New Cascadia – Sector 12, Apartment 18B
The storm outside never really ended. It just dimmed.
Cassian moved through the apartment with slow purpose—checking the stabilizer, adjusting Mira's support frame, syncing a silent diagnostic from his backup terminal.
She blinked up at him. Awake. Just barely.
> "You've been gone."
Cassian smiled faintly. "Not too far."
> "Did you find what you were looking for?"
He paused.
> "A piece of it."
---
Elsewhere – Lucius
In-game, far across the Crater Chain Ridge, Lucius stood before a ruined NPC shrine—one that had long since lost its original dev tags.
He placed a token at its base—a coded relic no player should own.
> "Still watching the storm, old friend?"
Behind his expressionless helm, Lucius remembered a man he once worked beside—before it all fractured.
---
Elsewhere – StarViper
In a dusty rest zone on the border of Riftglass, StarViper rewatched a Veil-cut clip of the Phantom Breaker vault breach.
She didn't know it was Cassian.
But something about the movements—the hesitation before finishing an enemy, the way the cloak flickered—felt familiar.
> "Seen him before?" a guildmate asked.
She shook her head. "No. Just a ghost, I think."
But she saved the clip.
---
Elsewhere – Crimson Phantom
A TianXia handler waited in a shadow-coded conference node. No face. Just the voice.
> "Did he access the mirror?"
Crimson Phantom stood at attention, mask still unreadable.
> "He did."
> "And you didn't stop him?"
Silence.
> "You may not get another chance."
> "I hope I don't," Phantom said quietly.
Then severed the connection.
Their Loyalty Index blinked yellow.
---
SynapseCorp – Internal Thread
A new directive passed across a classified Synapse relay.
> Anomaly Class Escalated: Architect Signature – Phase 2.
Identify or Neutralize.
No one said his name.
But eyes were turning.
---
Back in New Cascadia
Cassian stepped onto the balcony, letting the ash wind brush across his face.
The world was moving faster than he could control.
But not faster than he could follow.
A new message pulsed on his terminal—encrypted, unsigned:
> I know what you're building.
Let's talk. Before they find us both.
He stared at it.
Then turned back toward Mira's room—her silhouette soft beneath the low light.
> "Not yet," he said quietly. "But soon."
---
End of Chapter Twenty-Four
End of Volume One