The rational part of my brain knows this is a bad idea. Going solo on an internal investigation violates every protocol we've established. It creates blind spots and leaves me vulnerable if the threat is closer than we think. Kane would shut this down immediately if he knew, would pull me off the investigation and hand it to Tommy, and would be right to do it.
But the part of me that's been avoiding Micah since he joined the team knows the running has to stop. Pretending the past doesn't exist hasn't worked. Operating at half capacity becausebeing in the same room with him makes my throat close, because my carefully constructed defenses start to crack the moment he's near—that's not sustainable.
When he returns from the field, we work this together. No more avoidance. No more careful scheduling to ensure our shifts don't overlap. No more elaborate excuses for why I can't attend team briefings when I know he'll be there.
Professional. That's what Kane said I'd be. What I promised I could handle.
Time to prove it.
I pull up the communication logs for the past months and start building a timeline—every external contact, every data transmission, every piece of operational intelligence that moved through our networks to people outside Echo Base. The work requires complete focus, the kind of deep concentration that shuts out everything except the data flowing across my screens.
I lose myself in the patterns—communication frequency, timing of requests, content analysis, cross-referencing with known Committee operations to identify potential correlation. It's methodical work, painstaking, the kind of analysis that can take hours and produce nothing or reveal a thread that unravels an entire network.
I can't afford to miss anything. Every transmission gets logged. Every request gets documented. Every anomaly gets flagged for deeper analysis.
Hours later, I have a preliminary list. Several external contacts who've received operational intelligence in the past quarter.
Victoria Cross tops the list, which isn't surprising. We use her services regularly. She's our primary intelligence broker, the woman who gave me the intel I needed to find the team after I escaped the Committee ambush in Baltimore. But that's also the problem—she knew how to find us, knew enough to point mehere when I was desperate and alone. Even if it worked out, even if Kane accepted me onto the team, Victoria proved she's willing to compromise our location when it serves her purposes.
And the timing of some transmissions bothers me now. Requests for information that align too closely with Committee operations. Questions about Echo Base security that seemed routine at the time but look suspicious in retrospect. Every pattern I know how to read is telling me something's wrong.
A handful of federal contacts who've been briefed on our activities. All burned operators, all with grudges against the system. But grudges can be leveraged. Promises can be made. People can be turned. I've seen it happen. Hell, I've helped make it happen back when I wore an NSA badge and believed the system worked.
Equipment suppliers with access to our secure communication protocols round out the list. They'd need technical expertise to exploit that access, but it's not impossible. The Committee has resources. They could recruit specialists, plant malware, create backdoors we haven't detected yet.
I'm compiling a secondary analysis, cross-referencing communication timestamps with Committee operational activity, when footsteps echo in the corridor outside the comms hub.
The sound cuts through my concentration like a blade. The rhythm is wrong, too measured, someone moving with deliberate quiet through a space that should be empty.
My hand moves automatically to the sidearm I keep holstered at my hip. The motion is smooth, practiced—muscle memory from months of training with the team. Dylan's voice from our first week: trust no one, assume hostile until proven otherwise.
I don't draw, just rest my palm on the grip and wait to see who's moving through Echo Base in the hours before dawn.
Kane appears in the doorway, moving with the quiet efficiency that comes from years of special operations. He's in tactical pants and a black t-shirt, hair slightly mussed like he just rolled out of bed. But his eyes are sharp, alert, taking in the scene with a single glance that misses nothing.
"Burning the midnight oil?" His voice is neutral, but his eyes are assessing, reading the situation the way he reads combat zones.
I could lie. Tell him I'm reviewing routine intercepts, make an excuse about insomnia or restless energy or any of the dozen reasons someone might be working at this hour. He might even believe it or let it go.
Instead, I meet his gaze and make a decision. "We have a problem."
Kane's expression doesn't change, but something shifts in his posture. Alert. Ready. Team leader mode activating. "What kind of problem?"
I gesture to the monitors. "Potential intelligence leak. External network. I'm running preliminary analysis before bringing it to the team."
"Source?"
"Encrypted message from Hawthorne. Sent before he went dark while tracking Reeve."
Kane moves into the room, positioning himself where he can see the monitors without crowding my workspace. It's one of the things I appreciate about him. He never looms. Never intimidates. Just observes and processes.
"What did it say?"
"Reeve knows operational details about Echo Base he shouldn't have access to. Information that suggests someone in our external network is compromised."
"And you didn't alert me immediately because?"
Fair question, and one I knew was coming the moment I decided to work this alone. "Because alerting the team triggers a full security review. If there's a mole, they'll know we're looking. I wanted preliminary data before we show our hand."
