The lights buzzed dimly above, casting pale rings on the concrete floor like tired halos. Dust hung in the air, caught in shafts of amber spilling through boarded windows. The place smelled of rust, oil, and something older—like memories rotting at the edges.
The Revenant stood still, perfectly still, before a cracked mirror.
He had discarded the tactical jacket from the night before. Blood crusted around the tear near his shoulder—Ainsworth had gotten close. Closer than expected.
He stared at his own reflection. Cold eyes. Familiar. But not the same ones that once served with pride. Those eyes had seen too much. Died too many times.
"A near miss."
The voice behind him wasn't loud, but it pierced the air with a practiced sharpness. It didn't echo—it commanded.
The Revenant turned his head slightly. The man in the shadows stood by the far wall, just outside the reach of light. His coat was long, his face obscured in silhouette.
"They were supposed to die," the Revenant muttered. "Ainsworth... the intern... the Chairman—he was never meant to be there."
A beat of silence.
"That's why we test," the man said simply, stepping forward just enough to reveal the barest gleam of his shoes. "You're not done yet. You rattled the cage. Now we see who bites."
The Revenant narrowed his eyes.
"I was sloppy."
"You were... human."
That word lingered like a curse.
"Fix it," the figure continued. "The next move is yours. But if you falter again…"
There was no need to finish the sentence.
The Revenant nodded once, slowly, then turned back to the table behind him. Spread across it were blueprints, printed dossiers, and a series of notes scrawled in tight, angular handwriting. At the center, circled in red, was a name:
Iris Cael.
A grin tugged at the corner of his mouth.
"So she's in it now," he murmured, running a gloved finger over the red circle. "Good."
He reached into a crate and drew out a sleek black device—something unregistered, off-grid. He turned it on with a low beep and started recording.
"Message to intercept: Phase Two begins. The pattern will fracture. Let them chase shadows."
He paused, then added quietly to himself:
"Let's see if the Chairman still bleeds."
The quiet of the back row cubicles had always been a small mercy—tucked away from the buzzing core of analyst traffic, shielded from the open-plan chaos by a few glass dividers and two locked doors. It wasn't isolation, not really, but for Iris Cael, it was the next best thing to breathing room.
Today was her second time back since that incident. The moment the elevator had opened that morning, she'd felt every eye on her. As if everyone had been waiting.
She didn't bother to say hello. Just beelined to the reserved wing, where special assignments and high-level threads were sent to be dissected in silence. She slid into the cubicle, took a breath, and opened the file Aldrin had given her the day before.
Every page felt like a puzzle with no corners—surveillance stills with no timecodes, irregular data sequences pulled from dead satellites, intercepted chatter in old codes that hadn't been used in a decade.
The label inside the flap, written in Aldrin's distinct hand:
The Revenant Directive.
Her gut turned over.
Iris was deep into the file, surrounded by soft clacks of keyboards and quiet murmurs outside the cubicle, when it happened.
The floor shifted.
Not physically—but atmospherically.
A stillness took over. The kind that always preceded either brilliance… or disaster.
Then came the low, steady sound of boots on tile. Weighty. Controlled.
No one said his name. They didn't have to.
The Chairman of the Board had stepped onto the analyst floor.
It was rare. Almost mythic. He didn't come down here—not unless something was on fire… or important.
Aldrin didn't acknowledge anyone as he passed. No pleasantries. No nods. Just one slow, determined stride straight through the maze of desks and cubicles—toward her.
Iris blinked, then quickly closed the file like it was radioactive.
"Of course," she muttered under her breath, pressing her fingers against her temple.
When Aldrin stopped at her cubicle entrance, he didn't so much as glance sideways. His eyes locked on hers.
"Have you found anything?"
She stared at him, blinking once, then pinched the bridge of her nose.
"You cannot just walk down here like that."
Aldrin's brow creased. "Like what?"
"Like… like you don't know what this looks like," she hissed under her breath. "I didn't even come back two days ago. I disappeared with you—rumors were already halfway to marriage proposals. And now? You show up like it's Tuesday coffee hour."
She threw a sharp glance past him. Sure enough, heads had popped up like prairie dogs. Whispers were thick in the air, eyes darting from monitor screens to the Chairman and back to her.
"I'm pretty sure there's a betting pool running now," she added dryly. "Something about whether I'm going to be promoted, seduced, or sacrificed to the next black ops unit."
Aldrin's expression didn't change.
