Chapter 15
Fifteen
Containment Level B smelled of bleach and recycled air—clean, but not sterile. The kind of clean that tried to erase what had happened there but never fully succeeded. Monroe strode past the checkpoint, nodding once at the guard, who didn't dare meet her eyes.
It was protocol. Routine. But Monroe didn’t like routine. Not when things were shifting.
She stepped inside. The restraints were folded neatly on the chair. The feeding line used to supplement what he’d eaten was disconnected and capped. The monitor powered down. It all looked too clean.
She frowned and opened the internal logs on her tablet. Termination confirmed. Biometric ID matched. Signed off by medical tech… L. Ramires. The name was real. The signature valid.
She scrolled deeper. Inventory list. Disposal tag. Timestamped. Verified. And yet—something itched beneath her skin. She turned to the two junior techs lingering near the door. “Why wasn’t this flagged in my queue?”
Reed hesitated. “Ma’am, it was. Yesterday. But it was buried in a batch push with the expired test units.”
She looked at him hard. “You’re telling me Henry Byron was quietly terminated, and no one in Command thought to double-check? Our longest subject?”
“It was logged per regulation,” he said. “Standard clearance. Confirmed dead. Protocol complete.”
Vance arrived then, arms folded, reading from her own screen. “Byron. Marked nonresponsive. Cleared for full disposal. Sign-off all matches. Honestly, it looks like sloppy communication.”
Monroe stared at the monitor for a moment longer, then turned to them both. “Maybe it was.” She didn’t sound convinced.
Monroe sat in the dim light of her office, the termination logs for Henry Byron open in front of her.
She had read them a dozen times, each word heavy with the finality of his supposed disposal.
"Neural dissipation," the report said. "Subject terminated.
" The words should have been the end of it. But something didn’t sit right.
Byron had been a high-profile asset, a piece of the program too valuable to simply be discarded without oversight.
The logs were clean, too clean, as if someone had made sure every step was covered—almost like they were trying to convince her of something she didn’t want to believe.
Monroe leaned back in her chair, a frown tugging at the corners of her mouth.
She knew how these operations worked. If Byron had truly been terminated, there should’ve been more paperwork, more signatures, more steps.
She had seen cover-ups before, but this? This felt too deliberate.
Her fingers hovered over the comms, almost dialing for a deeper investigation, but she stopped herself.
There was no concrete evidence—no footage, no discrepancies in the security systems, and no direct chain of command that suggested anything out of the ordinary.
All of the right boxes were ticked. It was possible the logs were just what they appeared to be—a reflection of a clean procedure.
For now, she had no proof. On paper, Rook was clean.
So, Monroe sighed and closed the file with a quiet snap.
It hadn’t happened before. If she raised doubts without cause, she risked losing her position in the chain of command.
For now, the logs stood as truth. But something inside her simmered, a quiet whisper that this was only the beginning of a much deeper deception.
She opened a new file. Flagged it quietly. "Subject H. Byron — audit log review pending." Hidden from general access. A private thread. Just for her.
Rook wasn’t a suspect. Yet. But Monroe had just moved him a few squares closer to the center of the board.
Rook sat in the dark. The safe house was silent except for the quiet hum of the secure console. The air inside was cold, dry, static—no distractions, no movement. Just code and intent.
His fingers moved across the keyboard without hurry, eyes scanning Monroe’s admin logs as they updated in real time. He was in the relay again—Gideon’s back door, buried beneath a thousand layers of old code and forgotten hardware.
The facility’s internal audit system had just generated a minor anomaly report.
Subject H. Byron – Terminated.
Status: Closed. Verified. Flagged: Private thread— only.
Rook leaned back slightly and exhaled through his nose. She was sniffing the edges now. He clicked into her hidden queue. She hadn’t requested a deep trace. Not yet. Just flagged it for personal review. That meant she didn’t trust the answer—but she didn’t not trust it either.
She was hovering in the space between belief and suspicion. Perfect. He tapped in a single line of code. A subtle ripple.
Not a full scrub—that would raise a red flag. Just a redirect. If she ran a trace on the badge ID from the termination log, it would bounce to a second file—one already used on a legitimate disposal case from last year. Same tech. Same clearance level. Almost the same timestamp format.
It would look like a database hiccup. A system caching error. Something she’d note but wouldn’t chase. If she blinked. He watched her cursor move through the log. Slow. Calculated.
