Chapter 16
Rosa stood beside my mother, pouring another glass of iced tea. The evening air was unseasonably warm for late September in Massachusetts. The garden, once a place of silent confinement and surveillance under Vale's shadow, was alive with the sound of clinking glasses and quiet laughter. Hannah sat on a wooden bench, explaining a new encryption protocol to Detective Bennett’s husband, who looked politely confused. Agent Cole, awkwardly adjusting the collar of his casual shirt, stood near the edge of the patio, scanning the perimeter purely out of habit.
It was the closest thing to a perfect moment we had experienced in years.
Then, Hannah’s phone vibrated against the glass table.
It wasn’t a standard ringtone. It was a sharp, high-pitched electronic pulse. The emergency override tone for Hale Systems’ core server.
Hannah’s smile vanished instantly. She snatched the phone, her fingers flying across the screen.
"What is it?" I asked, stepping closer to her.
"Someone is inside the Vanguard mainframe," Hannah said, her voice dropping to a harsh whisper. "That’s impossible. We air-gapped that server last year. Nothing comes in or out without physical authorization."
Agent Cole’s professional instincts kicked in immediately. He crossed the patio in three long strides, his hand instinctively reaching toward his belt where his badge usually sat.
"A physical breach?" Cole asked.
"It has to be," Hannah replied, her eyes tracking lines of code reflecting in her glasses. "Or a sleeper program that woke up from inside our own architecture. They are bypassing the new privacy firewalls with root access."
"Who is it?"
Hannah looked up, her face pale in the fading twilight.
"The signature is old," she said. "It’s a Northstar Meridian ghost code. But Vale is in a supermax facility. He doesn't have access to a keyboard, let alone a global network."
"If it isn't Vale," I said, a cold knot forming in my stomach, "who is running Northstar?"
Before Hannah could answer, the security lights illuminating the garden flickered and died.
Then, every phone on the patio vibrated simultaneously.
I pulled mine from my pocket. It was a text message from an unknown, encrypted number.
May you like
Did you really think the sky only had one star? We are coming for the Key.
My mother looked at me from her wheelchair, the relaxed lines of her face tightening into a familiar, defensive mask. The war wasn't over. It had just been sleeping in the shadows, waiting for us to lower our guard.
