|10| standard months since Planetfall.
Week |2| in Halirosa. >>
I should have anticipated the abduction.
I had enough information to anticipate Icefinger's methods. I knew he relied on Kira Shadowclaw in consistent patterns of coercion through targeted disappearances. Kidnapping citizens tied to influential institutions; merchants, minor nobles, the occasional wayward heir — always someone whose fear can be leveraged into obedience and advantages.
Audrea might not have been a political figure, but she carries influence within the temple network, and her connection to Jonah gives her additional value from Icefinger's perspective. I had been too focused on projected escalation models involving direct attempts on the boy, not realizing that exploiting someone close to him would be more efficient.
So yes — when the Federation's Audit Division eventually drags this file out of cold storage and starts pointing claws at operational failures, they can underline this line in red. I missed a move I shouldn't have missed.
That said, the situation is salvageable. In fact, it has become advantageous.
These people have been frustratingly difficult to pin down since I arrived in this city.
Orion Swiftshadow, in particular, has run her network like an overclocked maze. Any normal intelligence officer would have given up by now.
Kira, in contrast, floats through the city in patterns that could generously be called "guerilla chic." Neither has ever stayed still long enough for me to push past surface-level surveillance.
Until now.
For the first time, I have not one but two members of Icefinger's inner circle in a measurable, traceable position. That alone justifies the risk. The window will close quickly, and if either woman realizes I have even a partial lock, they will bury themselves again. I need to move before that happens.
My first step was consolidating the micro-construct network.
The initial swarm I seeded throughout Halirosa was functional but crude — a compromise between capability and concealment. They were nowhere near my usual standards: little more than free-floating nanite clusters coded to piggyback sensory impressions to nearby [Wasp] drones. Still, they were good enough for environmental sampling and short-range behavioral tracking.
Barely adequate, but adequate was all I needed.
Work on a more robust network is already in the works. Soon, Halirosa will be covered in listening posts, micro cameras, and sensor arrays. Some might argue I should have done this earlier, but that’s what happens when you have a hudred projects and limited resorces. If my plans for the Nexus bare fruit, that will no longer be an issue, however.
After collecting data from staff uniforms, bedding seams, hairbrushes, tool racks, and an alarming number of lunch containers, I finally had enough sensory overlap to reconstruct the estate's internal structure. Shift rotations. Servant loops. Messenger routes. Guard patrol patterns. Which rooms Orion and Kira favored, and which they avoided entirely.
From there, I tightened the net around one particular member of Orion's household — Thomas.
I hadn't expected to see him again, much less here. I had attempted to track him after the temple raid, but I was still learning the behavioral patterns of Icefinger's subordinates then, and he slipped the trail. Seeing him now was… convenient.
His former connection to the temple — and to Audrea specifically — elevates his usefulness significantly. But the loud, swaggering young man who helped lead the attack two weeks ago is gone. In his place is someone half-broken, terrified of Kira, and desperate to avoid falling any further from his master's favor.
A perfect pressure point.
All he needs is the right nudge at the right moment — and if there's one thing I'm good at, it's pushing buttons.
With Thomas tagged, I expanded the estate map. No external blueprints exist — Orion's paranoia is one of her few admirable qualities — but a structure always betrays itself.
Servant paths sketch the building's skeleton. Ventilation drafts mark internal cavities. Ward pulse cycles reveal floor divisions and energy choke points. By the time the others thought to organize a response to the kidnapping, I had compiled a partial 3D model of the main estate, the upper guest wings, and enough of the lower levels to extrapolate the location of the warded chamber where she was last transferred.
It is not perfect. But "good enough" is still far beyond what any of Icefinger's people will expect.
Sister Audrea is currently being held in the west sub-level — likely near the "inner sanctum" Orion uses for sensitive operations. Kira's presence shifts unpredictably, but she gravitates toward areas.
I spent the past night running simulations. Some ended in theoretical success. Most did not. Even with the temple's limited assistance, Garrelt and the Doctor's recent breakthroughs to Shackle Breaking, and Jonah's current output levels, winning a direct confrontation is still about as likely as fighting an armored carrier with a squirt gun.
———
It is unclear whether Alpha's metaphor here is a direct reference to the Serrano Drydock Incident — when Subject [SEAU-03] attempted to "discourage" an unauthorized carrier loading crew using a high-pressure coolant hose — or if this is simply one of his preferred stylistic exaggerations.
Records are inconsistent on whether the hose technically qualifies as a "squirt gun," though witness statements repeatedly use the word sprayed and one subordinate described the event as "wet, loud, and unnecessarily dramatic." The committee remains divided on authorial intent.>
———
But confrontation is not the objective.
I have already seeded the necessary components: Array access nodes, relay points, suppression triggers, and timed misfires in two ward anchors. The staff will follow their routines. The lieutenants will follow their habits. And Thomas… will do what fear compels him to do.
