The initial shots rang out within Sector 7 at 11:47 PM, dispelling the tense quiet that had kept the Lower Tiers intact for almost three months. Arthur observed the mayhem from his monitoring suite on the forty-ninth floor, holographic monitors presenting him with feeds from dozens of security cameras scattered throughout the Kuroda and Tanaka domains.
Marcus Chen had delivered the intel to perfection.
"Kuroda assault units advancing on three Tanaka strongholds at once," Lieutenant Morrison, Arthur's intelligence second-in-command, reported. Morrison's Gift—improved pattern recognition—rendered him excellent for moment-to-moment tactical analysis, although his moral adaptability was less polished than Arthur liked. "Street combat underway on Nakamura Avenue, heavy weapons deployment in warehouse area, civilian evacuations underway in residential blocks 45 through 52."
Arthur nodded, his hands weaving through the holographic display to call up deeper surveillance loops. The gang war was playing out just as he'd staged it—desperate, brutal, and lucrative. Every explosion, every fatality, every family displaced from their homes were points on Nexus's future revenue graphs.
"Casualties?" Arthur inquired, although he knew that the response would be high.
"Seventeen killed in the first hour, thirty-four injured who will need hospitalization. The Tanaka retaliation has been rapid and devastating—there using military plasma weapons, most likely from our off-world vendors." Morrison hesitated, reviewing the tactical screens. "Sir, the Yamamoto family's residential complex is right within the combat area. Their building received indirect-fire hits about twenty minutes ago."
Arthur's jaw clenched almost unnoticed. The family chen, whom he had all risked and given up everything to safeguard, were now in the middle of the war that Arthur had orchestrated to keep them safe. The tragedy was ideal—perfectly tragic—and perfectly consistent with the way Nexus operations usually went.
"Emergency evacuation status for civilian non-combatants?"
"Overwhelmed. Municipal authorities are calling in for Nexus Emergency Response aid, standard Corporate Partnership Protocol Seven." Morrison identified a number of residential neighborhoods where civilian evacuation was going slowly. "We could deploy our medical and evacuation resources, charge premium rates on emergency services."
Second profit center. Arthur saw the beauty of brutality of the system—create the crisis, then make money off the solution. "Authorize deployment. Full emergency rates, priority evacuation for families with delinquent loan obligations."
While Morrison coordinated the response to the emergency, Arthur set his sights on the main mission for tonight's surveillance: tracking down The Architect. Whoever was leaking Nexus's operational data had to be someone with a view of real-time data. Someone familiar enough with the organization's design to recognize the most incriminating intelligence to reveal.
Arthur engaged his personal investigation suite, a highly advanced psychological profiling system that integrated classical law enforcement methods with his own Gift-extended analysis abilities. The information Vance had given him was overwhelming—personnel records on 847 active and inactive Nexus workers who held high-grade security clearances, psychological profiles, financial data, personal relationships, and behavioral trends.
"Computer, run psychological profile analysis on all individuals with access to Corporate Territories Program intel," Arthur ordered. The computer complied by producing a three-dimensional network chart of relationships, access levels, and psychological stress factors for all individuals who might have disclosed the information.
Arthur's powers of illusion enabled him to do something no conventional detective could handle—he could mentally recreate conversations, see into personality structures, and recognize psychological motivations with uncanny accuracy. As he researched each possible suspect, his Gift would weave minute illusions of their probable pattern of behavior, assisting him in knowing how they would behave under stress.
Dr. Elena Vasquez stood out straight away from the information.
Former head of Nexus's Psychological Conditioning Research Division, she had resigned eighteen months earlier on grounds of "ethical concerns" regarding the organization's human experimentation programs. Her personnel file indicated a brilliant scientist who had developed many of the psychological manipulation techniques Arthur himself used, but who had become increasingly uneasy about their use.
Arthur's Gift flickered, inducing a fleeting illusion of Dr. Vasquez sitting before his desk—middle-aged, weary eyes behind wire-framed glasses, the bearing of one who'd witnessed too much and could no longer afford to pretend otherwise. The mimetic conversation uncovered someone motivated by guilt over past complicity, someone who would see revealing Nexus as redemption.
"Morrison, bring up everything we have on Dr. Elena Vasquez. Former head of Research Division, resigned fifteen months ago."
"Already on it, sir. Intriguing profile—had access to pretty much everything, including the Corporate Territories planning files. Finances indicate she's been living frugally in the Academic Quarter, working as an independent psychological consultant. No apparent sources of financing for a large-scale intelligence operation."
Arthur examined Vasquez's psychological profile more closely. Her Gift was categorized as "enhanced empathy"—the capacity to perceive and empathize with others' emotional levels with extraordinary accuracy. It would render her extremely good at detecting psychological manipulation and being able to forecast human action, but it would also expose her to being emotionally overpowered in situations of high stress.
"Cross-reference her known contacts with any technical professional who can perform secure data transfer, encryption, and distribution of media," Arthur told him. The Architect's activities displayed advanced knowledge of information security, implying either technical proficiency or working with one who did.
Three possible accomplices were revealed through the analysis, but one name set Arthur's pattern radar tingling: David Kim, ex-Nexus IT security expert who had been fired for "inappropriate access to protected systems" six months following Vasquez's own resignation. His file showed a Gift for "cybernetic interface enhancement"—the capacity to directly interact with computer systems at superhuman speed and effectiveness.
