The dense mist of Umbriom undulated gently over the dark vegetation, as if the continent itself whispered ancient secrets. Beneath the pale light of a clouded moon, two figures moved among the trees like specters invisible to ordinary eyes, imperceptible even to conventional heat sensors.
Mara and Kieran had been in the field for nearly thirty-six hours. Their tactical clothing adapted to the environment with active camouflage, each step measured with absolute precision.
Mara paused for a moment, scanning the area with a dual‑spectrum visor.
"The signal frequency is stronger. The tracker attached to Clara's car matches this direction. We're close."
Kieran, crouched beside a moss‑covered log, examined the footprint patterns on the ground. "Two men passed through here less than an hour ago. Heavily armed."
Mara looked at the site: a stone formation with a narrow fissure, hidden by bushes and a rudimentary but effective holographic camouflage field. "They must be patrollers. We need to get in before they shift change."
With a silent gesture, the two advanced. There were no words. Only the muffled sound of wind through the leaves.
Approaching the entrance, Mara spotted the two armed men talking beside an unmarked metal structure. They were distracted, rifles slung on their shoulders as they whispered low.
An almost imperceptible snap— a twig under Kieran's feet.
The two guards spun abruptly, but it was too late.
Mara appeared in front of one of them, the titanium dagger already slicing through his throat without sound, while Kieran emerged behind the second and snapped his neck with a clean movement. The bodies were dragged into the vegetation and covered with leaves and an invisible optical tarp.
Kieran wiped his hands with a dark cloth and raised an eyebrow. "They were talking about… bets. One of them mentioned Clara's name. They were expecting someone coming 'from inside' tonight."
"Looks like she's right here," Mara murmured, adjusting her visor before scanning the entrance.
She traced her fingers across the faux stone hiding an access panel. A faint glow surfaced beneath her skin, reacting to the thermal signature.
It was a rudimentary scanner.
Within seconds, she deployed a quick virus that spoofed a random fingerprint. The door opened with a subtle hum.
Inside the facility, the environment changed drastically. It wasn't an improvised bandit base. The walls were clean, the floor lined with silent metal plates and heat sensors hidden beneath. The cold lights gave the installation a clinical, almost hospital‑like air. But what stood out most was the smell: too clean. Chemical. Sterile.
"This is bigger than we expected," Kieran whispered. "This… looks like a laboratory."
They moved through empty corridors with heightened caution. No soldiers, only hidden cameras that they disabled with the ECM pulse Mara fired with precision. Some doors were locked. Others open, revealing observation rooms, biometric analysis equipment, monitors with codes they couldn't decipher in the heat of the moment.
"They're doing something here, but everything's been wiped. The main terminals are disconnected from the global network. Full off‑grid," said Kieran as he accessed a terminal.
Mara approached a still‑lit screen. It displayed only one name:
"PROJECT: INVERTED LEGACY"
"What does that mean…?" she whispered, trying to pull more data, but was immediately blocked by a 256‑digit password.
Kieran clicked on another terminal and found security logs. All videos older than two days had been deleted. "They cleared everything. Even backups replaced with fake footage… it's an advanced digital masking. That requires someone at Nikoly's level."
They proceeded until reaching an observation room with thick glass. Inside, rows of chairs. No human presence. In the center of the room, a large holographic globe projected an image of the Phoenix Empire, marked with strategic areas: mining zones, energy sectors, telecommunications networks… and, in red, the solar satellite project of Tycoon and Fênix Solarius.
"Shit…" said Kieran. "They're spying on the project."
"But why? To what end?" Mara muttered, brow furrowed.
Before they could continue, Mara's visor flashed red. An alert from Nikoly's secure channel.
She answered.
"Did you find anything?"
"Little," came the reply. "Many data wiped. There's a mention of an 'Inverted Legacy Project' and a map with orbital system locations. They're watching the satellites."
On the other end, Nikoly sighed. "Damn… I expected something like this. But it's too early to act. Pull back. We'll replan. The intel you brought… it's already worth gold."
Mara nodded, closing the channel. She looked at Kieran, and with a silent nod, they retreated through the corridors, like shadows vanishing.
On the other side, a spectral‑camouflage helicopter hovered silently over the misty skies of Umbriom, leaving behind the dense humid forest and traces of a failed ambush.
Inside the aircraft, the atmosphere was as charged as the air before an electrical storm.
Raihn stood with arms crossed, eyes fixed on nothing, as if replaying every second of the confrontation. Jin, still with tense neck, tapped his foot impatiently. Sable kept a serene expression, but her clenched jaw betrayed her irritation.
