Page 39 of Make Them Cry
My console fills with data—their OS version, browser fingerprint, a mirrored cache of their Cathedral bookmarks. A hash we’ve seen before surfaces in the muck: a guild key that appears only on moderator decks.
Knight leans forward. “That’s a Cathedral mod credential.”
“They’re not just a lurker,” Ozzy says softly. “They’re staff.”
Rage blooms hot and stupid behind my ribs. River spilled her guts to HR while HR logged into a forum that exists to turn women like her into trophies.
I want names. Now.
Arrow’s already sifting, pivoting from the mod hash to a private subchannel. The handle attached to it is anonymized… but their recovery address is not.
It’s an internal alias: people-ops-sp@novaplay.
“S. P.,” Knight says. “Initials, maybe?”
Hmm. Who?
The S is for… what? Ugh,Tasha is who I feel like it should be, but the letters don’t match.
No. Stop. Don’t let your gut convict a friend on two letters and a bad night.
“Could be a shared mailbox,” Arrow cautions. “What about that other name?”
“What name?”
“That Shawn, last name Presley. The letters match.”
Shawn Presley. I remember the name. “He’s dead,” I say. “Died last year. Car accident.”
“He’s ruled out,” Knight says. “Unless he’s haunting from the grave.”
“We need more than a breadcrumb,” Arrow says.
“Get me more,” I say.
Our trap’s second stage unfolds. The zip file the HR machine just downloaded is half cat, half grenade. It drops our confessional bot onto Cathedral and quietly asks the mod to “verify admin status for access to the rest of the drop.” The mod obliges on autopilot—occupational reflex. Stamp: Regent-approved.
I go cold. “We’ve brushed Regent.”
Arrow’s pupils dilate just a fraction. “We’re in the same hallway now.”
Ozzy exhales a lowoh man.
On Riverside’s shallow monitor, one of the internal cams shows River turning over in her sleep, arm tucked under her head. Oblivious. Thank God.
I should go to her room. I should sit in a chair like a cliché and watch the door until morning.
Instead I keep watching the feed of a blinking cursor on an HR machine typing in a Moderator pane on a forum that called River,TheWhale.
“Save everything,” I say. “Mirror their drive. I want a full forensics image on my desk by morning.”
Arrow smiles at me, and shakes his head. “Yeah, boss.” He laughs. “We can use this to build a case, but we can’t walk into Legal with evidence we stole.”
“Then we won’t,” Knight says. “We’ll walk in with enough smoke that they start their own fire.”
Render’s voice softens. “You gonna tell her?”
I picture River’s hands shaking when she texted meAre you watching me now?and the way my stupid heart answeredYes.