Everything is nearly in place.
There is just one last piece I need to collect before the board is properly set.
Fortunately, we have a meeting soon.
——————————————————
Seren Varrin stared at the untouched cup of tea in front of him and tried to remember when exactly he'd lost control of the day.
The guest parlour at the back of the Nexus Hub was… wrong in small, deliberate ways. First, it was quiet — too quiet for a shop that had become the Silver District's newest obsession. The walls were stone, but too smooth, too cleanly cut, joined by seams so fine they made the old Guard headquarters feel like a ruin. An elegant ironwood table rested on a metal base that hummed faintly under his touch, for reasons he couldn't discern. Overhead, the ceiling crystals glowed with a cool, unwavering light — none of the erratic flicker of spirit-powered fixtures common in half the homes of the district. Several strange black paintings hung on the far wall, as if the artist had simply brushed over them with a jar of pitch.
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Yet, this wasn't a noble's drawing room, nor a cultivator's meditation chamber. Nothing in the design seemed intended to impress, intimidate, or soothe. For all its craftsmanship, the room was simply… functional. Purposeful in a way that didn't fit any category he knew, and that unsettled him more than he wanted to admit.
Across from him, Dr. Maria Corvane held her cup between both hands, smiling over the rim as though this were an ordinary social visit. The faint creases at the corners of her eyes softened the expression, lending it a warmth he doubted was entirely sincere. To Seren, it looked like patience. Or the quiet amusement of someone who understood he would rather be anywhere else.
To his right, the man called Hugo poured tea with the easy confidence of a seasoned host. He set the pot down, dabbed away a stray drip from the tray, then leaned back against the sideboard as if settling into the background. A simple shopkeeper, present but unimportant.
Seren didn't believe that for a heartbeat.
He still wore the disguise he'd planned for his quiet sweep of the shop today — cheap cloth, loose cut, the kind of outfit someone from the outer rings bought when they thought they were dressing up for the Silver District. His hair ran a little longer than regulations allowed, and a rough shadow clung to his jaw instead of a proper shave. That part hadn't required much effort. Sleep had been a stranger all week.
He should have been in control. The plan had been simple: walk through the front door as a wide-eyed trader from the south, dazzled by rumors of the new "Nexus Hub" undercutting half the city, and see how far na?ve questions and a heavy purse could carry him. Ask where they sourced their Deep materials. How do they guarantee security. What clients were they courting.
The sort of things any ambitious fool might pry at. Not questions that would get real answers — but questions people expected. And, more importantly, Seren would learn far more from what wasn't said.
It was a good plan. Clean. Simple.
And it had lasted exactly three blocks.
He replayed the moment again: a grimy street urchin who smelled of old rags and cheap smoke, grinning like he knew the punchline to a joke Seren hadn't yet heard. The boy had stepped directly into his path as he made his way toward the shop. Seren had almost brushed him off with a scoff — still committed to the disguise, fully expecting a plea for coin.
Instead, the kid lifted a pristine envelope toward him and cleared his throat.
"Mr. Alpha would like to invite the Inspector to tea," he announced, stumbling over the title as if it were a new word he wasn't entirely sure of the meaning of. The forced posh accent didn't help matters; it only made the delivery more surreal.
The boy bolted before Seren could respond. The urchin vanished into the crowd like smoke, leaving Seren standing in the street with an envelope in his hand and a sudden, unwelcome tightness behind his ribs.
Suspicion flared instantly. Cancel the operation? That would have been the safe move. Instead, he turned his attention to the envelope with a calmness he absolutely did not feel.
He ducked into a narrow alley, pressed his back to the wall, and scanned the rooftops and corners without really seeing them. Old habit. His fingers broke the seal with care.
Inside was a single sheet of paper. One line of neat, compact script.
'I would like to discuss your black cat.'
There was no threats. No flourish. No signature. Just six words that knocked the breath out of him harder than any punch.
To anyone else, the phrase would've looked like nonsense. A curiosity without context. But to Seren, it might as well have been scrawled in blood.
Kira Shadowclaw's file lived behind three separate locks, in a vault whose very existence most of the SID didn't know about. Only a handful of people had clearance to so much as glance at those files attached to her. And the codename itself had never appeared on an actual piece of paper. Ever.
He'd stood in that narrow alley for a full minute, watching the last curl of ash from the incinerated letter drift toward the gutter. The city moved around him — a passing cart, the splash of puddles, the distant clang of a bell — but none of it registered. All he could hear was the scrape of those six words across every instinct he owned.
Eventually, he tugged his merchant's coat straight, adjusted the angle of his cheap hat, and stepped back into the street as if nothing had changed.
Because clearly, this "Alpha" already had eyes on him.
And if anyone else did too, the last thing he was going to do was act like he'd noticed.
