The chamber was quiet, almost unnaturally so. Kara's footsteps faded behind me, leaving only the faint metallic drip of water from the ceiling.
Drip… drip… drip.
I crouched over the pile of documents she'd "stolen," letting my fingers trace the brittle edges of the yellowed pages. At first, it was just scribbles, numbers, letters a mess masquerading as information. But then I saw it.
Patterns. Deliberate, deliberate enough that someone had taken the time to code their chaos. Rei's hints flashed in my mind the tiny ciphers tucked inside otherwise meaningless lines. Whoever wrote this wasn't sloppy. They were meticulous, keeping score of every betrayal, every sabotage.
Click. Scratch.
I leaned back, letting the dim bulb overhead cast long shadows across the chamber. The Syndicate didn't just run on fear. They ran on control. They measured it, tracked it, and cataloged it like accountants of destruction. Every misstep had a value. Every loyalty had a price.
A low hum vibrated through the walls, or maybe it was my pulse syncing with the rhythm of the city above.
Hum… hum… hum.
I flipped the pages, piecing together partial sequences, numbers turning into letters, letters into names. The factions weren't just factions they were a game. And every move, every betrayal, was recorded, ranked, and anticipated. They didn't leave survival to chance. They left it to calculation.
I filed it away mentally. Too neat. Too clean. Kara's story, about stealing these ledgers to "hurt the Syndicate," didn't match the grime, the panic, the raw chaos of the Veins. It was convenient, staged, and packaged to gain trust. I noted it silently, a mental bookmark labeled caution.
Scratch… scratch.
A breeze or maybe just a shiver stirred the papers. The ledger smelled faintly of dust and ink, but beneath it lingered something else: the scent of deliberate deception.
I exhaled slowly, letting the weight of the information settle. The ledger wasn't just information. It was a warning. A map. A mirror showing me exactly how far the Syndicate would go to control every thread in the city. And somewhere in all of it, Kara's hand lingered, guiding me but to what? Safety? Or deeper into the trap?
I rose, carefully stacking the pages. The Syndicate ran on controlled chaos, and for the first time, I could see the edges of the machine. Every betrayal, every hidden move, every coded sequence pointed to the same conclusion: I was already playing in their game, whether I liked it or not.