Arthur's deception skills sketched out the partnership: Vasquez bringing inside knowledge and psychological expertise, Kim taking care of the technical facets of data theft and safe communication. Both would then possess all they needed to carefully reveal Nexus's activities.
"Sir," Morrison cut in, "Director Vance priority transmission. The gang war is escalating beyond projected parameters. The Tanakas have brought in reinforcements from their sister organization in Neo-Tokyo, military-grade combat drones and super soldiers. Kuroda leadership is asking for immediate weapons upgrade packages to counter the escalation."
Arthur diverted his focus back to the tactical demonstrations. The street combat had expanded over twelve city blocks, and the weapons used were reaching levels of military conflict. This was not gang conflict anymore—it was bordering on the level of urban guerrilla conflict.
"Approve arms sales to both sides, but institute graduated escalation procedures. We prefer ongoing conflict, not one side obtaining decisive victory too rapidly." Arthur scanned the casualty estimates. "And Morrison? Position our emergency medical units to be prepared to process upgraded soldier casualties. Superhuman medical requirements demand top dollar."
While Morrison managed the arms sales, Arthur went back to his probe of The Architect. If Dr. Vasquez and David Kim were collaborating, they would require secure meeting points, communication procedures, and most likely financing from outside sources. Arthur started charting their probable operational patterns, applying his psychological profiling to anticipate how they would act in the face of pressure.
His personal communications device beeped with an encrypted message from an anonymous sender:
"Lieutenant Blackthorne. You're searching for the wrong conspiracy. The Corporate Territories Program isn't Nexus's endgame—it's a front for something much bigger. If you truly want to know what you're really a part of, re-read your own personnel file. Take a close look at the records of psychological conditioning from your first year with the organization. —A Friend"
Arthur looked at the message, his heightened reflexes instinctively scanning it for tactics of psychological manipulation. The sender was employing the old misdirection technique—trying to make him question his own memories and allegiance by implying his past had been altered.
But as Arthur attempted to brush away the message, his illusions skills flashed involuntarily. For an instant, he caught a glimpse of himself not in his present office, but in what appeared to be a hospital facility—tied to a table, electrodes strapped onto his head, his younger self shrieking as technicians fiddled with assorted equipment.
The vision disappeared as suddenly as it had come, and Arthur felt a nagging sense of apprehension. He opened his personal access to files, meaning to look over his work history and reassure himself that his memories were sound.
Access Denied. Personnel File Classified Above User Authorization Level.
Arthur's blood ran cold. He was a Lieutenant with Level 7 security clearance—there were few if any documents in Nexus's system he couldn't find. His own personnel file shouldn't be one of them.
"Morrison," Arthur called out, keeping his tone precisely neutral.
"Run a standard verification check on my security clearance level and personnel file access."
Morrison's improved pattern-spotting skills made him worth having just because he was able to identify anomalies others didn't catch. A few seconds later, he glanced up with a furrowed brow. "Sir, this is. odd. Your current clearance indicates Level 7, but your personnel file is at Level 9—access only by the Director. That's abnormal for regular employee records."
The significance slams into Arthur like a blow. Either he was engaged in missions so secret that not even he knew the facts, or there were elements of his own history that Nexus did not wish him to learn. With the message from "A Friend," the second option seemed more probable.
Arthur's communication device beeped again with a further encrypted message:
"Your psychological conditioning started eighteen months prior to your date of official employment. Dr. Elena Vasquez was the principal researcher on Project Mirror—the project that made you. She quit Nexus because she realized what they had done to her subjects. Look in the mirror, Arthur. Can you be sure the face staring back at you is the one you were born with? —A Friend"
This time, Arthur was unable to brush the message aside as mere psychological warfare. He gazed into the gleaming surface of his desk and used his powers of illusion to try and look behind any possible facade to determine his own genuine appearance.
The face that met his was flickering, switching between his own familiar features and one of a younger, more innocent face with differently colored eyes and a scar on his forehead where he could not recall getting one.
"Sir?" Morrison was watching Arthur with concern. "Are you okay? Your biometrics are reading higher than normal stress levels."
Arthur struggled to push his face back to a professional blandness, but his brain was spinning. If his own memories had been tampered with, if his appearance had been altered, if his allegiance to Nexus was a product of psychological conditioning rather than true devotion, then everything he thought he knew about himself might be a deliberate fabrication.
And if Dr. Elena Vasquez was The Architect, she wasn't only revealing Nexus's activities—she was attempting to rescue the individuals the organization had psychologically enslaved, even including Arthur himself.
The gang war raged on in the streets below, innocent civilians perished in crossfires Arthur had set in motion, and Nexus's coffers rose with every act of brutality. For the first time after joining the outfit, however, Arthur wondered if he was the hunter or the hunted in a game of rules he had never quite deciphered.
His mirror image grinned at him from the surface of the desk, and Arthur could no longer be sure if it was his own face or an intricate mask created by masters of deception.
The inquiry into The Architect had evolved into something much more sinister—an inquiry into the nature of himself and the chance that Arthur Blackthorne, master of illusions, was himself existing within the most advanced illusion of all.
In the Lower Tiers, the Yamamoto clan gathered in a temporary shelter, their apartment complex wrecked but intact by the gang violence Marcus Chen had lost his life trying to stop. And in the Academic Quarter, Dr. Elena Vasquez went on working, aware that the young man she once helped break and heal was now finally asking the right questions.
The game was now not so much about criminal profits or corporate control. It was about the essence of identity itself, and whether or not a person could ever possibly break free from a past they didn't remember.