Immediately after closing the chat with the jumper, a sharp realisation struck me, hitting like a physical blow to the chest.
"F*ck! Wasn't that the initial plan from the start?"
I stood there, momentarily stunned by my own lapse in focus. I had essentially circled back to the exact strategy I had laid out before succumbing to exhaustion. What the hell had just happened? It was that damn jumper.
The man possessed a supernatural, almost pathological ability to get under my skin, fraying my nerves until I couldn't think straight. His panic was infectious, and it had momentarily blinded me to my own tactical foundations.
"By the way... how did you even get in here?" I asked, shaking off the lingering annoyance.
I looked up from the interface to see the team still crowded near the entrance, their gazes a mixture of curiosity and lingering tension. My chariot was supposed to be a secure sanctuary, not a revolving door for whoever wanted to wake me up with a bang.
