The grate creaked again.
Femi looked up.
So did I.
The ceiling grate swung open with a sharp metallic groan.
Femi grabbed my arm and shoved me behind him instinctively — just as a boot dropped through the opening— then another. A figure landed in the shadows with the silence of someone trained to fall without sound.
I couldn't breathe.
A figure — tall, lean, masked, gloved, dressed in matte black with a gear strapped across their chest. And to make it worse, calm emerged from the darkeness.
"Step away from the rig," the voice said — low, mechanical, like it was filtered through layers of static.
Femi didn't flinch. "Wraith."
The masked head tilted slightly, like it found that amusing. "Still quick. Still predictable."
"What are you doing here?" Femi stepped in front of me, shielding the rig — offline but still humming. The USB drive sat lodged in place, its contents halfway decrypted.
"I was never gone," Wraith replied. Then turned her visor toward me. "And you… you shouldn't have picked up that drive."
I swallowed hard. "Who are you really?"
She ignored the question
"You don't know what you're holding."
"I know enough," Femi said coldly. "You're not here for the drive. You're here for her."
The masked figure tilted their head again. "She triggered the failsafe. That made her… relevant."
I felt cold all over. My stomach dropped and yet my hands balled into fists.
"You were watching us in the common room," I said. "Before any of this started."
No answer. Just silence.
Then:"You were never supposed to look under the surface. FaceTrace was a sandbox. But you — Adaora — you broke protocol."
Femi's eyes darted to the rig. Data still streamed across the cracked screen— fragments of logs, real-time surveillance syncs, and a partial audio file labeled: WRAITH_ROOT.vrk.
We were stalling. We knew it. So did the she.
He whispered without turning, "When I say run, you bolt for that vent behind the breaker."
My pulse thundered. I didn't have time to respond.
Wraith lunged.
Femi tackled her mid-sprint. Then grabbed a chair and hurled it at her. It shattered against their shoulder — barely slowing them. But it was enough.
"Run!" he shouted
I ran.
Femi yanked the rig's power core, stuffed the drive into his coat, and dove after me. We barely made it through the narrow duct as a metal baton slammed against the vent edge — sparks showering few inches from my face.
We crawled. Fast. Wrong turns. Heat. Dust. Panic.
Then a grate gave way — and we tumbled out into a storage closet behind the old mechanical lab.
Femi slammed the door shut and wedged a steel bar through the handles. "That won't hold for long."
He pulled out a burner tablet — isolated, untraceable — and slotted in the drive.
As the file finished decrypting.
A map appeared — of the CampusNet mesh.
But this wasn't just local surveillance.
It was a full-scale behavioral network. Live feeds. Algorithmic profiles. Emotional tracking based on tone, movement, even eye flicker.
And it was all being routed through one central name:
WRAITH.
Femi's face went pale. "She's replicating FaceTrace as an intel tool — for buyers. Private military. Corporations. Anyone willing to pay."
"But why me?" I whispered.
He tapped the profile tab. My name. My code. My biometrics — repurposed as a template.
"You're the proof-of-concept," he said. "If she can track and predict you, she can do the same for anyone."
Then the screen blinked.
And then we saw it — an auto-triggered response. A final phase log.
Target: Adaora M.
Status: Breach Confirmed
Protocol: Shutdown_01 Initiated
I stared at the words.
I swallowed hard. "She's coming for me."
Femi didn't respond.
He was already pulling open the trapdoor beneath the storage room.
"Where does that lead?"
"Maintenance shaft," he said. "To the admin block. Where this whole thing started."
I hesitated. "You think she'll follow?"
He gave a dry laugh. "She won't need to. She'll probably be waiting."
Then we dropped into the dark.