CHAPTER 30 – Between Shadows
Chris lay on his narrow bed in Building A, unit 412, staring at the ceiling whilst the radiator ticked in patient rhythm. Olivia's number saved inside his phone and sat on the small desk across the room, pale in the darkness, impossible to ignore.
Tomorrow. Same time at your desk.
She'd promised. And that promise had become the only fixed point in a universe that felt increasingly unstable.
The decision was already made—he'd chosen to stay when he stepped off the tramline bridge and walked to this flat instead of disappearing into the Republic's margins. But now, alone in the dark with only his thoughts for company, the full weight of that choice pressed down on his chest like physical force.
The Bear Patriarch's words circled endlessly: We will hunt you. We will find you. And justice will be done.
Every night since that speech had been like this. Lying awake, cataloguing the ways they might trace the pattern back to him. The access logs showing someone tagged CCX had pulled ECSE-v2. His biometric data in the building that night. His employee file showing he was on-shift during the timestamp. The Wall Pod anomaly with his name in maintenance records. The twins' semi-VR incident with his presence documented minutes before manifestation.
If they cross-reference. When they cross-reference. How long until they cross-reference.
The questions spiralled, each iteration digging deeper into his panic until he couldn't tell where fear ended and reality began.
But tonight was different.
Tonight, the terror had company.
His thoughts kept circling back to the teahouse. The way Olivia had looked at him like he mattered. The warmth in her voice when she'd asked him to promise he'd be there tomorrow. The slip of paper with her personal number—not professional contact but something meant specifically for him. Physical proof that someone in this surveillance state had chosen to give him a way to reach her directly.
Is it real?
The question gnawed at him with teeth sharper than the Bear's vow.
If she's investigating him: Then tonight he'd confirmed every suspicion. Revealed his isolation, his dissatisfaction with Republic systems, his desperate need for human connection. Everything a skilled operative could exploit. The paper in his pocket wasn't a gift—it was evidence. Documentation that he'd accepted contact from a House official outside proper channels. Another data point in the pattern that would eventually spell his name.
If she actually cares: Then eventually she'd learn what he'd done. And the warmth would turn to horror, disgust, betrayal. She'd realise the person she'd offered kindness to was the one who'd nearly triggered World War Three. Who'd branded CCX into the access logs and set in motion the very investigation that might find him through her.
Both possibilities led to exposure. Both ended in loss.
But one led there immediately. The other gave him time.
Time to feel human. Time to not be alone. Time to pretend he was someone worth caring about rather than a fugitive counting days until capture.
Maybe that's enough, he thought. Maybe having someone for a whilst—even if it ends badly—is better than this.
The rationalisation felt weak even as he formed it. Choosing emotional need over survival. Letting desperation override the paranoia that had kept him alive this long. The same idealistic blindness that had led him to leak ECSE-v2 in the first place—prioritising what he wanted to believe over harder reality.
But he was so tired.
Tired of fear. Tired of isolation. Tired of every moment being about survival rather than living. Tired of lying in the dark calculating threat assessments instead of sleeping.
Tomorrow Olivia would return to his desk. Would smile at him again. Would make the grey walls of Oversight feel less oppressive for a few minutes. And he would be there, because the alternative—choosing flight over the possibility she might be real—felt worse than any danger she might represent.
She'd asked him to promise he'd be there tomorrow. And he had nodded—couldn't speak, but the commitment was made. That simple gesture felt heavier than it should. Like crossing a threshold he couldn't uncross. She'd asked, and he'd agreed, and some part of him still believed that agreements mattered even when made by men who'd nearly started wars they didn't understand.
Chris rolled onto his side, drawing his knees up, making himself smaller against the dark. The building creaked with familiar sounds—other residents moving through evening routines, pipes expanding and contracting, the distant hum of machinery that kept the Republic grinding forward.
His mind drifted to the server room. To the moment he'd pressed his palm against the node and felt the Ring pulse hot against his finger. The certainty he'd felt then—that knowledge should be free, that the Houses were practising tyranny through hoarding—now seemed childishly naive. He'd thought he was being righteous. Liberating innovation. Serving the greater good.
Instead he'd branded CCX into access logs like a confession written in his own hand, trusting that three letters without a name would keep him safe.
The tag doesn't identify me. But the pattern will.
Wall Pod cleaner. Twins' demonstration. IP Oversight clerk. Rejects' tap bleeding data. Someone with access, with presence, with motive. Someone foreign-born who questioned Republic authority. Someone isolated enough to be vulnerable to idealistic narratives about information freedom.
