Shadows Lines

Part 1 – The Deep Dive

The room had dimmed to a low glow as night fully set in, the only real light coming from Rae’s screen and the flickering map on the wall display.

Rae adjusted the blanket Remi had draped over her shoulders, her fingers flying across the keyboard. “Okay,” she murmured, mostly to herself, “we’re past the outer encryption walls.”

Elijah stood nearby, eyes on a second monitor. “Activity’s climbing. Whatever’s in that system, it’s reacting to your presence.”

“Because I don’t belong there,” Rae replied. “But neither do they. Let’s see who screams first.”

With one final keystroke, she bypassed a nested protocol—layers designed to mimic errors or force logouts. The screen blinked.

Lines of text spilled across.

Subject 12A: Wolfvine Variant Testing – Stage Four Inconclusive.

Test Partner: Dr. Landon Pierce. Lead Oversight: [REDACTED].

Then another file:

Recipient List: Encrypted Node – Alias ‘Nightroot’

Rae’s eyes narrowed. “I knew there was a handler beyond Maren and Pierce.”

She pushed forward, breaking into the command archive. A blinking red command string caught her eye.

AUTO-RELAY TRIGGER: If Raelyn Judd is detected in system – notify handler immediately.

Her breath caught.

They had built-in alerts just for her.

“They knew I’d come looking,” she whispered.

Elijah’s jaw clenched. “We need to move.”

But Rae raised a hand. “One more wall. If I hit it right—”

The screen flashed again, a new directory unlocking.

Photos. Dozens.

Some were of Del, Remi, and Rae in Chicago — others more recent: Will training with Trey, Remi at the clinic, even Aspen curled by Rae’s feet last night.

They’d been surveilled this whole time.

“I’ve got everything,” she said grimly. “Now let’s catch the ones watching.”

⸻

Part 2 – Sector 7 Trap

Sector 7 was eerily silent.

The group moved under cover of night — Will, Trey, and two trusted guards swept the perimeter while Remi and Elijah stayed at the entrance of the bunker. Rae’s surveillance overlay ran on Trey’s tablet, cycling through the ghost footage still feeding the enemy false locations.

“Feeds still holding,” Rae’s voice crackled through the comm.

Will nodded. “Hold steady. They’ll come.”

Ten minutes passed.

Then Aspen, who had been crouched near the tree line, gave a low growl.

“Movement,” Elijah said, pulling his blade from its sheath.

Three figures emerged from the trees, cloaked and silent, clearly moving with tactical familiarity.

Trey murmured, “They took the bait.”

Will’s grip tightened. “Let’s see who they are.”

A signal flashed from the shadows — and in a coordinated move, the figures broke formation.

One made it to the edge of the bunker.

Another darted behind the comms post.

The third — paused just long enough for Aspen to strike.

With a low bark and a leap, she took the figure down hard, pinning him.

Will and Elijah moved in, weapons drawn.

Trey shouted, “Hands where we can see them!”

The man on the ground groaned. His hood slipped off to reveal a familiar face—Brannon, the former comms runner Rae had flagged earlier.

Will stepped forward, fury in his voice. “You?”

Brannon spat blood. “You have no idea what you’re in the middle of.”

Remi’s voice came through the comm line. “I think we do now.”

Back at the pack house, Rae was already cross-referencing the handler alias: Nightroot.

The system pinged.

One result.

Nightroot – Alias Origin: Former Council Alpha Liaison. Status: UNKNOWN.

“Not for long,” Rae muttered, eyes locked on the final trace.

Brannon sat cuffed to the old post just outside Sector 7’s comm bunker, blood drying at the corner of his mouth. He shifted uncomfortably, casting quick, bitter glances at Will, Trey, and Elijah, who stood over him like wolves ready to strike.

Aspen growled low from her place near the shadows, tail stiff, ears locked forward.

Will crossed his arms. “You’ve got one chance, Brannon. Start talking.”

Brannon laughed — a hollow, choked sound. “What, you think you can scare me into giving names? You already dragged me out like some traitor—”

A crackle echoed from Trey’s comm, Rae’s voice sliding in cool and sharp.

“I don’t need to scare you, Brannon. I already know everything.”

His expression twitched.

“You really should’ve used incognito mode when you were double-timing us,” Rae continued, the click of her typing echoing faintly through the speaker. “Let’s see. Log entries show you accessing encrypted drop folders 43 times over the last six months. Every time one of our patrols moved, you had a file open. And what’s this… searches for how to mask metadata trails in GPS logs?”

Brannon’s jaw clenched.

“Then there’s your personal history. Remember last week? You watched two hours of strategy videos on how to redirect satellite pings. Guess what got flagged?”

Elijah gave a dry grunt. “Amateur hour.”

Brannon shifted, sweat forming at his brow. “You hacked me?”

“No,” Rae said sharply. “You gave it all away. I just knew where to look.”

Trey stepped forward, voice cold. “Why’d you do it?”

Brannon looked between them, hesitation crackling on his face. Then Rae’s voice came again — softer, like a scalpel.

“Don’t make me start listing who else you’ve been texting late at night. Some of those messages… don’t look great. Especially that encrypted one to Maren two nights ago—‘You promised I’d be off the hook after the final drop’. Ring a bell?”

That broke him.

Brannon slumped forward, curses spilling under his breath. “You don’t get it. They said if I didn’t help, I’d disappear. Like the others. Like Jesh.”

Will’s jaw clenched. “Who’s ‘they’?”

Brannon hesitated.

“Start talking, Brannon,” Rae snapped. “Or I unlock your cloud backups and forward the whole damn archive to every pack leader in this region.”

His head dropped.

“…Nightroot. That’s what they go by. Never met them in person. Just relayed through Maren or Dr. Pierce.”

Trey’s eyes narrowed. “And what did you give them?”

“Schedules. Patrol rosters. Test data—anything I could skim. They had it all timed. And when I asked who was really in charge, they said only the ‘inner circle’ needed that kind of clearance.”

Rae’s voice dropped to a whisper.

“And you just followed orders?”

Brannon didn’t answer. He didn’t need to