I mutter, “Of course you will,” but I let it go because this is the kind of compromise that keeps me breathing.
Lonari leans closer, voice low. “You don’t get to die.”
I scoff. “Bossy.”
He smiles without warmth. “Strategic.”
Later, when the casino settles into a tense rhythm—merchants guarded, crews rotating, ghost pings trapped in honey nodes—I sit back at the server spine and open a secure channel.
Not to an institution.
To a person.
Clint.
I use the rotating handshake keyset again, the one that feels like old scars.
The channel takes a moment, then his face resolves—tired, eyes strained, ship lighting dim.
“Jordan,” he says immediately, voice rough with relief and guilt. “You back on Gur?”
“Yeah,” I reply. “Don’t lecture me.”
Clint exhales. “Wasn’t gonna. You sound like hell.”
“Still,” I say. “Listen—new problem.”
Clint’s posture sharpens. “Go.”
I pull up the authorization fragment on my screen and angle it toward the comm feed.
“I found a partial authorization key buried in the Yatori package,” I say. “It doesn’t match Morazin’s encryption style. Military-grade clearance structure. Someone higher signed off on access keys.”
Clint’s expression tightens. “Higher how.”
“Not corporate,” I say. “Not merc. Institutional.”
Clint’s jaw clenches. “Jordan?—”
“I know,” I interrupt. “I know what that implies. That’s why I’m calling you.”
Clint’s eyes flick—pain, anger, recognition. “You want a name.”
“I need a name,” I say, voice low. “Because Morazin was the hand, not the brain.”
Clint goes quiet for a long beat, looking off-screen like he’s pulling up mental files he wishes he didn’t have.
Then he looks back at me, eyes hard.
“Send me the fragment hash,” he says. “Not the whole file. Just the hash and the key structure. I’ll cross-reference against clearance patterns I’ve seen.”
I nod, fingers already moving. “Done.”
Clint’s voice drops. “Jordan… you’re stepping into something ugly.”
I give a humorless laugh. “Clint, I’ve been in ugly since IHC work-study.”
His mouth tightens. “Yeah. But this is?—”
