6:05 PM – Nakamura City Archives
Kamira Nael was the kind of woman most Helix operatives feared—calm, unreadable, and always two steps ahead. She wasn't officially part of Helix anymore, but everyone knew the truth: Kamira trained the best, and buried the rest.
Now she spent her days in silence, restoring old city records. Forgotten. Or so the world believed.
She traced her gloved fingers over a dusty microfilm.
Suddenly, the terminal in front of her blinked twice. A silent alert.
> Incoming transmission.
Source: Unverified.
Encryption: Legacy Helix Protocol – Obsolete.
She narrowed her eyes and opened it.
A single sentence appeared:
> "You were right about Vault-7. It's open. – E."
Her blood turned to ice.
---
6:07 PM – Archive Rooftop
Eron crouched low behind a rooftop vent, wind tousling his hair.
He had mapped Kamira's behavior across 127 loops.
Sometimes she ignored the signal. Sometimes she reported it. But on Try #99,824, she had followed it, alone, with a gun and a vendetta.
That was the loop she remembered everything.
He gambled it would happen again.
He checked his watch.
Three... two... one.
The lights inside the archive cut off for 1.4 seconds—the exact delay he'd triggered using the outdated city grid bug.
When the backup lights returned, Kamira was gone.
She had taken the bait.
---
6:10 PM – Helix HQ, Vault Control Center
Dorian stood over the Vault-7 access logs. Three entries flagged in the last six months.
None were supposed to exist.
He noticed something even more disturbing: the last backup scan of Vault-7's contents was... scrambled. As if someone had wiped the data and replaced it with static noise.
Suddenly, a secure comm line blinked.
"Director Dorian," the voice on the other end said. "A ghost from your blacklist just accessed the city grid."
Dorian froze.
"Name?"
"Kamira Nael."
---
6:15 PM – Kamira's Apartment, Hidden Locker
Kamira opened the locker beneath the floorboards. Inside: a black pistol, a knife, a flash drive... and a photo.
Her and three others. Young. Confident. The first generation of Helix's covert taskforce.
And him. The man she buried.
She touched the photo.
"Eron... this better not be a game."
She snapped the drive into her belt and disappeared into the night.
---
Rooftop Journal Entry – Try #100,004
> Kamira is in play.
Dorian will try to contact her.
Malco will double down on containment.
The board will fracture by morning.
This loop is nearing perfect chaos.
7:02 PM – Kamira's Location: Abandoned Metro Line 7
Kamira stood in silence at the end of the track, staring at the cracked wall where no trains had run for twenty years.
A faint electronic pulse echoed from a rusted panel. She placed her hand on it. A click.
The wall slid open slightly, revealing a hidden tunnel.
This place had been one of Eron's secrets—a fallback meeting zone. She hadn't stepped inside since the mission that cost her everything.
Now, the lights flickered on like ghosts remembering.
And then, a voice greeted her.
"I was beginning to think you wouldn't come."
Eron stepped from the shadows.
---
7:04 PM – Inside the Tunnel
Kamira didn't smile. She didn't draw her gun. But her fingers twitched near the holster.
"You're dead."
"I've been practicing," Eron replied dryly. "A lot."
She crossed her arms. "You faked your death. Burned your record. And now you're using old Helix channels to bait me like I'm still on payroll?"
"I'm using them because they work."
Kamira stared at him for a long moment.
"You're behind the Vault-7 alert."
"No," Eron said, walking slowly to the center of the room. "Malco is. He just doesn't know it yet."
Kamira raised an eyebrow.
"And what do you want?"
---
7:07 PM – Tension Builds
Eron turned to face her. The room dimmed with tension.
"I want to destroy the board from the inside. Piece by piece. I want Dorian paranoid. I want Malco exposed. I want their secrets to rot under sunlight."
"You always were a romantic."
"I'm not doing it for justice," Eron said, voice steady. "I'm doing it because they erased us. You. Me. The original unit. We didn't die in battle—we were deleted to cover a deal gone wrong."
Kamira's eyes flickered.
He was right. Deep down, she'd always known.
