concern. He was a man who had perfected the art of appearing thoughtful while thinking of nothing at all.
— This is an unscheduled channel, — Vargas said, his voice smooth. It was not a question. It was a statement of mild annoyance, the first move in a game of status.
— Apologies for the intrusion, Ambassador, — Ksenia’s voice was flat, betraying no emotion. She would not play his game. She would start her own. — I have a matter of some urgency to discuss. It concerns the upcoming vote on MemTech’s expanded security mandate.
Vargas’s expression did not change, but a flicker in the biometric overlay at the corner of Ksenia’s screen told her his heart rate had climbed by three beats per minute. A small tell. A crack in the ice. — I’m not at liberty to discuss internal Agora business on an unsecured line.
— This line is more secure than your office, — Ksenia stated. It was the truth. — And this isn’t about business. It’s about personnel. Specifically, your esteemed colleague, Ambassador Correa.
She let the name hang in the air. Vargas’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. Correa was his chief rival within the neutral bloc, a man whose star was rising faster than his own. Ksenia didn’t wait for a reply. She pushed a file through the encrypted channel. It was not a document. It was a sound.
The recording from the Anthem Mic, the bug Zora had planted in the heart of the Ministry’s grand theater, was perfect. It was the sound of Ambassador Correa’s voice, low and conspiratorial. The clink of a real glass, not a synth-crystal one. And the unmistakable voice of a known MemTech lobbyist promising that Correa’s “flexibility” on the vote would be “handsomely rewarded.” The sound was a career-ending bomb, delivered in a whisper.
The mask on Vargas’s face shattered. For a full second, raw fear showed in his eyes. Then, just as quickly, it was replaced by something else. Calculation. The gears were turning. He was no longer a diplomat being harassed by a terrorist. He was a man being handed a loaded gun and a clear shot at his rival. The power in the conversation had just inverted completely.
— What is this? — he demanded, his voice a harsh whisper. He was trying to reclaim high ground he no longer owned.
— It is a recording, — Ksenia said, her tone unchanged. — We have the original, of course. We don’t want to release it. We have no interest in the internal politics of the Federation.
The lie was as clean and sharp as a shard of glass. She let the silence stretch, a weapon in itself. She watched the ambassador’s eyes dart back and forth, running the probabilities. He was trapped. The price of his ambition was now due.
— We just need a blind spot, — Ksenia continued, her voice dropping to a clinical whisper. She was naming her price. The cost for her was burning this powerful piece of leverage on a single, tactical favor. It was a terrible trade, but it was the only trade they had left. — A thirty-minute surveillance gap. Satellite and drone. Over the Moscow Chorus Spire.
Vargas stared, his mind catching up to the sheer audacity of the request. The Chorus Spire was the most heavily monitored structure on the planet. A blind spot there was not a small favor. It was a temporary act of treason.
— That’s impossible, — he breathed.
— Tomorrow, — Ksenia said, ignoring him. — At 0300, Moscow Standard Time. Thirty minutes. In exchange for our permanent silence on Ambassador Correa’s… flexibility.
The reflection on Ksenia’s dark screen shimmered. For a moment, it wasn’t her own face she saw, but a distorted, flickering image of the MemTech banner being unfurled over the ruins of Sector K. A ghost of their failure. This was the answer to that failure. Not retreat. Not despair. A cold, hard piece of leverage, applied like a knife to the weakest point in the system.
Vargas looked away from his camera, his gaze distant. He was seeing his future. A future without Correa. A future where he was the lead voice of his bloc. He was a man standing before two doors. Behind one was continued, honorable obscurity. Behind the other was a promotion, paid for in complicity. It was barely a choice at all.
He looked back at Ksenia, his face now a stony mask. The fear was gone. The calculation was complete. Only the cold ambition remained.
— Done, — he clipped out. The word was a surrender and a victory all at once.
— Thank you for your time, Ambassador, — Ksenia said. She did not smile.
She ended the communication.
The screen went black, a perfect, polished mirror. It reflected her own face, pale and composed in the gloom of the cistern. The flickering was gone. There was only the cold, hard certainty of the path ahead.
The quiet hum of the comms unit’s cooling fan filled the silence. A single drop of water fell from a crack in the ceiling, striking a puddle on the floor with a sound like a ticking clock.
