High Lantern.
High Lantern.
It’s never a full name. Always a title. Always just enough.
Clint leans in, eyes narrowed. “This is… layered. Whoever built this wanted to be seen only by people who already knew to look.”
“Exactly,” I say. “It’s like an internal signature. A calling card for the powerful.”
Clint’s gaze snaps to the biometric file. “That’s from Morazin’s beacon?”
“Partial trace,” I confirm. “Authorization layer residue. It’s not a full identity print, but it’s… something. Enough to search restricted channels.”
Clint hesitates, then looks up at me. “If I run this through IHC channels… it’ll touch the system.”
I hold his gaze. “I know.”
“And if they’re watching me?—”
“They’ll see it,” I finish. “Yeah.”
Clint exhales slowly. “So running it triggers an alarm.”
“It might,” I admit. “But not running it means we stay blind.”
Clint’s eyes sharpen. The old Clint I know surfaces—the one who hates being cornered, the one who gets mean when he’s scared.
“Give me the file,” he says.
I transfer it to his secure terminal—a hardened unit Kaijen provided, air-gapped until he physically links it to a restricted uplink node.
Clint plugs in the uplink. His fingers move with practiced speed, but I can see the tremor in them.
“This is a bad idea,” he mutters.
“Most good ideas are,” I say.
He snorts once. “You’re rubbing off on me.”
“Gross,” I reply automatically, and it earns the ghost of a smile from him—gone as soon as the terminal lights shift.
He types a restricted query. The terminal hums. The holo interface shows a progress arc crawling forward like a cautious insect.
Clint’s eyes are locked on it. His jaw clenched so tight the muscles twitch.
Then—
PARTIAL MATCH FOUND.
My heart stutters.
Clint inhales sharply. “No way.”
The system returns a fragment: not a name, not a face—just a partial ID string and a classification bracket.
COUNCIL-TIER ACCESS (ALLIANCE-LINKED) — CROSS-JURISDICTION CLEARANCE
My breath catches.
