Page 139 of Fractured Loyalties
The moment my shadow crosses the threshold, the blinking stops.
A screen pings to life on the wall behind me.
Black background. White text.
WELCOME BACK, EIDOLON.
I don’t breathe. Don’t speak. Just stare.
Another line appears.
AUTOMATED LOG ENTRY PULSE INITIATED.
Then a countdown.
00:09.
00:08.
Fuck.
I spin and dive back toward the threshold, cutting left into a second tunnel I mapped in the aerial—one Vale doesn’t know I’ve used before. My body slams into the wall just as the pulse hits.
Not a bomb. Not EMP.
A data burst.
Targeted.
It spikes through every known echo of my comms signature. Not just physical devices—bio-echoes, pattern-matched resonance frequencies. Vale is tracking my neural imprint off historical data.
It’s an attempt to tag me.
I stagger to my feet. Shoulder aching. Jaw clenched. This isn’t an assassination attempt. It’s a marker.
He wants me alive.
Because whatever this is—it’s not a trap to kill.
It’s a fucking leash.
I grip my weapon tighter and move deeper into the dark, pulse flaring in my ears. There’s no voice. No trigger. Just silence.
But that silence is shaped like his name.
And it’s starting to laugh.
The tunnel veers right, then curves downward at a slope so shallow it pretends to be natural. It’s not. It was calculated—measured to guide the body without alerting the mind. Behavior-mapped architecture.
Vale’s not just using my past. He’s refining it.
The static eases the deeper I go, replaced by something worse. Emptiness. Like whatever’s waiting ahead doesn’t breathe.
My comm clicks once.
Mara’s voice cuts in, low but steady. “You have movement. West rail. Four figures. Spread tight. They’re not searching. They’re sweeping.”
“Pattern?”
