We moved through a canyon of stacked shipping containers, the metal walls weeping condensation. The pier was gone, swallowed by the mist. Our footsteps were soft, absorbed by the wet ground. The sense of victory from the trade was a thin, brittle thing. It was the quiet after a shell lands, the moment before you check to see what’s missing. I carried the heavy case containing the Aegis Conduit, a block of absolute black that seemed to drink the flat, gray light. It felt colder than the air, a piece of a dead star in my hand.
We found the shell of a dockmaster’s office, a small brick building with boarded-up windows. A place to stop. A place to think. The door hung open on one hinge. Inside, the air was stale with the ghosts of spilled coffee and old paper. A wooden desk sat covered in a fine layer of dust. On its corner, a forgotten shortwave radio, its Bakelite case cracked and its dial frozen between frequencies. It was just a piece of junk, part of the room’s decay.
Petrova set the satchel with the Iskra-7 on the desk. She ran a hand through her damp hair, her face pale in the gloom.
— We have it, — she said, her voice a low murmur. It wasn’t triumph. It was a statement of fact, a line drawn in a ledger.
— We have a chance, — I corrected.
The word hung in the air. Then the radio on the desk crackled.
A burst of harsh, grating static filled the small room. It wasn't the gentle hiss of an untuned station. It was aggressive, a sound like tearing metal. Petrova flinched, her eyes snapping to the device. I put my hand on my pistol. The static was a physical presence, a pressure against the eardrums. It was the sound of the world’s signal bleeding out.
— What is that? — Petrova whispered, taking a step back from the desk.
— It's not a broadcast, — I said. The cold from the Aegis Conduit case in my hand seemed to deepen, a chill that had nothing to do with the Hamburg morning. — It's a resonance.
The static sharpened, coalescing. A voice began to tear its way through the noise. It was a shredded thing, stitched together with electricity and malice, but I knew it. I knew it like I knew the scar on my own hand. It was the voice of a ghost I had failed to bury.
— You still think that fire saved anyone, brother? — Kestrel’s voice rasped from the speaker, intimate and cruel. — You just ran my errand for me.
The thin victory we had clutched so tightly turned to ash in my mouth. The heist, the chase, the trade on the pier—it was all a lie. We hadn't won anything. We had followed a script. The feeling of control evaporated, replaced by the cold, hard certainty of a cage door swinging shut. We were not the hunters. We were the bait, and the trap had just been sprung.
— The Iskra-7, — Petrova breathed, her scientific mind catching up to the raw horror of the moment. — It’s a decoy.
— A beautiful one, isn't it? — Kestrel’s voice was laced with a mocking warmth. — A perfect little breadcrumb. You bled for it. You traded for it. And all it does is tell me exactly where you are.
The cost of the core was not the blood we’d spent in the depot. It was the time we had lost. It was the rope Kestrel had given us to hang ourselves. Every step we had taken since Berlin was a step he had permitted. The price of our choice to steal the core was the complete loss of our agency. We were his puppets.
— The real Echo Protocol is active, Sineus, — the voice from the radio continued, dropping the mocking tone for something colder, something final. — It’s nearing its final phase. I'm just finishing the job you started. The one you didn't have the stomach for.
The words were a blade, aimed at a wound only he knew existed. The lab. The fire. The choice I had made to save myself. He was twisting the past into a weapon, using my own history to justify his monstrous new world. He was building his kingdom of shared agony on the foundations of my failure.
I looked at the grimy window of the office, at my own reflection in the glass. For a bare second, the image flickered. It wasn't just me anymore. A second figure stood beside me in the reflection, a man with my face but Kestrel’s smile. The glass seemed to crawl with a faint, shimmering static, the same visual noise I’d seen in the eyes of his puppets. He wasn't just talking to us. He was here. He was showing me he could touch our reality, bend it to his will, a god amusing himself with mirrors.
The reflection snapped back to normal, leaving only my own tired face staring back from the grime.
Petrova was already moving, her hand reaching for the satchel on the desk.
— The core, — she said, her voice tight with urgency. — If it's a beacon—
She never finished the sentence.
A new sound started, not from the radio, but from the satchel itself. It wasn't a sound we heard with our ears. It was a pressure building inside our skulls, a high-frequency pulse that vibrated in our bones. The decoy was active. The tracker was screaming our location into the ether.
The hunt was over. The ambush was about to begin.
We were out of time.