"We had her in our hands," Raihn murmured, not looking at the others. "We saw it in her eyes… she knew she was escaping. That she was two steps ahead."
"And she was," Jin said bitterly. "Clara knew exactly where to step, how much time she had, and who was waiting for her."
Silence settled again until the holographic signal in the center of the cabin blinked blue.
Nikoly.
The projected window revealed her seated, hair in a twisted bun, and a steaming coffee cup beside her— probably her tenth of the early morning.
"Are you already returning?" she asked directly. "I imagine so… since Clara disappeared from the road and the mapping AI lost the vehicle."
"Yes, she escaped," Sable replied, hiding disappointment. "We couldn't intercept the extraction. We didn't have enough data."
Nikoly sighed, but not in frustration. In relief.
"In fact… you got more than you think. When you approached Clara, my AI captured the signal from the communicator embedded in her wrist. It was disguised as an aesthetic bracelet, but it emitted a weak quantum encryption pulse when she activated the car. I traced the signal and… well, did what I do best."
Raihn's eyes widened. "You hacked the channel?"
"With some effort, yes," Nikoly said with a mocking smile. "She was using an exchange protocol that mimics globally advanced codes. That gave me access through a small gap. Tiny… but enough. I had to build an entire temporal decoder just to maintain access for eighteen seconds."
Jin scratched his neck, impressed. "And in those eighteen seconds…?"
Nikoly shrugged as if recounting something trivial.
"I discovered three communication coordinates, all pointing to ghost servers located within the gray territory of Umbriom, almost on the border with Aethelgard. But more importantly: I found that she is communicating with an underground consortium that has no records in any international database. Not even in diplomatic security mirrors of alliances."
"So… a new group?" Sable asked, frowning.
They returned; Mara and Kieran, already outside the subterranean installation, ran through the vegetation with supernatural agility.
The silence between them was heavy, not from lack of things to say, but from urgency. Every step guided by real‑time data from Nikoly, who now tracked a low‑orbit camouflaged satellite's thermal signature.
The communication came clear over the internal channel.
"You've been detected. Not directly, but thermal drones are doing sweep patterns. Return to the extraction point east. I'm trying to generate interference with the tracking waves…"
Kieran narrowed his eyes, adjusting the visor as the traces appeared in the HUD. Three cars, two motorcycles, and unusual movement in one alley of the village where there were only shadows before.
"They knew we'd come. This was all a trap to slow us down," Mara said with a half‑growl, breathing controlled.
"It's worse," Nikoly responded. "Clara activated double‑layer escape protocols. I'm tracking the passive tracker I implanted in her personal communication channel. But… she's one step ahead."
Mara stopped abruptly behind a thick tree. She pointed to an alley fifty meters away. "There. The last ping came from there. Look."
At the end of the dark alley, the rear lights of a black car glowed. It was an old armored model, with frosted windows. The engine started almost silently.
Without wasting time, Kieran pulled out the tracker launcher, a small magnetic capsule. He aimed at the trunk and fired. The projectile buzzed through the air and attached under the vehicle's plate with surgical precision.
The car roared forward, skidding on the wet earth and disappearing down the narrow road crossing the village.
"Got it. Tracker implanted," Kieran said.
Nikoly chuckled softly on the channel. "Always impeccable, sweetheart. I'm already receiving the data. It seems she's heading for the coast. There's a hidden route there connecting to an automated submarine. That probably was her plan all along."
"Do we have any chance to intercept?" Mara asked, retreating with Kieran along the extraction trail.
"Yes, but not you. The Cerberus team is closer to the coast. I'll wake the three up right now."
Kieran snorted, smiling. "Ah, those elite rabid dogs."
As the duo withdrew to the safe point, on the other side of the digital world, Nikoly typed with almost poetic fury. Her nails gleamed with reflections as her pupils mirrored dozens of code windows opening and closing at frenzied speed.
With a gesture, fake images of Clara's movement were inserted into public networks, and alternative routes blocked with illusory traffic—a digital illusion designed to force Clara to follow the only possible path: the one where the Cerberus team waited.
Meanwhile, on the sea side of Umbriom, the Cerberus trio awaited.
At the cliff's edge, three silhouettes in dark light armor watched the portable radar. The sea below churned violently.
"Maritime movement shows an unregistered submarine twenty minutes off the coast. That's hers," Aeson said.
"If she enters that sub, we lose. We need to stop her before," Liora replied.
The three moved swiftly, descending the cliff's slopes like trained predators.
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