---
7:10 PM – Decision Point
"I won't follow you," Kamira said. "But I'll watch. One mistake—and I'm putting you down myself."
Eron nodded. "That's all I need."
He passed her a data shard.
"Board meets in 48 hours. I'll draw Dorian in. You get proof of Malco's original purge files."
Kamira tucked the shard into her coat.
"This loop," she said softly, "better be the last time we have this conversation."
Eron smiled.
"It won't be."
7:45 PM – Helix HQ, Board Floor – Observation Chamber
The upper floors of Helix Headquarters were lined with soundproof glass and arrogance.
Here, seven board members held dominion over the world's most covert corporate-intelligence network. They whispered into economies, manipulated elections, and ended careers with a click.
But tonight, they were shaken.
A classified document had surfaced. One that only Malco Frey was supposed to have buried.
And someone—an unknown source—had leaked it to every board member at once.
---
7:46 PM – Inside the Encrypted Meeting
The digital conference began with static.
Then a voice—filtered, distorted—spoke:
> "This file is a ghost. Deleted 11 years ago. Reconstructed from ash. Look closely, and you'll see the origin of Vault-7... and the blood it cost."
The document blinked into view. It wasn't just a list of names. It was proof of Project Mirage, the experimental purge that had eliminated dozens of Helix agents without board authorization.
And Malco's signature was at the bottom.
Gasps. Silence. Then shouting.
---
7:50 PM – Malco's Office
Malco stood in front of his screen, jaw clenched, while his personal assistant tried to reboot the system.
"Where did it come from?" Malco demanded.
"No known source," the assistant stammered. "It bypassed firewalls and even the ghost-layer encryptions. No trace. It's like the system let it in."
Malco knew what that meant.
Someone had learned the patterns. Not hacked... mirrored.
His hand tightened around his pen.
"Lock down the vaults. Audit every Level-7 access. And find Kamira Nael."
---
8:05 PM – Rooftop Journal
Eron flipped the page.
> Malco's rage: triggered.
The board: fractured.
Kamira: in possession of the shard.
Tomorrow, Dorian receives the false defector report.
The dominoes will not survive the morning.
He glanced toward the skyline.
"Just a few more loops," he whispered.
And maybe this time… he wouldn't wake up.
8:30 PM – Helix HQ, Blackroom Chamber
The "Blackroom" wasn't on any floor map. A room of concrete and silence, designed for one thing—breaking people who couldn't be broken anywhere else.
Dorian stood behind a one-way mirror, arms folded.
Inside the interrogation cell sat a woman—Elira Voss. Mid-level intelligence runner. Clean record. Ten years loyal.
But tonight, she had just confessed to attempting to leak files from Vault-7.
She claimed she'd been bribed.
By Eron Vale.
---
8:32 PM – Watching the Play
Dorian's mind raced. Everything pointed to Eron's hand. The Vault breach. Kamira's return. The board's eruption. And now... Elira?
But the timeline didn't add up. Eron was dead. Elira had never worked with him.
Or had she?
He tapped the mic.
"Elira. Tell me why you did it."
She raised her eyes slowly.
"Because I believed in him more than I believed in you."
Dorian flinched.
She wasn't acting.
---
9:00 PM – Outside the Blackroom
Elira was escorted away in cuffs.
Dorian reviewed her access logs.
They were real.
Her contacts?
All legitimate.
But Dorian had seen it before—a planted Judas.
Someone willingly burned to create a bigger fire. A human decoy. A misdirection.
And whoever Eron had become, he was playing multi-layered warfare now.
---
Meanwhile – Across the City
Eron sat alone on a bench near an empty tram station.
Beside him, a small child fed breadcrumbs to birds, unaware of the war unfolding between ghosts.
A notification buzzed on his burner phone:
> "Elira's in custody. She played her part."
– K.
Kamira had delivered the decoy flawlessly.
Eron tucked the phone away and stared at the sky.
---
Rooftop Journal Entry – Try #100,004
> Judas deployed.
Trust shaken.
Kamira watching.
Dorian doubting.
Malco cornered.
All paths align.
Tomorrow begins the unraveling.