Paused. Hovered. Then moved on.
Rook smiled faintly. “That’s it.”
She wasn’t ready to believe someone had outplayed her. Not yet. Not someone inside. And definitely not him.
He closed the log window and opened a private file: encrypted notes, all tagged under his internal codename. His father could read them.
Thread 07: Henry Byron → Delivered Reaction pending Charlotte Everhart: status unknown Blackwell Institute: received alert. ETA to site?
He hesitated, then added:
Monroe: circling. Not biting.
His fingers paused over the keyboard.
Window remains open. But not for long.
He sent the update to a secondary drive, one that would auto-delete if breached.
Rook leaned back, folding his hands behind his head. He wasn’t worried. Not yet. But the game was officially in motion, and Monroe had just made her first wrong move. He would make sure her second was fatal.
Alex sat with Brad and Ethan, sinking into the butter-soft leather of the chair, too comfortable for how sideways things were going.
"This is turning into a shit show," he said.
"Waverly County PD’s making moves. They want the lead.
" He tossed two specimen bags on the coffee table. One held the picture, and one held the note. “I didn’t turn them over.”
"Ethan, you already said you'd take it," Brad reminded him. He picked up the two pieces of evidence.
Alex rubbed his temples. "Yeah, well, now this circus tent's got three rings. You're gonna need a whip and a chair to keep it under control." His face was too tired to flash with his usual smirk.
"I always loved the circus.” Ethan’s voice dropped, sharp and direct. "I notified HQ in DC. As of 0600, a task force under my command is operational. There’s enough work here for every jurisdiction to eat. But I’m not playing games."
He turned to Brad. “You’ve got four hours. I want the full story about whatever pulled you away from the restaurant earlier. Does it have anything to do with that female patient? The one Sophie intercepted with the ambulance?”
Alex leaned forward, eyes locked on Brad. “I was wondering the same thing.”
Brad exhaled, raking a hand through his hair. "A woman was found walking down US 83. Partially dressed. Catatonic. She’s been missing from Spring Hill for six months."
There was a beat—then Ethan exploded. "When the hell were you going to tell us?"
Alex followed fast. "You sat on that? Jesus, Brad!"
Brad looked between them, guilt creeping up his neck. “I didn’t have confirmation. Not until an hour ago.”
Ethan stood, hands on the table. "You don't wait for confirmation on shit like that. You bring it to the table. You know what we were working on. We updated you on the person found on Charlotte’s porch.
“This isn’t some petty case,” Alex added. “A woman shows up with the same signs and symptoms of a Gideon Ward victim, and you think you can play it close?”
“I was trying to avoid a false alarm,” Brad said defensively.
Alex shook his head. "We’re past alarms, Brad. This thing’s already on fire."
The room went quiet. Not calm—just quiet.
Like before the next explosion. The air was stale, thick with coffee breath, stress, and unspoken things.
Alex’s back ached from hours of tension from the last few days.
Every muscle in his body wanted to shut down, but his mind kept replaying details like a broken reel.
Brad stood by the door, arms crossed, looking like he’d just waltzed out of a bar fight with a smile and no bruises.
Alex stared at him, eyes heavy. “Killian, I’m too exhausted to deck you.”
Brad shrugged, unfazed.
“You used your get-out-of-jail-free card tonight. That was it.” Ethan’s voice cut through from across the room. Steady. Final. “Alex, call Noah. Tomorrow, you two are watching the autopsy on Henry Byron. Call your boss. I don’t need the U.S. Attorney being surprised.”
Alex didn’t argue, just nodded and reached for his phone. His fingers felt clumsy, slow. Like they were moving underwater.
Ethan waited for Alex to finish his conversation with Evan Shipley, the U.S. Attorney. Brad lifted an eyebrow, but Ethan didn’t slow down. “I’ve already spoken with the Waverly County PD chief. We’re taking over the college’s tech center. Effective immediately.”
Alex blinked. That was bold. But the town would eat up the PR angle. He held up his hands in finger quotes. “Gideon Ward Returns—or Did They Get It Wrong?”
Ethan kept going, “We’ll make it look like some kind of joint law enforcement program. Public safety initiative or whatever buzzword sells it. No one will question all the jurisdictions being in one place.”
Alex watched the way Ethan spoke—cool, controlled, calculating. He could already picture the press release.
Finally, Ethan exhaled. “We’re calling it a night. We need some sleep.”