Huh.
“Arrow,” I say slowly. “Those aren’t just regular cams, are they?”
“Define ‘regular.’”
“The ones above the office doors. That’s not basic security hardware. That’s… higher-grade. Facial mapping, maybe?”
More keyboard clacking.
“Shit,” Arrow mutters softly. “Yeah. That’s not warehouse-level. That’s darknet surveillance gear.”
My spine goes cold.
“Why would a trafficking middleman need black-market facial ID?” I ask.
“To keep receipts,” Ozzy chimes in over comms. “You film the deals, you keep everyone’s face on file. Makes it easier to blackmail clients or sell identities to the highest bidder.”
Arrow adds, “Some of these rigs auto-backup to off-site servers on the dark web. Even if you smash the local drives, the footage lives on.”
“And we just walked Knight into that,” I say.
Silence.
On the tablet, Knight slips past a camera, hugging the thirty-degree blind angle.
He thinks he’s invisible.
He’s not.
The camera lens blinks. A small red light goes from steady to pulsing.
“Arrow.” My voice is sharp. “That light—tell me that’s not what I think it is.”
He swears creatively. “Someone just switched the system from local loop to live feed. Those cams are no longer dumb. They’re sending to a remote server.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know yet. Give me a second.”
Knight’s voice comes over comms, low and calm. “What’s going on? I’m inside the office corridor. Looks clear.”
I press my lips together.
He doesn’t know.
He never likes not knowing.
“Just local interference,” Arrow lies badly. “Stay on target.”
My brain races.
If those cams are doing any kind of automated facial mapping and selling to a client list, then Knight’s face is about to becomedigital merchandise.
And if he keeps going deeper, there’s a chance that feed doesn’t just map him—it flags him.
I don’t think.
I move.
