The elevator doors slid open with a soft chime.
But this wasn't a normal floor.
Aldric stepped out beside Ms. Vos, and immediately his mind started working.
The lighting was dim—too dim for a corporate office. The air felt colder. Not chilling, but purposeful, like the temperature was being controlled to keep machines from overheating. The hallway stretched forward, quiet, sterile, almost soundproof.
There were no signs on the walls.
No room numbers.
No direction boards.
Aldric noticed something else: every camera in the hallway faced outward, never inward. As if they were watching the world… but not each other.
Ms. Vos walked with a calm cadence, hands behind her back. "What you're about to see," she murmured, "isn't officially on any map."
Aldric lifted a brow. "Meaning?"
She glanced at him. "Meaning this floor doesn't exist unless someone from the inside wills it to."
His footsteps slowed. "Holographic masking?"
"Something older," she said. "And classified."
They reached a reinforced door with a matte-black finish. No handle. No keypad.
Just a thin horizontal strip the color of dead steel.
Ms. Vos placed her palm near it—not touching—and the strip glowed a faint white. The door melted backward in sections, opening like folding shadows.
Inside was activity. Controlled chaos.
Rows of operators sat behind curved monitors that wrapped around them like half-cocoons. Screens flickered with street views, satellite feeds, building schematics, face-recognition lattices. The hum of machines mixed with muted voices. Every operator wore plain clothes—nothing that identified them as LCO.
Some looked up when Ms. Vos entered.
Most pretended they didn't.
The moment Aldric stepped inside, several screens flickered.
His image appeared.
Not from today—older videos.
Stored footage. Tagged footage.
Camera angles he didn't know existed.
Aldric's fingers twitched once inside his pocket. Not fear—calculation.
Ms. Vos noticed.
"Relax," she said quietly. "Those are ours."
"Ours," Aldric repeated, tone unreadable.
She led him toward a tinted glass chamber at the back of the room. As they approached, the tint shifted to transparent. Inside, a long desk stretched across the room, illuminated by a cold strip of white light suspended above it.
And on the main screen—
paused at its center—
was the silhouette of the same building Aldric had just entered.
Top floor.
Window still open.
Aldric leaned slightly forward. "That's where he stood."
Ms. Vos nodded. "The anomaly."
"Name?" Aldric asked.
Her voice dropped. "Havelrath Cain."
Aldric's jaw clenched. "Cain. That's impossible. He vanished years ago."
"Exactly." She folded her arms. "This was the first confirmed sighting since his disappearance. A ghost resurfacing."
Aldric studied the reflection of the paused image in the glass—his own expression faint, composed, but with eyes sharp enough to cut metal.
"Why watch me?" Aldric murmured.
"Havelrath Cain doesn't pick targets at random," Ms. Vos said. "He only watches individuals who threaten the organization he belongs to."
Aldric turned to her.
"What organization?"
Ms. Vos inhaled slowly. "We call them the Void Syndicate. But that's not their real name. We still don't know what they call themselves."
Aldric's eyes narrowed.
There it was. The real reason.
Not just being watched—being chosen.
Before he could respond, an operator jogged over, nervous.
"President Sky!"
Ms. Vos straightened. "Report."
"Ma'am…" The operator gulped. "…we picked up something. The feed from Building 11—top floor—just activated."
Aldric and Ms. Vos turned to the main screen.
The paused frame shifted.
The window was no longer empty.
A man was standing there.
Black coat.
Hands behind his back.
Face hidden in shadow.
Watching.
Not Aldric's house this time.
Watching the surveillance floor.
A chill sliced through the room.
Someone whispered, "How the hell did he find us?"
Ms. Vos whispered back, "He didn't."
She looked at Aldric.
"He followed you."
Aldric's heartbeat didn't spike. His breathing didn't change.
He just smirked—slow, cold, razor-thin.
"So," he said softly, "he wants to play."