Chapter 26 The Syndicate’s Final Exchange #2
A red light blinked once - hard, final.
Roman moved first. His gun stayed down while his body surged toward the case, boots hitting the platform’s cold metal surface. He could feel the syndicate muscle behind him shifting, could hear the scrape of boots and the click of safeties being removed.
Ava’s voice cut through the noise. “Roman - don’t!”
But Roman’s training was a blunt instrument. He grabbed the case with both hands, yanked it toward himself, and felt the heat of the device through the metal casing.
His fingers hit a latch. The latch fought back like it had been designed to resist panic.
The traitor’s voice was suddenly close, too close. “You can’t outrun a wipe.”
Roman twisted, bringing the gun up now, aiming not at the traitor’s head but at the traitor’s hand. “Back away.”
The traitor didn’t flinch. “You never learned the lesson. You always think you can take control with force.”
Roman’s eyes locked on the traitor’s face, searching for the seam where the truth lived. “Then tell me who you are.”
Ava’s breath was right behind Roman’s ear. He could feel her heat even with the distance. “Roman…”
The traitor’s expression changed - just slightly. Like a person deciding whether to burn down a whole building or keep one room intact.
Then the traitor said, “You want a name? Fine.”
They turned their face enough that the overhead light hit their temple scar clearly. “You recognized me earlier. You just didn’t want to connect the dots.”
Roman’s mind snapped to the internal file from years ago, the one with his own unit history stamped on the cover. The one he’d brushed aside when the case was closed.
The traitor’s voice dropped into something almost intimate, almost personal. “I was the one who authored the shadow account tied to your credentials.”
Roman went cold all the way down his spine. That wasn’t just betrayal. That was premeditated contamination - proof that the syndicate’s reach had been inside his identity before he’d ever been aware.
Ava’s hand tightened on Roman’s arm. “Shadow account…”
The traitor smiled as if Ava had just recited a line they’d been waiting to hear. “You thought you were being targeted now? No. You were being shaped.”
The red light on the case began to strobe faster.
Roman’s brain screamed numbers: time windows, data burn rates, wipe cycles. He didn’t have a console. He didn’t have a clean channel. He had a case that could erase everything unless the right port was severed or the right signal was interrupted.
And he had seconds before the device finished its job.
Ava’s voice sharpened. “Roman, open it - now.”
Roman looked down at the latch. “It’s designed to lock during wipe.”
Ava stepped closer, shoulder brushing his. “Then rip it off.”
He didn’t like the thought - didn’t like anything that involved destroying the evidence. But the case was already trying to erase itself. Preserving it at the cost of losing it didn’t make sense.
He turned his head slightly toward her. “If I break it, we might lose the uncorrupted copy.”
Ava’s eyes were fierce, wet around the edges but not soft. “We’re out of time to keep it whole.”
Roman’s fingers tightened. He inhaled once, sharp, tasting rust and electricity. Then he drove the heel of his palm into the latch until it splintered, metal giving way with a harsh crack that sounded too loud in the chamber.
The strobe light faltered - just a fraction.
Ava’s hand darted, not to touch the port, but to clamp a cable leading from the case into a small terminal. She yanked hard, pulling the cable free before the wipe could fully propagate.
The chemical smell surged, then cut - like someone had yanked the power cord on a machine.
For a breathless second, the chamber went silent except for the hum of distant vents and the syndicate muscle’s sudden, panicked shifting.
Roman stared at the exposed interior: a slim drive and a secondary module, both housed in a casing built to resist impact. The uncorrupted ledger copy was supposed to be on the drive. The traitor had called it safe. They’d meant safe until the last possible moment.
Ava’s gaze flicked to him. “Is it intact?”
Roman didn’t answer with words. He reached in with careful hands, fingers closing around the drive. It was warm, not hot - warm like it had been running, not burning. The wipe had been interrupted.
He pulled the drive free and felt its weight settle into his palm like a promise.
The traitor’s face tightened with rage. “You - ”
Roman spun, gun trained on them again. “You just confirmed it.”
The traitor’s eyes darted to the syndicate muscle, and Roman understood the plan instantly: if Roman couldn’t erase the traitor’s influence with force, then the traitor would erase Roman’s ability to act. They’d still need to keep Ava from using the evidence.
But Ava moved before the traitor could complete the thought.
She stepped forward and shoved the slim folder stamped with her private seal into Roman’s chest hard enough to make him stagger back a fraction. “Then file with what I have,” she said, voice breaking on the edge of anger. “And use the uncorrupted drive to prove the corruption.”