The hours stretched like elastic, taut with anticipation. Cipher's fingers moved rapidly across his keyboard, the glow of his laptop illuminating his sharp features in the dimly lit safehouse. He occasionally muttered to himself, technical jargon that sounded more like incantations than anything comprehensible.
Mara stood by the window, her silhouette tense against the faint glow of the city skyline. She scanned the streets below with a military precision that only deepened the gravity of our situation. Alan sat in the corner, fiddling nervously with a loose thread on his jacket, his restless energy filling the room.
I leaned against the wall, my thoughts racing. Each tick of Cipher's keystrokes seemed like a countdown to something inevitable, though I couldn't tell if it was triumph or disaster waiting on the other side.
"How much longer?" Mara asked without turning from her vigil.
Cipher didn't glance up. "I'm making progress, but whoever encrypted this was no amateur. I've bypassed the first two layers, but the third is… intricate. It's like they knew someone like me might try."
"Can you crack it or not?" Mara pressed.
He smirked, his confidence unshaken. "Oh, I'll crack it. The question is whether we'll still be breathing when I do."
His remark sent a chill through the room. Alan's head snapped up, his eyes wide. "You think they already know we're here?"
Cipher shrugged. "They'll know someone's trying to access this data soon enough. Whether they've pinpointed us yet is the real gamble."
Mara turned, her expression hard. "Then work faster."
The tension was suffocating. I felt the weight of the USB drive's secrets pressing down on all of us. Whatever was on it had already cost lives—maybe too many to count. Would it cost ours too?
Suddenly, Cipher froze, his fingers hovering over the keyboard. His face was illuminated by a cascade of green code scrolling across the screen.
"Got it," he said, his voice low but triumphant.
We all moved closer, the air in the room thick with expectation. Mara placed a hand on the table, her knuckles white. "What's on it?"
Cipher began sorting through the files, his expression shifting from curiosity to shock. "This… this is big," he muttered, almost to himself.
"Big how?" I asked, my pulse quickening.
He looked up, his eyes wide with disbelief. "This isn't just dirt on Zenith. It's a map of their entire operation—front companies, offshore accounts, covert projects. And… names."
"Names?" Mara echoed, her voice sharp.
Cipher nodded. "Agents, informants, high-ranking officials. This is a complete roster of everyone working for Zenith. It's a kill list, and it goes all the way to the top."
The room fell silent. The implications of what he'd just said hung in the air like a guillotine blade.
Alan swallowed hard. "If they find out we've seen this—"
"They'll do more than kill us," Mara said grimly. "They'll erase us. Make it like we never existed."
Cipher leaned back in his chair, rubbing his temples. "This changes everything. With this, you could dismantle Zenith from the inside out. But it also makes you the biggest target in the world."
Mara's gaze was steady. "That's a risk we were already taking."
Alan looked less convinced. "There has to be a way to use this without painting a bullseye on all of us."
Cipher's eyes narrowed. "Maybe. But it won't be easy. If you're serious about taking them down, you'll need allies—and a hell of a lot more firepower than what you've got now."
Mara nodded, her mind clearly racing. "First, we need to move. If you cracked the encryption, they'll know soon. We can't stay here."
Cipher packed up his laptop with practiced efficiency, his movements swift but deliberate. "I've got another safehouse," he said. "Not far, but we'll have to move fast."
We gathered our things and slipped out into the night. The streets were eerily quiet, the kind of silence that felt like it was waiting to explode. Every shadow seemed deeper, every corner more dangerous.
As we made our way through the maze of alleys and side streets, I couldn't shake the feeling of being watched. I glanced over my shoulder more than once, half-expecting to see Zenith's agents closing in.
We reached Cipher's new safehouse—a nondescript basement tucked beneath an abandoned laundromat. Inside, the air was damp, and the single bulb hanging from the ceiling cast long, flickering shadows.
Cipher wasted no time setting up again. Mara barricaded the door while Alan paced nervously, muttering to himself.
I sat on an old crate, my thoughts spinning. We had the key to Zenith's downfall, but it felt like holding a live grenade. One wrong move, and everything would come crashing down.
Cipher's voice broke through my thoughts. "There's one more thing," he said, his tone grim.
We all turned to him.
"There's a message embedded in the data," he said, pointing to the screen. "It's from whoever leaked this. And it's addressed to you."
"To us?" Mara asked, her eyes narrowing.
Cipher nodded, clicking on the file. A video began to play, the screen filled with static before a figure emerged—a hooded silhouette, their voice distorted.
"If you've found this," the figure said, "you're closer to the truth than anyone has ever been. But beware—Zenith is already coming for you. And they won't stop until they bury you along with their secrets."
The screen went black.
The silence that followed was deafening.
"They know," I said softly, my voice barely above a whisper. "They know we're coming for them."
Mara's jaw tightened, her eyes blazing with determination. "Then we'd better hit first."
Cipher leaned back, a grim smile on his face. "Looks like the war just started."
....
https://shshort