The shop had been a mess of bodies and voices when Seren arrived — far louder and more crowded than any place that claimed to be "just a store." Adventurers haggled. Nobles whispered behind sleeves. Even some less well-off locals clutching coin pouches as if afraid someone might snatch them away. The presence of an actual line had been the first sign that nothing about this place operated on normal rules.
Hugo had been weaving through the chaos with the ease of a man born to it, answering three conversations at once without losing a step. Friendly, efficient, and not a hint that the man had been a no-name street thug only a few months prior. When Hugo reached him, Seren slipped seamlessly into the role he'd prepared: a hopeful trader with coin to invest and more confidence than sense. He kept his voice pitched high with admiration, his questions broad and foolish. Nothing to invite scrutiny.
Hugo played along perfectly. A short pause, a polite smile, a quick glance over Seren's shoulder at the rest of the crowd — all the gestures of a shopkeeper trying to gauge whether this potential customer was worth time away from paying clients. Then, with practiced ease, he'd made the offer:
"If you'd like to discuss details, sir, we have a quiet space in the back."
Seren accepted immediately, careful to play the part of an overeager man who believed he'd just gotten lucky. He'd followed him through the crowd, toward the back of the shop.
Which left him here now — in this unsettlingly calm side room — staring at an untouched cup of tea and trying to decide where he went from here.
Seren let the silence stretch just long enough to make his impatience plain. Then he set his untouched cup a fraction further from him and met Dr. Maria’s eyes.
“Let’s cut to the chase,” he said. “You clearly know who I am, and I’m reasonably sure you know who I work for. You didn’t drag me in here for tea and décor appreciation. So,” his gaze flicked briefly to Hugo, then back, “why don’t we stop circling and get to the part where you tell me what you want?”
Hugo’s mouth twitched, there and gone again. Dr. Maria’s smile, by contrast, widened into something warmer.
“I do like a man who gets to the heart of things,” she said, then set her cup down with a soft clink, folding her hands in front of it. “You’re correct, Inspector Varrin. We do know who you are, and who you answer to." Maria continued, tone smooth, almost fond. “We also know how… insistent your superiors have been recently, that you gather information on our little shop."
She chuckled.
"We’re willing to give you what you need to get them off your back. At least on some matters.”
Seren’s fingers drummed once against his knee.
“In return,” the doctor said mildly, “all we ask is a moment of your time.”
Seren's eyes narrowed. "If you think I'm going to take a bribe, then you don't know me nearly as well as you think."
He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to. The air in the room tightened as a thin edge of his Shackle Breaking presence slipped free, a controlled pulse pressing against the walls and the people in them. The crystal lights didn’t flicker, but the surface of his tea rippled in its saucer.
Hugo stiffened. Maria… chuckled.
“Oh, nothing so vulgar as that,” she said, shaking her head. “We’re well aware that coin won’t buy you. That’s precisely why you’re useful.” She reached down beside her chair, drew out a thick folder, and nudged it across the table toward him with two fingers. “We simply need a bit of… assistance with a recent incident.”
Seren watched the folder for a long heartbeat before he moved. The paper was standard stock, the binding unremarkable — no obvious trick to it.
He hooked it toward himself with two fingers and flipped it open.
His breath stopped for half a second.
His eyebrows shot up.
For a heartbeat, he forgot to blink.
The first page was a profile he knew entirely too well: A long-distance image of Kira Shadowclaw dominated the top half. Below it was text rendered in crisp, exacting detail. Not rumor or street gossip, but a clean copy of the SID’s internal record, including notation style and redacted bands that should have been impossible to replicate outside the vault.
Beneath that, another file — Orion Swiftshadow. Her name didn’t live in quite such a deep shadow, but the level of detail here wasn’t anything a casual informant could have pieced together. Network diagrams. Known aliases. Even the correct estimated realm.
Seren lifted his gaze slowly, every line of his face tightening into something cold and precise. He closed the folder with deliberate care and lifted his gaze to Dr. Maria.
"I think," he said, voice low, "I very much need to have a talk with this Mr. Alpha I keep hearing about. When can that meeting be arranged?"
A soft chuckle drifted through the room.
"There's no need."
Seren froze.
The voice hadn't come from Hugo. Or Maria. Or anyone standing.
He looked around sharply, instincts flaring — windows, ceiling corners, the door —
A faint shimmer rippled along the rim of his teacup.
A wasp blinked into existence on the porcelain lip, its cloaking field fading like a mirage burning away. Tiny metal legs tapped once, almost politely, as its optic glowed a warm, unbothered red.
Seren stared.
Alpha's voice smiled through the little speaker.
"Hello, Inspector Seren Varrin. I hope you've enjoyed our hospitality."
The insect tilted its head, and Seren could almost feel the mind behind it smirk.
"Now then, Inspector," Alpha continued, "… how would you like to help me cripple half of Icefinger's empire before breakfast?"