If they looked—when they looked—the connections would surface. Three letters in the logs. One name appearing at every critical juncture.
His hands clenched against the thin blanket. The terror spiked fresh, sharp enough to make his breath catch. For a moment he was back on the tramline bridge, heart racing between two futures: silence-and-safety or danger-wrapped-in-warmth.
He'd chosen danger.
Chosen to stay for Olivia's smile. For the promise of tomorrow at his desk. For the hope—desperate, probably doomed—that maybe he wasn't as alone as he felt.
The slip of paper on his desk seemed to glow in the darkness, though that was impossible. Just paper. Just numbers. Just a lifeline from someone who might be salvation or trap, and no way to tell which until too late.
Above him, the ceiling held its silence. The Republic's surveillance network logged his biometric signature in this flat, timestamped his presence, added another data point to patterns that algorithms were already analysing.
Tomorrow I'll go to work. Sit at my desk. Wait for her to appear. Build whatever this is one careful interaction at a time.
And if it's a trap, at least I'll have had these moments before it closes.
If it's real...
He couldn't finish that thought. The possibility felt too fragile to touch.
Chris closed his eyes and tried to sleep, knowing it wouldn't come for hours, knowing the Bear Patriarch's voice would echo through his thoughts until dawn, knowing that tomorrow he'd do it all again—pretend to be normal, pretend to be safe, pretend that Olivia's warmth wasn't the only thing keeping him from complete despair.
The slip of paper on his desk held its silent promise.
He'd made his choice.
Everything else would be consequences.
Olivia sat at her desk, the archive console dimmed to soft glow that wouldn't strain her eyes during extended work. The city beyond her window had settled into night rhythm—tramways running reduced schedules, street lamps marking empty corridors, the Republic's machinery shifting from active production to maintenance cycles.
Before her, multiple windows displayed the operational timeline she'd been constructing since returning from the teahouse.
Christopher Xiong. Southern Commonwealth origin. Current post: Dawn Bureau IP Oversight, Sector 8B. Present at Wall Pod anomaly. Present at Yang twins' demonstration. The only common variable across two separate impossible events.
She'd already completed the initial analysis—that work was done in Chapter 28's interlude. Tonight's task was different: planning the cultivation operation's next phase with precision that would ensure success whilst maintaining complete deniability.
Her fingers moved across the interface, building the framework:
OPERATIONAL TIMELINE - SUBJECT: CHRISTOPHER XIONG
Phase 1 (Weeks 1-2): Pattern Establishment
- Maintain "routine audits" cover through Helen's coordination
- Vary timing (mid-morning, early afternoon, occasionally late) to create unpredictability
- Brief conversations at his desk (3-5 minutes maximum) Occasional shared meals in public cafeteria (establish normalcy, not intimacy)
- Goal: Make presence feel natural but special. Each appearance should feel like unexpected gift rather than scheduled meeting.
Phase 2 (Weeks 3-4): Emotional Dependency
- Introduce carefully constructed personal vulnerabilities to encourage reciprocation
- Share "concerns" about Republic systems that mirror his demonstrated beliefs
- Create impression of mutual trust through strategic self-disclosure
- Increase physical proximity gradually (shared table → adjacent seating → brief touch)
- Goal: Become the sole source of validation and understanding in his isolated existence.
Phase 3 (Weeks 5-6): Technical Observation
- Engineer situations requiring him to interact with systems in her presence
- Observe physiological responses
- Test whether he can reproduce effects deliberately or if manifestation is unconscious
-Document any correlation between emotional state and technological response
- Goal: Determine mechanism of anomaly. Is it controllable? Repeatable? Triggered by specific conditions?
Phase 4 (Weeks 7+): Dependent on Phase 3 Results
- If anomaly appears controllable → Escalate to supervised testing environment
- If anomaly appears unconscious → Maintain observational distance, wait for natural manifestation
- If no pattern emerges → Reassess whether connection is causative or coincidental
Contingency Protocols:
- If Bears begin active investigation → Accelerate timeline, extract subject to Bamboo custody before exposure
- If subject becomes suspicious → Pause cultivation, allow cooling period, resume with adjusted approach
- If subject experiences crisis → Offer immediate support, leverage vulnerability for deeper access
- If anomaly manifests in her presence → Document everything, maintain professional detachment regardless of personal response
Olivia leant back, reviewing the framework with clinical satisfaction. The structure was sound. Each phase built logically on the previous. Timelines were flexible enough to adapt to subject responsiveness without losing operational focus.
