Page 161 of Fractured Loyalties
A voice—mechanical, calm—fills the space.
“Authorization confirmed. Subject ready for retrieval.”
I lift my weapon.
“No,” I say.
The room doesn’t respond.
But behind us, the door we entered through seals with a hiss.
And from above, something begins to lower—metal limbs, curved hooks, mechanical arms folded like praying mantis spines.
Mara breathes out. “We need to run.”
“We can’t,” Kinley says. “Not yet.”
The lights go red.
And I finally understand:
This isn’t the archive.
It’s the trial.
There’s a sound above us. Like a spine bending too far backward. Mechanical. Organic. A groan of pressure forced into movement. The hooked limbs unfold slowly, angular and precise, like they were waiting for someone to fail.
Mara steps toward me, but I raise a hand to hold her back.
“They’re not weapons,” I say.
“Then what are they?”
Kinley answers. “Surveillance anchors. Behavioral scan arrays.”
Translation: They’re here to observe us. Record us. React.
The room’s lights pulse again. Red, then white, then something too faint to name. My neural implant—low-frequency, tactical-grade—syncs for a second, flickers on something unfamiliar. A pulse runs through the back of my skull. A neural tap echoing through the walls—ancient but not obsolete.
The screen flashes again. This time, it’s not footage. It’s code.
Blocks and blocks of it, cascading like rainfall. Mara’s name embedded. My tag. Kinley’s name. Then more. Dozens more. Names we thought buried. A graveyard of operatives, contacts, enemies—looping through a ledger no one should have access to.
“This is the pattern vault,” I mutter.
Kinley inhales sharply. “I thought they destroyed it.”
“Apparently not.”
Mara points toward the next bank of servers. “Look.”
Rows of vials. Real ones. Encased in reinforced coolant glass. Blue fluid. Labeled.
“Memory harvest,” I say.
Mine.
Hers.
