Two days had passed. Two long, unproductive days. The protection team—two agents of boringly serious demeanor, assigned at Harvenn's insistence—stood guard inside and outside his home. Shade had mentally nicknamed them "spirit shadows." Their presence was like a constant itch on his back.
Now, late at night, he was sitting on his balcony, leaning against the cold metal railing. In one hand, a nearly extinguished cigarette; in the other, his cold coffee. He wasn't wearing his trench coat, just his shirt and trousers. The cold seeped into his skin, but he liked the feeling. It kept him awake.
Two days, he thought. Nothing. Sierra couldn't trace Dr. Kael. Logan and Chane got lost in the spider's web of Karlac Holding. Miroslav maintained his silence in his cell. And I... I'm sitting here in a cage.
He took a deep drag from his cigarette. The smoke dispersed like a dense cloud in the cold night air.
Was Harvenn right? Was this waiting, this state of protection, the correct course? The words of the masked man from the video still echoed in his ears: "I have very special plans for you."
Plans... A bitter smile appeared on the man's lips. Every plan has a weakness. Every architect eventually gets lost in the labyrinth they built. What was his weakness? Pride? Overconfidence?
He took a sip of the cold coffee. Its bitter, sharp taste cleared his mind.
They are watching me. My every move. But watching is just waiting. And I know how to wait. Perhaps this isn't the move they're expecting. Maybe they think I won't move at all, that I'll hide in fear.
But Shade didn't know how to hide. He was a shadow. And shadows are most invisible when they move.
One of the protection agents appeared at the balcony door. "Sir? Is everything alright?"
"Everything's fine," Shade replied, his voice calm. "Just some fresh air."
The agent nodded and withdrew inside. Once Shade saw he was gone, he pulled his phone from his pocket. Despite Harvenn's protection order, he wasn't completely isolated. He sent a short message to Sierra via a personal, encrypted line.
"The caged bird still sings. Give my regards to Nightowl."
He sent the message and put his phone back in his pocket. It was a spark. A tiny, invisible spark. If they were truly everywhere, they would intercept this message. And if they did... perhaps they would get bored of waiting.
Shade stubbed out his cigarette and drank the last sip of his coffee. The cold felt like a blanket to him now. Before going inside, he looked for a moment longer at the distant lights of the city. The labyrinth continued. But he was no longer just a rat in it. He was learning the labyrinth itself.
And the most dangerous enemy is the one you know.
Tomorrow, the game would begin again. And Shade would be the one to make the first move.
---
Meanwhile,
Harvenn was in her office,reviewing the reports spread across her desk. The expression on her face was worried and tired, a departure from her usual controlled and sharp self. The door knocked, and Sierra, Logan, and Chane entered. All of them had the same blank expression, the same disappointment.
"Come in," said Harvenn, her voice flat and tired.
Sierra stepped forward. "Dr. Kael... his trail has vanished. All digital footprints wiped. Bank accounts emptied, credit cards unused. It's as if he never existed."
Logan, with his hands in his pockets and shoulders slumped, added: "Karlac Holding's lawyers are like a wall. Every official inquiry hits the 'company policy' and 'client confidentiality' barrier and bounces back. Our requests to meet with upper management go unanswered."
Chane, silent as usual, but the disappointment in her eyes spoke volumes. "Miroslav isn't talking. Through his lawyer, he conveyed that he 'has nothing more to say.'"
A heavy silence fell over the room. Each of them felt the same helplessness of hitting a wall.
The Special Agent took a deep breath and leaned back. Her eyes drifted to Shade's "Active Surveillance" file on the desk.
"The Shadow Bureau," she murmured, her voice almost a whisper. "We were established to fight shadows. But now... the shadows are swallowing us."
Sierra spoke up, gathering her courage. "Harvenn, maybe we should follow a more aggressive strategy, like Shade said. Staying so defensive..."
"Shade's strategy would lay him out on a victim's slab!" Harvenn cut her off, her voice sharper and louder than it had ever been. She instantly composed herself, clasping her hands on the desk. "I'm sorry. But Shade's safety is our top priority. There must be another way to trap them."
Logan said, "Maybe we're the ones being trapped. They're stalling us. Time is on their side."
Harvenn's eyes drifted back to the file. Shade's youthful photo, those determined eyes... Now he was sequestered in his home with guards, withdrawn, smoking on the balcony. Was this another way to destroy him? To grind down his spirit, his will?
"Alright," she said, finally deciding. "Keep pressing the official channels. But Sierra, you stay with me."
After Logan and Chane left, Harvenn turned to Sierra. The old, dangerous glint had reappeared in her eyes.
"You know Shade's personal, encrypted line, don't you?" she asked, her voice low and meaningful.
Sierra was surprised. "Uh... Yes. But it's only for emergencies..."
"This is an emergency," Harvenn corrected. "You will relay a message to him. Very carefully, very indirectly. Tell him... 'We are searching for Nightowl's nest. But we must not startle the prey.' Do you understand?"
Sierra's eyes widened. Harvenn was telling Shade that she approved of his plan, even supported it, but that he must proceed in a controlled manner. This was completely outside the rules.
"Understood," Sierra whispered, and quickly left the room.
