The quiet moment of peace on the athletic field felt like a distant, half-remembered dream.
Back in his apartment, the world was once again made of cold, hard data.
Miles sat at his desk, the glow of his laptop screen casting long shadows on the wall.
The encounter with Clara had cracked his armor, but the mission was about to demand he build it back up, thicker and stronger than ever.
In front of him, the encrypted files from Broker's drive were laid bare, a digital roadmap of the city's criminal underworld.
The system had organized the data with ruthless efficiency, creating flowcharts and network diagrams that made the complex web of illegal operations look like a simple, solvable equation.
And at the center of that equation was one name.
Cross-Continental Logistics.
"So, this is it," Miles muttered to the quiet room.
"The next level of the game."
