The tap of Iris's heels echoed sharply through the marble stretch of the executive floor. She wasn't walking—she was hunting. A thick folder clutched in one arm, her expression steeled, focused, and burning with the kind of intensity only the truth could ignite.
Aldrin's secretary blinked as she passed by with little more than a nod.
"I need a minute. Urgent."
"I—Ms. Cael, they're in—"
But Iris was already through the doors.
Aldrin and Marek both looked up from the screen as she burst in. Her hair slightly out of place, breaths clipped, and fire in her eyes.
"You saw what I saw," she said, stepping into the office like the air itself couldn't be trusted. "The ping. The voice modulation. I cross-referenced it with something from the case file and—"
"I knew this office romance would evolve into coordinated mind reading," Marek cut in, hands behind his head, reclined in the leather seat like he'd been waiting to say it all morning. "Very Bonnie and Clyde—but with spreadsheets."
Aldrin didn't even look at him. "Marek."
The single word dropped like iron.
Marek only grinned.
Iris ignored the interruption, stepping forward to place the folder directly in front of Aldrin, flipping it open with quick, practiced precision. "There are two potential locations the Revenant could be broadcasting from. Both fit the signal range triangulated by the system. One of them sits on the edge of a decommissioned power grid. The other? An old storage facility—off-grid, registered under a shell corporation with no active business filings since 2014."
Aldrin leaned forward, his eyes flicking across the pages. Red-marked maps. Frequency overlays. A note scribbled in Iris's hand: Phantom Sig Detected at 3:47AM / Origin Radius ~3.4km.
She tapped the first image—a drone-captured shot of the abandoned grid. "If I had to bet on efficiency, this one. Proximity to emergency lines. Built-in fallback generators. He'd have power. He'd have protection."
Then she turned the page. "But this one…" Her voice quieted, the room leaning closer. "This one's personal. The name of the shell company—Everwake Industries. It was buried in an old Ops file. The same kind of file the Revenant's voice signature was hidden in."
Marek's brow arched, his humor dimming. "How far back did you go?"
"Far enough that I should've stopped," she admitted. "But I couldn't. I cross-checked Everwake's registry activity. They went completely dark the same week the last known Revenant appearance was scrubbed from record. Same week Ainsworth went off-book in the Caymans."
Aldrin stared at the photo.
A crumbling warehouse. Windows blacked out. The kind of place secrets didn't just live in—they festered.
"So which one?" he asked.
Iris looked between them.
"I don't know. That's what bothers me. One looks like a fortress. The other feels like a grave."
Silence settled for a beat.
Aldrin's fingers tapped the folder gently. "You've done good work, Iris."
"You mean that, or am I being 'kept useful' again?" she asked with a dry edge.
He didn't flinch. "Both can be true."
Marek stood, tension finally pulling him upright. "So what's the plan, then?"
Aldrin's gaze lingered on the two photos.
"We check them both."
His voice was low, resolute.
"We prepare for a trap."
"We check them both," Aldrin said again, this time pushing off his desk with that quiet finality that meant the decision was already moving into motion.
Marek crossed his arms. "I'll take the power grid. That setup screams fallback position. If he's trying to stay hidden and functional, that's where I'd nest."
Aldrin nodded. "Take Royce, Durant, and Cole. Run silent. If anything pings—"
"I hit hard," Marek said with a smirk. "I know the dance."
Aldrin's eyes shifted back to the second location. The warehouse. A dull ache buzzed in the back of his mind—like a memory trying to claw its way out of the dark.
"I'll take Iris and two enforcers. The warehouse."
Iris tilted her head. "Not to second-guess, but… why split this way? That place could be empty."
"It's not," Aldrin replied. "I don't know how I know, but it won't be."
Marek exhaled and nodded, heading toward the exit to ready his team. "Be careful. And if it is personal… don't let it blind you."
The doors clicked shut behind him.
Iris adjusted her coat. "Do I get to know the names of our enforcers this time, or are we going in with mystery muscles?"
Aldrin glanced at her. "You'll meet them on the way. Both are reliable. Former Agency."
She raised a brow. "That's not ominous at all."
—
Later that evening
The car slowed in front of the warehouse.
It rose out of the dark like a relic from a world forgotten—long corridors of rusted steel and cracked concrete, walls covered in ivy and neglect. Faint graffiti glimmered under the low light of Aldrin's SUV as it crawled forward.
He killed the engine.
Iris peered out the passenger side. "This place gives me the creeps."
The two enforcers exited from the back, scanning the area like sharks testing water for blood.