Alone, Harvenn looked out the window at the city lights. To protect Shade, she had put him in a cage. But perhaps the real protection was giving him enough clues to hunt his prey. It was a risky, dangerous game. But Shade was right—sometimes the only way to win is to put yourself out there. Whatever the cost.
---
On the other side of the city,
The curtains were drawn tight in a grimy,damp hotel room. Dr. Aris Kael, with trembling hands, opened the last mini vodka from the minibar and downed it in one go. His cheeks were sunken, his eyes dark-circled. His expensive suit was now indistinguishable from a crumpled, stained cloth.
How did I end up like this? he thought desperately. Where is that idealistic young man from medical school?
His mind went to that metal table in the lab, the electrodes, the test subjects with their pupils wide from the effects of Thiocurat. He buried his head in his hands. "Exploring the limits of the mind and will," he murmured. Back then, he could deceive himself so easily.
He pulled an old, unencrypted cell phone from his pocket. Turned it on. Only one person knew this number. His wife. But he didn't dare call. They would find them, too. What would they do to her? He thought of what had been done to Elena Varga, to Mark Varga. Death had come in its most merciless form.
For a moment, he thought of Shade. The detective. They had spoken mockingly of him in the video. But Kael had seen Shade's file. He wasn't an ordinary cop. Maybe... maybe he...
He opened the phone, started dialing the police headquarters number. His fingers trembled. "Get me Shade," he would say. "This is Dr. Kael. I want to talk."
Just as he was about to press the call button, there was a hard, rhythmic knock on the door.
His heart felt like it would leap out of his chest. His breath caught. It was them. They had come.
"H-Housekeeping," came the voice from outside. But the tone was wrong. Too hard, too formal.
The man staggered back in panic. The phone fell to the floor, its battery popping out. He looked at the window. He was on the fourth floor. No escape.
The knocks on the door became harder this time, more impatient.
"I... I don't need anything!" he shouted, his voice shrill with fear.
No answer came. Just a silent, threatening wait.
Then, his other phone—his main phone—vibrated in his pocket. A message from an unknown number. Slowly, with a trembling hand, he opened it.
The message was only two words:
"STAY QUIET."
The screen immediately went dark. The phone had shut down.
Dr. Kael crouched in the middle of the room, trembling, not knowing what to do. The footsteps in front of the door receded. They had found him. They were watching him. And now, without even giving him a choice, they were controlling his very breath.
The four walls of the hotel room felt like a cell slowly closing in on him. And he had become one of the most valuable test subjects of his own laboratory.
---
In the unseen heart of the city,
It was a soundproof,dimly lit operations center. The walls were covered with large screens filled with real-time data streams and city maps. The masked man sat in a comfortable swivel chair, moving his fingers gracefully over the console in front of him. The mask was still on his face, but his body language was calm and controlled.
On one of the screens was a high-resolution, lensed image of Shade on his balcony. The image was so clear he could see the finest wrinkles on Shade's face, how the cigarette smoke dispersed in the air.
"He's maintaining his composure," the cold voice from behind the mask murmured. "But there's a storm raging inside him. I can see it."
He swiped a finger across the console. The screen split in two. On one side, Shade; on the other, a live camera feed from the corridor outside Dr. Kael's hotel room. The area in front of Kael's door was empty.
"Fear works more efficiently on Dr. Kael," he noted to himself. "But it's low quality. A simple impulse. Shade's... is deeper. More complex. A perfect specimen."
He touched another screen. Here, the movements of a vehicle with an identified license plate, taken from the city's traffic camera network, were being monitored. The vehicle belonged to a high-level executive at Karlac Holding.
"Our financiers are growing impatient," he murmured. "They expect results."
A soft beep sounded from the console. One of the hidden listening devices in Shade's house reported the interception of the encrypted message Sierra had sent. The message itself was encrypted, but the act of sending it was a data point.
"Here we go," he said, with a tone of almost... satisfaction. "The caged bird has begun to flap its wings. With Ms. Harvenn's indirect approval."
An assistant approached him quietly. "Shall we clean up Dr. Kael?" he whispered.
The masked man thought for a moment. Then, he shook his head. "No. He is now bait. Shade will go after him. And we will go after Shade." His eyes returned to Shade's dull, pensive figure on the screen. "He is far more valuable to us than Dr. Kael. He is Project: Architect itself."
He turned back to the console and entered a series of commands. One screen showed the vehicle tracking systems of Shade's protection team.
"A little more... pressure," he whispered. "Let's keep the Shadow Bureau a bit more occupied. Increase the 'administrative obstacles' Logan and Chane will face in their Karlac Holding investigation. Inject a barely detectable noise signal into Sierra's systems. Slow them down, confuse them."
The assistant nodded and moved away.
The masked man was left alone, his eyes still on Shade. On the screen, the detective finally put out his cigarette and went inside.
"We are playing, Detective," he whispered to the empty room. "You still don't know the rules. But you will learn very soon. And I will be your greatest lesson."
All the screens flickered simultaneously, showing the intertwined double 'C' symbol for a moment. Then everything returned to normal. The operation continued. And the prey, unaware, was moving towards the trap.