CHAPTER 34 – The Transfer
Peter Vang's report landed with the bluntness of steel.
"The rejects are chanting CCX. They say he came from Oversight. A foreign-born southerner, the one who listened to them. And weeks back, the Vault spat out a shard."
Captain Barret stood behind the desk, his shoulders squared beneath the crest of the House of the Sky. He did not pace, did not frown. He only tapped the rim of his glove once against the wood, a slow metronome of thought. Then he gave the nod that sent men to war.
"Mobilise. Oversight must be swept. Every registry cross-checked. Any hint of foreign interference ends here."
The chamber emptied at once. Steel buckles snapped shut, rifles checked bolts, boots struck stone like drums. Lists were drafted, names marked, interrogation orders rolled off printers hot enough to burn fingertips. The Sky had scented prey. And when the Sky moved, the city braced itself.
Across the district, Olivia caught the tremor before it turned into a quake.
She didn't need to be told. Patrol routes were already bending, encrypted memos rippling through channels like nervous twitches. Oversight was about to be gutted.
She slipped her scarf tighter, lowered her chin, let herself look like any other young woman carrying groceries through the market lane. Incognito, she hummed under her breath, the picture of harmlessness. But beneath the folds of cloth, her fingers danced across her phone, selecting one number.
The line clicked.
"Helen?" Olivia said, voice pitched high, playful, as if she were a child sneaking a call after bedtime. "It's me."
There was a sharp intake of breath on the other end, followed by a voice immediately softened with deference. "My lady," Helen replied. Even through static, the weight of those words bowed the air.
Olivia giggled softly, like a girl caught doing something mischievous. "No bows. Not today. Listen closely, Helen. The Sky are already moving. Patrols are shifting towards Oversight. You know what that means."
"Yes, my lady." Helen's tone steadied, crisp and obedient. "They're preparing a sweep."
"Mhm." Olivia let the sound roll like a nursery rhyme. "And we don't want our little bird trapped in their net, do we? You will go to IP Oversight and remember to take your rank I emblem and collect the birdy."
"As you command, my lady. I will see to it."
"Good." Olivia's voice dropped to a whisper, almost sing-song. "Remember, to play along with me as we walk there."
Helen's breath was steady now, calm as a blade before a cut. "As always, my lady."
Olivia ended the call, tucking the phone away as if nothing had passed between them. She stepped into the crowd again, scarf plain, basket light in her arms. To anyone watching, she was just another face. But in the space of a single conversation, Bamboo authority had already been set in motion, timed to strike a beat before the Sky arrived.
Chris arrived at Oversight hollow-eyed, still chewing on Mark's warning like dry bread. He told himself he would find a way to slip out before the noose closed, leave with no ripple behind him. The thought gave him no peace, only the ache of delay.
Then Frederick Nguyen called him in.
The man's tone was calm, patient, as if reciting from a well-worn script. "You've done good work here," he said. "Your diligence has been noted. But there are cuts. Operational changes. You're being reassigned."
Chris blinked, confusion and relief fighting inside his chest.
Is this real? Or is this how they do it—dress up an arrest as a transfer, keep you calm until the cell door closes?
Frederick's eyes stayed fixed on the ledger, not on Chris. "The Registry Board of the Bamboo has requested you. They've taken interest in your record. Exceptional diligence, they said. Someone will come to collect you shortly."
Bamboo. Olivia's House. Is she saving me? Or did I just hand her everything she needed to prove I'm guilty?
Chris managed a nod. His throat was too tight to answer.
They arrived as promised. Olivia walked in first, scarf neat at her throat, a calm smile resting there like a blade waiting to be unsheathed. Beside her moved Helen Yang, Bamboo emblem rank I, bright against her plain attire, authority pressed into a single gleam of woven thread.
Helen's words were clipped, final. "You are reassigned. Effective immediately. Your Oversight ID, benefits, and housing are revoked. Hand them over."
Chris slid his card across the desk. His fingers lingered on it a moment too long, as though it might tether him if he held on harder. Then he let go. He handed over the folder of papers too, his name already fading from its margins.
Frederick watched the exchange with the detached precision of a man who'd seen this dance before. His face revealed nothing.
When Chris walked out beside them, the hum of keys and the rattle of printers behind him sounded as though the place had never known him.
Twenty minutes later, Peter Vang led the column through Oversight's doors.
Boots pounded against polished floors. Doors flung wide. Vance Xiong of the Bear moved at his flank, jaw tight with controlled fury. A Serpent envoy trailed with notebook ready, pen poised to document every discovery.
They stormed the halls, pulling clerks from desks, rifling records, barking questions.
"Any foreign-born employees? Southern dialect? Any new intakes?"
Frederick Nguyen stood ready at the central terminal, database glowing across his monitor. His tone was steady, unflinching. "No. All accounted for. No foreign-born intakes in the last year."
