With every word she spoke, Jerrick's expression turned increasingly grave.
He had been hunting Obsidian Sun for ages, yet the intel he'd clawed together amounted to nothing more than scattered breadcrumbs on the periphery of their operations.
The syndicate buried their core experimental data, command structures, and personnel manifests deeper than a cartel's blood money.
Even when he managed to capture an operative alive, they were nothing more than low-level grunts who knew absolutely nothing of value.
But The Panacea...
In a matter of hours, she had hijacked Specimen Fourteen and siphoned an unfathomable amount of restricted internal data directly from their servers.
She had even managed to isolate their remote-control logs.
Her capabilities were terrifyingly boundless.
But it was the mention of the IP logs that caused his gaze to turn deadly. "IP traces?"
His grip tightened around the node. "You managed to reverse-trace their kill-switch signal?"
Serena nodded. "Yeah."
The killing intent in Jerrick's eyes spiked. "Send me the coordinates. I'm mobilizing my squad right now."
Whoever possessed the clearance to override Specimen Fourteen and initiate a self-destruct...
Was no ordinary foot soldier.
It was highly probable that it was The Raven.
The man who had sent his little sister the boarding invitation. The man with a direct line to the beating heart of Obsidian Sun.
If he could put a bullet in that man's knees and drag him back, the impenetrable shadow of the syndicate might finally shatter.
He turned on his heel, ready to order his remaining men to raid the location immediately.
But Serena's amused voice cut through his adrenaline. "You'd be wasting your breath."
Jerrick stopped dead, looking back at her. "What is that supposed to mean?"
She hadn't moved from the console, looking as relaxed as if they were discussing the weather. "The second Obsidian Sun realized I was tracing their signal, they would have pulled the plug on their entire operation."
"Besides..." She gestured toward the chip in his hand. "I siphoned off a massive amount of data. They wouldn't dare gamble on how deep I managed to dig."
"So... there's only one play left for them to make."
Scorched earth.
They would sever the connection node and torch every server they couldn't physically evacuate.
It was their only viable survival tactic.
Seeing Jerrick's expression darken,
a wicked grin spread across Serena's face. "Obsidian Sun has survived this long because they're ruthless enough to cut their losses.
That's how they managed to develop these assets in absolute silence."
"It doesn't matter how vital Project Zero-Transit's base of operations was to them.
The second I breached their firewall, they initiated total asset denial."
"The operatives, the hardware, any microscopic piece of evidence that could compromise their identities—it's already reduced to ash."
"If you storm the place now, you'll be kicking down the doors to an empty room. The only thing you'll
accomplish is confirming they did a thorough job cleaning up."
Jerrick's knuckles turned white around the chip. "So... these IP logs are completely useless?"
"Totally," Serena replied without hesitation.
Despite his grim expression, her smirk only grew. "The rest of the data, however, is a gold mine."
A predatory thrill danced in her eyes. "In their desperation to secure Specimen Fourteen, Obsidian Sun hand-delivered The Omega Command Layer right to my doorstep."
"They can cycle their access codes. They can rewrite their software and abandon their servers. But they can never change their core architectural logic."
"From now on, the second they spin up another system or activate a similar bio- chip, I'll catch the signature."
"And then... I'll hunt them down all over again."