Page 35 of Cipher: Lethal Algorithm

“Yeah. You need to give it to me.”

10

The Midpoint Burn

JULIAN

The humidityin the alley tastes like rotting fruit and exhaust.

We walk the final three blocks to the Coloane Village safe house in silence. The adrenaline from the tea house rendezvous hums in the narrow space between us, vibrating like a live current. My focus is entirely outward, sweeping the overlapping sightlines of the old Portuguese colonial architecture.

Shadows stretch from the peeling streetlamps, hiding the deep, cracked entryways. Neon signs bleed into the puddles pooling on the cobblestones. Anyone stepping out of those doorways could be armed. Anyone trailing us from the main road could be a spotter.

Ivy clutches the flash drive Remy dropped like it’s a live grenade. The tiny plastic casing holds the decryption keys to the Luxembourg black-site server—the third and final load-bearing pillar of the Consortium’s financial network.

She moves perfectly beside me, matching my stride, sliding seamlessly through the dense tourist crowd without drawing a second glance. She doesn’t hesitate at intersections. She doesn’t glance nervously over her shoulder. Her competence in the field terrifies me.

It’s a reality I didn’t plan for, and it forces me to constantly rethink how to keep her alive.

I’m used to data analysts who work in sterile server farms. They freeze the second the real world kicks down the door. They panic when the violence transitions from the digital realm to the physical one.

Ivy doesn’t freeze. She adapts.

We cut through a narrow pedestrian corridor strung with damp, hanging laundry and emerge behind a row of dilapidated commercial buildings. We reach the heavy, nondescript metal door at the back of the printing shop. The smell of industrial ink, wet concrete, and impending rain is overwhelmingly thick.

I reach for the handle and stop.

The brass deadbolt is engaged, but the microscopic sensor wire I threaded across the lower hinge is broken. A single, distinct, hair-width fracture in the dust pattern on the door frame marks the breach.

“Behind me. Now.”

My hand drops to my hip. I draw the SIG Sauer P226 and step in front of her, putting my body between her and whatever waits on the other side.

She doesn’t argue, stepping closely behind me without comment.

I push the door open. It swings inward without a sound.

The stairwell is pitch black. I move up the narrow wooden steps, my finger resting alongside the trigger guard.

Stairwells are a nightmare. There’s nowhere to hide, and whoever holds the high ground always wins.

I clear the landing, push through the apartment door, and sweep the muzzle across the primary living area, the kitchenette, and the heavy blackout curtains.

Nothing. The apartment is empty. The silence in the room is total, unbroken by the mechanical hum of Ivy’s massive digitalrig. Her primary cooling tower is completely dead. The heat emanating from the servers dissipated.

“Clear.” I drop the muzzle, keeping the weapon unholstered.

Ivy steps into the room behind me, her chest heaving slightly.

The threat isn’t physical. The recovery team didn’t set an ambush. Whoever broke in just wanted to hijack her servers.

In the dead center of the dark apartment, Ivy’s secondary monitor glows with a harsh, artificial white light. The entire operating system is stripped out. The desktop is gone. The encrypted firewall interfaces are gone. A simple, bold black text box dominates the screen.

We know you have it. Return the HSM.

I stare at the glowing letters. The psychological warfare is brutal. It isn’t a threat of violence. It’s a terrifying promise that they watch us.

“They tracked the node.” Ivy steps up beside me, her voice stripping down to a raw, terrified whisper. “When we crashed the maritime server, they used the feedback loop to trace the localized origin ping right back to this IP.”