Peter's eyes narrowed. "Check again. We have multiple witnesses—"
"Dawn's records are comprehensive," Frederick interrupted smoothly. "I personally oversee all hiring documentation. The database shows no foreign-born employees processed through this facility in the past twelve months."
They pressed harder, checked names, scanned files. The database confirmed every word. Nothing to catch, nothing to corner.
Peter scowled, muttering about reject lies and wasted resources. Vance spat his disgust, though unease pulled at his eyes—something about this felt wrong, too clean, too convenient. The Serpent envoy scribbled one last line, then followed the others out, armour clattering through the corridor.
Frederick watched them go. When the doors shut, a faint smirk flickered across his lips. His fingers returned to the keys, rhythm unbroken. His records were clean. Untouchable.
At his flat in Building A, unit 412, Chris packed with mechanical precision.
Essentials only: a change of clothes, a few worn books, the sealed box he never dared open, the black ring never leaving his hand. The rest he tagged for the moving company, stacks left like bones waiting for scavengers. The walls looked emptier than when he first stepped inside, as if the room had already erased him.
Outside, Olivia pressed a sleek Bamboo-issued phone into his palm. "Registry standard," she said, tone casual but eyes fixed on him, measuring.
Chris stared at the device, then at his old phone—the one Jamie had given him months ago with the two thousand dollar severance. The one that had been his only connection to his old life.
Cut the cord. Remove the past. Start clean.
He hesitated, then turned towards a knot of rejects loitering near the stairwell. They watched him warily, their eyes carrying the mix of hope and desperation he'd seen at the protest.
"It's a gift," he said quietly, placing the old phone into their hands. "From CCX."
He meant it as a half-joke, a half-dismissal. A way to make the moment feel less heavy than it was.
His head throbbed sharp the moment he let go.
The screen blinked.
[Initializing...]
[Detected anomalous override. Bypass accepted. Uploading... Modifying scenario... Enjoy your experience, Master.]
The wallpaper shimmered. A faint tag etched itself across the background image: CCX.
The rejects gasped, passing it hand to hand, clutching it as if it were a relic that had chosen them. "CCX," they whispered, voices spreading like sparks. "The proof."
One of them held it up to the others, screen glowing in the dim stairwell. "He gave it to us. He blessed it. The southerner from Oversight—he's real. CCX is real."
Chris turned away, climbing into the car where the others were already. There was nothing there to suggest anything of importance would have occurred as result of a phone donation. That single act would have led to the birth a mythology. Before he could understand that he'd just handed the rejects their gospel written in quantum anomaly; that those three letters that would haunt him across continents.
In the car, Chris sat silent between Olivia and Helen Yang. The city's lights slid across his face in fractured colours. His badge was gone, his flat gutted, his future pulled into Bamboo hands.
Relief mingled with dread until he could not tell them apart. He did not know if he had escaped the noose or stepped into a snare woven from silk.
Olivia watched him from the corner of her eye, satisfaction hidden behind concern's mask. The old phone was gone—severed from whatever surveillance might have been embedded in it. The new phone in Chris's pocket was hers now, linked directly to Bamboo's infrastructure, soft-tethering him deeper into the architecture she controlled.
One connection ended. Another begun. And he'll never know the difference.
Helen drove with steady precision, her face betraying nothing. But in the rear-view mirror, her eyes met Olivia's with the understanding of decades of service. The extraction had been flawless. The timing perfect. Bear and Sky had found nothing.
Chris stared out the window, watching Building A disappear behind them.
On the streets below, the rejects huddled in the glow of the branded phone. They showed it to one another, CCX gleaming like a seal no one could deny. The story spread with the speed of hunger, carried on whispers that would reach every corner of the exile blocks by morning.
The southerner from Oversight had given them proof. Had blessed them with his own device. Had marked it with the sign that promised liberation.
CCX was no longer just three letters in access logs.
It was faith made manifest.
And across the city, in a dim storeroom where Federation intelligence gathered scraps, Jamie Cash's monitoring software went dark.
The phone signal he'd been tracking for months—the elegant surveillance solution that had cost two thousand dollars and six months of patience—simply vanished.
His screen showed the last location: Building A, unit 412.
Then nothing.
The override had erased the bug.
Jamie stared at the dead signal, fingers drumming against the desk.
The boy gave it away. Or it was taken. Either way, I'm blind.
The hunt would have to evolve. Human intelligence. Social connections. Following Mark Berry until the trail led back to Chris.
But for now, in this moment, Christopher Xiong had disappeared into Bamboo custody, and the Republic's most sophisticated intelligence networks—Bear and Sky alike—had all lost him in the space of a single afternoon.
Only Olivia Yang knew exactly where he was.
And she intended to keep it that way.