She opened a secondary window and began drafting tomorrow's approach:
CONTACT PLAN - DAY 2
Timing: Mid-morning (10:30-11:00), earlier than yesterday to establish pattern unpredictability
Approach vector: Arrive carrying two cups of tea from commissary. Offer one to subject with casual "thought you might need this." Small gesture, builds impression of thoughtfulness.
Conversation topics:
- Ask about his morning (show continued interest in daily experience)
- Reference something specific from yesterday's conversation (demonstrates she remembers, values what he shared)
- Introduce minor frustration about bureaucratic process in her own work (creates relatability, shows she also struggles with system)
Duration: 4-6 minutes maximum. Leave whilst conversation still feels good, not after it's exhausted. Make him want more.
Exit strategy: "I have another audit on third floor, but I'll try to stop by later if there's time." The "if there's time" makes later appearance feel special rather than guaranteed.
Physical notes:
- Maintain slightly closer proximity than yesterday (test comfort boundaries)
- Brief hand contact when passing tea (assess response to touch)
- Warm smile when departing (last impression should be positive anticipation)
She encrypted the file and set the morning reminder. The plan was elegant in its simplicity—standard cultivation techniques executed with precision tailored to subject's specific vulnerabilities.
But theory required validation. She pulled up a secondary analysis window, overlaying Chris's psychological profile against standard dependency formation models.
Subject Profile Analysis:
- Foreign-born (cultural isolation)
- Junior position (professional powerlessness)
- No documented social connections (emotional isolation)
- Demonstrated ideological friction with Republic systems (philosophical isolation)
-Recent crisis exposure (heightened vulnerability to stability-providing figures)
Projected Timeline Based on Standard Cultivation Protocols:
Days 1-3: Initial positive reinforcement. Subject associates operator with relief from ambient stress. Baseline dependency begins forming.
Days 4-7: Pattern recognition. Subject begins anticipating operator's presence, experiences mild anxiety when schedule deviates. Measures time by contact intervals.
Week 2: Dependency consolidation. Subject unable to imagine daily routine without operator contact. Thought of operator absence causes measurable psychological distress.
Week 3: Full emotional reliance. Subject prioritises maintaining operator relationship over competing survival considerations. Flight responses suppressed by attachment formation.
The projection wasn't prophecy—it was pattern recognition based on documented case studies. She'd reviewed dozens of successful cultivation operations during training. Foreign nationals, isolated professionals, ideologically conflicted assets. The psychological mechanisms were consistent across demographics.
Seven to ten days. That's how long it typically took for emotional dependency to override rational self-preservation in subjects matching Chris's profile.
He'll try to run, she noted in the analysis file. Survival instinct will tell him to disappear. But by Day 5, the thought of never seeing me again will hurt more than the fear of being caught. By Day 7, he won't be able to leave.
She wasn't predicting his behaviour. She was documenting a process that had been refined across hundreds of intelligence operations. The Republic didn't cultivate assets through coercion—it cultivated them through precisely calibrated human connection that made subjects choose to stay.
Olivia set the Week 1 monitoring parameters: biometric baseline readings, communication frequency tracking, behavioural deviation alerts. The data would confirm whether reality matched projection.
She closed the analysis window and returned to the operational summary.
Week 1 Objective: Establish pattern dependency. Make subject associate operator presence with safety/validation/relief.
Week 2 Objective: Consolidate emotional reliance. Become the only stable element in subject's destabilised environment.
Week 3 Objective: Test technical observation proximity. Determine if anomaly manifestation correlates with emotional state.
The timeline was aggressive but achievable. Chris's isolation made him uniquely vulnerable to connection-based manipulation. His ideological conflict with the Republic meant he'd be receptive to her carefully constructed criticisms of the system. His foreign-born status meant he lacked the social networks that might provide competing sources of validation.
He's already alone, she thought, reviewing his file one final time. I'm just giving him a reason to stop trying to change that.
Olivia set her alarm and let sleep take her, secure in the knowledge that tomorrow would bring her one step closer to understanding the phenomenon that had brought Christopher Xiong to her attention.
In Building A, unit 412, Chris lay awake staring at slip of paper that promised everything he desperately needed and nothing he could safely trust.
Neither of them knew that the Bear Patriarch's systematic investigation was closing in on them both, building patterns from access logs and biometric data and the connection between a foreign-born clerk and the three letters branded into stolen code.
The trap was already set.
They were both walking into it.
And the only question was which of them would realise first.