She sighed. "And you just… walked through it all."
"I wasn't aware I needed clearance to check in on my own assignment."
"You don't," she replied. "But maybe next time a text? A signal flare? A carrier pigeon?"
He tilted his head. "You're rattled."
"I'm surrounded by gossip and being treated like I'm either your mistress or your weapon. Yes, rattled feels appropriate."
Aldrin's tone didn't soften, but something in his expression shifted. A flicker of understanding. A crack in the armor.
"I trust you to handle pressure."
She glared. "That is not the compliment you think it is."
His gaze drifted down to the file now resting beneath her palm. "Anything we can use?"
She tapped the folder. "There's a pattern. Same signature buried in the encrypted chatter—modulation shifts identical to the sequence Ainsworth flagged. It's coordinated. Like someone's mocking us. Leaving a trail, but just out of reach."
He nodded once.
Then turned to leave.
"Hey," she called out, pausing him mid-step. He turned back slightly.
"You really didn't notice the floor's reaction just now?"
Aldrin's eyes scanned the room for the first time since arriving. Then, slowly, he returned his gaze to her.
"I was focused on you."
It wasn't said with flirtation. There was no charm in it. Just clarity.
Iris blinked, caught between annoyance and a sensation she couldn't name.
"Let them talk," Aldrin added. "You're on this assignment for a reason. Don't let them make you small."
And then he walked away.
The moment he stepped back into the elevator, the murmurs started again—low but steady.
And Iris?
She smirked to herself, brushing a hand over the folder once more.
"Fine. Let them talk."
Then she flipped the file open again and whispered, "Let's see what ghosts we can drag into the light
Aldrin's footsteps were steady as the elevator doors closed behind him. He didn't glance back. Didn't need to. He could still feel the tension trailing after him like static. The way the entire analyst floor had practically frozen when he'd stepped into view—and how much sharper the edge of it had become when he made a beeline for Iris.
It was expected. Unfortunate, but expected.
She'd handled it well. No—she'd handled it brilliantly, even through the heat of scrutiny and speculation. The whispers didn't bother him, but the impact on her? That mattered.
The elevator pinged, and the doors slid open to the executive floor. Cooled lighting, modern shadows, and silence that came with polished power. A world away from the analysts below.
Aldrin stepped into the hallway only to find someone leaning against his doorframe, arms crossed, a too-easy grin playing across his face.
Marek.
"Back from Olympus?" he said, pushing off the frame. "Or should I say... Aphrodite's wing?"
Aldrin walked past him with a slow, warning look. "You know better."
"Oh, I know, but that doesn't make it less entertaining," Marek said, following him into the office uninvited. "I mean, the Chairman descending from on high to visit a lowly analyst—very cloak-and-dagger. The betting pool's up to six hundred. I think someone actually brought out champagne."
Aldrin arched a brow as he sank into his seat, loosening the cuffs of his sleeves. "And what would you bet on?"
"That she burns this place down by accident," Marek said without missing a beat. "But does it with enough charm to get promoted for it."
Aldrin didn't smile, but there was a flicker of amusement in his eyes. "She's sharp. Has good instincts. She's already uncovered a lead."
"She's also two months into the job and already got half the building obsessed," Marek added, sinking into one of the chairs opposite Aldrin. "So… you sure this isn't personal?"
Aldrin glanced up at him. "Everything about this is personal. Ainsworth almost died. Someone is orchestrating this with surgical precision. If Iris is useful in stopping it, she stays."
"And if she's not?"
"Then she's removed."
There was a pause. Marek studied him for a moment, searching for something in the lines of his face. But Aldrin gave nothing.
Then—before either of them could speak—his office monitor blinked to life.
A new alert.
Encrypted data file: REVENANT-017: UNSORTED PING
Priority Tag: AUTO-FLAGGED MATCH – VOX MODULATION/PHANTOM SIG
Marek stood up instantly, tension replacing all the lazy sarcasm.
Aldrin clicked into the file.
There it was.
A ghost in the signal. Same vocal distortion signature as the old chatter. Only this time, it wasn't coded deep in a dead frequency.
It had just pinged live.
Within forty minutes of Iris combing through her file.
"She stirred something," Marek muttered.
Aldrin's jaw set as he leaned closer, eyes narrowing at the strange, looping waveform.
"No," he murmured. "She found something."
And for the first time in days, the darkness surrounding the Revenant began to take shape.