Elara knew she needed scientific counter-intelligence- a way to understand the ADO signature being used by Ruhl's operative- and the only mind capable of providing it belonged to Professor Silas Thorne.
She meticulously planned the approach to his hidden lab beneath the defunct bookbinder's shop. She had to assume Ruhl's team had identified the lab as a node in the original Kaelen attacks, but she also knew Thorne was too paranoid and too compromised to trust anyone fully.
Using a complex, outdated cipher known only to Thorne, Elara activated a short-range pulse from her vault, a signal that simply read: ADO signature required. Vane.
The Fear of Exposure
Thorne responded immediately, his voice crackling with genuine terror over the secure line Elara had established.
"Elara, I can't. I won't," Thorne rasped. "The city is hunting the Architect. They found trace elements from the Mnemotic Lapse agent at the Citadel, even after the neutralizer. Vesper is asking questions. If I'm linked to the Judge's murder..."
"It's not murder, Professor. It's framing," Elara countered, her voice ice-cold. "Ruhl's operative is using your ADO signature as a weapon. If you refuse to help me understand how, you allow your genius to be tied to political assassination. You save yourself, or you allow your science to be defined by violence."
Thorne went silent, the weight of his moral agony pressing on him. He had been ruined financially, but he had never intended his work to be weaponized for death.
"Ruhl..." Thorne finally whispered. "He approached me years ago, when Valen Kaelen first destroyed my career. Ruhl wasn't in power, but he was a keen observer. He asked me theoretical questions about psychological destabilization and the control of the creative impulse. He wanted blueprints, not compounds. I dismissed him as a harmless, fringe academic."
The Necessary Tool
Elara realized Ruhl had been preparing for years, collecting the blueprints of ruin while patiently waiting for chaos (her vengeance) to create the opportunity.
"He uses a cleaner, synthetic base than we did," Elara stated, her mind already working. "It degrades faster. I need a way to sample the atmospheric residue at Ruhl's next strike, to pinpoint the source of the base compound."
Thorne knew he was trapped. Helping Elara risked exposure; refusing meant allowing his science- and potentially his daughter, Lydia's- to be contaminated by Ruhl's violence.
With a defeated sigh, Thorne agreed, but only under absolute secrecy. He refused to meet or to synthesize any active compounds. Instead, he directed Elara to a hidden compartment beneath a specific loose floorboard in the abandoned bookbinder's shop above his lab.
"I left you a prototype- a mobile chemical analysis kit," Thorne said, his voice clipped. "It's disguised as a document scanner. It can sample and analyze atmospheric ADO residue against a known Kaelen baseline. But if you activate it, the power draw is significant. You'll be visible to any high-grade grid monitor for ten minutes."
Elara agreed to the terms. She had secured her tool and, more importantly, confirmed Ruhl's long-term intention: he was not an accidental participant, but a meticulous architect in his own right, using the fear of her creation to build his system. The hunt now required both scientific precision and absolute stealth.