What the hell was that supposed to mean?
Jerrick's brow gave a violent twitch.
Did his subordinate actually think he was romantically interested in The Panacea?
He shot Agent Knight a freezing, deadpan glare. "Stop overthinking. There is absolutely nothing going on between me and that woman—"
The sentence died in his throat.
While he had been speaking, he had swiped open the primary dossier labeled "The Panacea."
And right beside it, set up for a cross-reference comparison, was a second profile.
The words choked him.
His thumb froze dead on the screen.
Because the name at the top of the comparison file was...
[Cross-Reference Subject: Serena Lancaster.]
Jerrick's pupils contracted sharply.
Serena?!
Why was Obsidian Sun comparing The Panacea's profile with his sister's?!
His sudden, visceral reaction made Agent Knight blink. "Captain?"
Look at that face... and he still had the nerve to claim he wasn't secretly involved with Ms. Panacea?
To Agent Knight, it looked like his captain was in way too deep.
Otherwise, he wouldn't have risked his own neck to intercept this classified file.
Jerrick completely ignored him. His dark eyes were glued to the glowing screen, locked onto the comparison data.
The longer he read, the deeper his frown deepened.
The first section detailed a set of boarding logs.
[Serena Lancaster: No verified boarding record detected.]
[Targeted Invitation: The Raven-Plume Pass.]
[Pass Status: Unused.]
Below it was an analytical summary.
The Raven had officially extended an invitation to Serena under Obsidian Sun's banner.
But right up until Project Zero-Transit weighed anchor, that specific Raven-Plume Pass had never been scanned.
Serena's name never appeared on the official passenger manifest.
On the surface, she had rejected the invitation.
But another boarding record was highlighted directly beneath it.
The Panacea had boarded the exact same voyage.
Her credentials were pristine, entirely disconnected from Obsidian Sun's network.
Yet, the specific regional boarding
point The Panacea utilized fell
et er
perfectly within the jurisdiction of Vaelion City, Elyndor. Furthermore, her time of boarding perfectly overlapped with the window of
inactivity following Serena's receipt
of the invitation.
The person who was supposed to board, didn't.
Instead, an entirely different person appeared, at the exact same access node.
On its own, that wasn't enough to prove The Panacea was Serena.
Vaelion City was massive. Two people using the same boarding sector could easily be a coincidence.
The Raven clearly knew this, as there was no definitive conclusion marked beside the entry.
Only a single note: [Timeframe and geographic boarding sector perfectly align. Flag for high-priority correlation review.]
The next section detailed The Panacea's professional history.
The Panacea.
A rising star in the global medical
underworld. Specializing in stabilizing genetic rejection, synthesizing complex biological suppressants, and salvaging botched experimental subjects.
Her identity was spotless. Zero criminal record.
Her boarding credentials and identity markers had passed every security check.
Her broker interactions, the traceable distribution channels of her serums-every single metric was flawless.
There were no direct ties to Obsidian Sun or Project Zero-Transit.
But the problem was... it was too clean.
Every verifiable action on her record was heavily concentrated within recent underworld medical trades.
If you dug further back, all you found
were vague rumors scattered across
the black market impossible to trace to an original source. .net>