The rain hadn't abated by morning. The city remained shrouded in storm clouds and darkness, and Darian could feel the pressure of the hours passing like a countdown in his chest. Forty-four hours. That was all the time he had before The Hollow came knocking again—this time, with no tolerance for games.
He sat across from Elira at the small rusty table by the kitchenette. She was enveloped in an oversized towel from his emergency supply, drinking from a burnt instant coffee mug. Her rain-swept hair curled around her face in rebellion against the cold air that drizzled through the windowpanes.
They had both been silent since the call.
"You don't have to be part of this," Darian said at last, his voice low and rough, breaking the silence.
Elira didn't glance up. "You already said that last night."
"And I meant it."
She put the mug down, the sound sharp. "And I meant it when I said I'm staying. So either stop trying to push me out or tell me how we're going to make it through this together."
He looked at her, caught between fear and something else. Something warm. Something dangerous.
Trust.
It had always been his weakness.
Darian rose and crossed to the terminal on the corner desk. It was a jury-rigged system assembled from stolen military technology, parts scrounged from black market sources, and his own neural-locked hardware. He activated it, encrypted firewalls unfolding across the screen in waves of deep blue and red.
The Hollow coordinates came in a glowing file.
"Ministry of Truth, Secondary Division," he said. "Underground sector, code-locked. No computer access from the outside. No floor plans listed in any public or private database. That in itself tells me this is off-record."
"Which means?" Elira asked, standing to join him.
"Which means they're covering up something even the government doesn't want on file."
He zoomed in on the map overlay, exposing the entrance points to the Ministry building. "It's a fortress. Four entry points, each with biometric authentication, retinal scans, and double encryption. No way in without help."
"So we get someone inside," Elira said matter-of-factly.
He looked at her. "You say that like it's a cakewalk."
She shrugged. "You forget where I work."
A moment passed before it hit him.
"Elira. you're part of the Ministry's clearance staff team."
"Yes. And fortunate for you, I'm not merely a face at the visitor desk. I've done clearance levels. I've memorized shift times. I've even assisted credential audits."
Darian blinked. "Why the devil didn't you ever let me in on that?"
"Perhaps because I imagined you were just a mopey, half-broke tech geek, rather than a target of the world's most lethal ghost syndicate.
He couldn't help it. He laughed—soft and short, but genuine. It was weird. Alien.
She smiled weakly. "So. what's our plan?"
He returned his gaze to the screen.
"We go in," he told her. "We determine what they're hiding. But we do it before The Hollow tells us to. If we can get in early, duplicate whatever it is they need—"
"—we can gain leverage," she concluded. "To negotiate. Or flee.
Darian nodded slowly. "Exactly."
She bent forward over the map. "They're taking you in through the west access bay."
"That's the loading docks. Fewer guards than the front, but still infested with guards."
"I have someone on night shift duty there," Elira said, her eyes narrowing in contemplation. "Andre. He's. not a big believer in following the rules."
"Can we trust him?"
"No. But I know how to persuade him."
There was something in her voice that caused him to hesitate.
"Elira. this won't be a game. The minute we get into this, we're no longer normal people. We're. threats. Targets."
She gazed up at him. "You were already a target. I just hadn't caught up yet."
He couldn't help himself. He reached out and stroked her cheek, thumb tracing the edge of her jaw. Her skin was warm even in the chill. Familiar.
"You don't have to become like me."
"I won't," she breathed. "But perhaps. you don't have to remain who they created you either."
His throat constricted. She didn't know everything. Not yet. Not about his brother. Not about the first kill. Not about what he'd buried to live.
But in that instant, her faith in him was stronger than his own doubts.
He took a step back, cleared his throat. "We're hitting the Ministry in twenty hours. Before Hollow anticipates movement. We learn. Get out clean."
"And if it is not clean?"
"Then we improvise."
She drew an eyebrow up. "You're not that good at improvising."
"Not true. I'm terrible at dying."
By evening, they were moving. Elira employed her Ministry badge to get a security audit request placed on the west loading bay. It was the sort of bureaucratic pretext that attracted no attention but provided them with a window of entry. Darian dressed up in a black composite weave jacket, equipped with concealed signal scramblers and a mini EMP burst module he had retrieved from a drone crash site two years earlier.
He sensed the change in the atmosphere as they drew close to the Ministry gates. The towered building seemed like a morbid titan, all reflective steel and watch drones.
They parked three blocks from the Ministry and traveled on foot, Elira guiding him through a maintenance tunnel along the back of the south wall—a path that she found months ago when a security crew didn't close one of the hatches.
Inside, they ducked cameras with Darian's blind zone emitter—a five-foot radius optical recognition fryer that lasted for precisely 9.2 seconds.
Enough time to get by a watchtower.
They approached the loading bay checkpoint.
Andre stood watch, blowing gum and seeming bored.
Elira moved up first. "Audit request. I'm ahead of schedule. Had to forego the formals."
Andre narrowed his eyes. "You're not on the—
She handed him a forged request slip with the Ministry watermark. It was perfect. Courtesy of Darian's last job.
Andre glanced at Darian. "And he is?"
"Tech compliance. He's on my list."
Andre eyed them, then finally shrugged. "Whatever. You've got twenty minutes. Don't touch anything."
They were in.
As the doors slid shut behind them, Elira turned to Darian and whispered, "Twenty minutes. What now?"
Darian indicated a keypad on the back wall. "Now we discover the access point they don't want us to know about."
"And then?"
His gaze met hers.
"Then we gain entry."