Not officially.
Not in a briefing.
But in the kind of conversations that don’t get written down.
The kind that ends careers.
Or lives.
“That program was shut down,” I say.
Mila lets out a humorless breath.
“So was Sentinel.”
Fair point.
“What did Helix do?” I ask.
She looks at me.
Really looks.
Like she’s deciding how much to give me.
How much to trust me.
“It didn’t just gather intel,”she says.
“It built networks.”
I nod slowly.
“Ghost networks?”
She shakes her head.
“Worse.”
A beat.
Then—
“Embedded ones.”
“They didn’t infiltrate targets,” I say.
“Theybecamepart of them.”
Jase goes still.
Completely still.
“They placed assets inside organizations,” I continue.
“Deep cover. Long-term. No extraction timeline.”
“How deep?” he asks.