Aldrin stared at the warehouse, his jaw tightening.
"I've been here before."
Iris turned toward him. "What?"
He didn't answer at first—just stepped out of the SUV, the door groaning in the cold air. He moved slowly, as if each step peeled something back from the past.
"I was younger," he murmured, eyes still fixed on the looming structure. "First field op outside of sanctioned borders. The mission was buried. So were the people who ran it."
He pointed to the faded symbol on the side of the building. "That insignia... was scrubbed clean from every database. Except my mind."
Iris stepped beside him, watching his profile under the dim moonlight. "Why this place?"
"It was a prototype site," Aldrin muttered. "A testing ground. They were experimenting with cognitive displacement—AI, memory manipulation, psychological warfare… things that shouldn't have existed yet. The Revenant may not have just found it. He may have been made in it."
One of the enforcers called out softly through the comms. "Perimeter's quiet. Doors are reinforced but there's an access hatch beneath the loading bay. Could slip us in, quiet."
Aldrin nodded, but his eyes never left the warehouse. The past clawed at him again. Gunfire. Screams. A hallway lit by flickering bulbs. A voice—
"He doesn't forget. Not him."
He shook it off, motioned for Iris and the others to follow.
"Let's finish what someone else started."
As they moved toward the access hatch, the warehouse seemed to pulse—like a lung, holding breath.
Waiting.
Watching.
The access hatch groaned as Aldrin and the team slipped through the underside of the warehouse. It was colder inside than expected—unnaturally so. Not the cold of night, but the cold of abandonment, of silence that had settled into the bones of the place.
The two enforcers took point, their weapons trained on the dark. Iris moved just behind Aldrin, her file held tightly in her satchel, though her hand hovered near the compact weapon at her side.
The corridor opened into a wide central chamber, lit by old floodlights that shouldn't have had power.
But they did.
Aldrin raised a fist. They halted.
And then—
A figure stood in the center of the chamber, calm, waiting.
Shadows clung to him like a second skin. He was tall—taller than Aldrin remembered—but there was something unmistakable about the posture. The stillness. The gravity.
Like a storm that didn't need to move to destroy.
"Welcome," the Revenant said, voice smooth, echoing in the wide room. "I was beginning to think you wouldn't come."
Aldrin took a step forward, eyes locked on him. "You've been expecting me."
"I've been expecting all of you. But you most of all, Chairman Aldrin." The Revenant's head tilted slightly. "It's strange, isn't it? The weight of a title. You wear it like armor. But that's all it is."
"I've worn worse," Aldrin said calmly. "And survived them too."
The Revenant chuckled. "Of that, I have no doubt."
His tone shifted, almost thoughtful.
"You've built an empire out of principles, Aldrin. Integrity. Control. Fear wrapped in silk. But empires built on fear always fall."
"And yours?" Aldrin asked.
"I'm not an empire. I'm a reminder," the Revenant replied. "That ghosts don't vanish just because you forget their names."
Aldrin narrowed his gaze. "Then remind me."
The Revenant slowly stepped into the light.
Beneath the hood, his face was partially covered by a sleek, dark mask. What little of his skin showed was scarred—burned in places, reconstructed in others.
"I was the first fracture in the mirror," he said. "The consequence of sins unspoken. And now I've come to return the favor."
Aldrin stepped forward. "You think this is about balance. Justice."
"I don't think, Aldrin," the Revenant whispered. "I know. I remember. I was the result of the choices you and your architects made. The boy discarded in a place like this, when he didn't break the way you wanted him to."
Behind Aldrin, Iris shifted uncomfortably.
The enforcers' grips on their weapons tightened.
"You aren't here for truth," Aldrin said. "You're here for vengeance. You're here to make art from ashes."
"Aren't you tired of pretending?" the Revenant said, almost gently. "You walk with kings, but you forget—you were born of blood, too. You and I, Aldrin… we're not opposites. We're the same hymn in different keys."
Aldrin drew his weapon slowly. "That's where you're wrong."
The Revenant's voice dropped to a hush. "No, Aldrin. That's where I began."
Then silence.
A long breath passed between them.
The Revenant reached under his coat and drew a pistol—sleek, matte black, engraved along the side.
A relic.
Something Aldrin remembered.
"Shall we?" the Revenant asked.
Aldrin didn't hesitate. He stepped forward.
"I'm not afraid of your ghosts."
The Revenant raised his weapon. "You should be."
And then—just as their fingers brushed the triggers—
The Revenant whispered, almost lovingly:
"The king's sword shall be broken."