They emerged into the chaotic aftermath of their own making. The destruction of the Correction Center had sent a seismic shockwave through the Outer Sector, both literally and figuratively.
General Tarik's forces, using the disaster as a pretext, had locked down the entire industrial zone, creating a hard quarantine under the guise of 'public safety.' It was a move that simultaneously allowed them to hunt for Vex's surviving forces and to tighten their own grip on the region.
Kiera, Ryu, and Joric, along with the dazed, traumatized prisoners they had liberated, were quietly exfiltrated by a covert Jaguar squad and taken to a new, even deeper, and more secure bunker.
The gilded cage had new bars. The first thing they did was confront their own prisoner: The Quartermaster.
They found him awake, his cold, machine-like composure completely gone, replaced by the quiet, animal terror of a man who had seen his entire organization, his entire world, literally explode.
He knew that Vex, having lost his prized facility and his Praetorian guards, would be on a campaign of bloody retribution, purging any and all who might be responsible.
And he, a captured spymaster, was at the top of that list.
"Vex will kill me," he said, his voice a dry whisper.
"If he finds me, he will take me apart, piece by piece, to find out what I know." "He won't find you," Kiera replied, her voice cold.
"But your life is now entirely dependent on your utility to us." The Quartermaster, a man who had spent his life dealing in secrets and leverage, understood the game.
He had one card left to play, and he played it.
"You have the ledger," he said.
"But the ledger is a map. It is not the key. The names, the locations... they change. Vex is not a fool. He operates in a state of constant flux. The data you have is already becoming obsolete." He paused, his eyes locking onto Kiera's.
"But I... I know the methodology. I know how he thinks. I designed the protocols. The dead drop locations may change, but the criteria for selecting them do not. The encrypted frequencies will be replaced, but the underlying cipher-logic remains the same. I can teach you to see his patterns. I can give you the tools to stay one step ahead of him." It was a devil's bargain.
To trust the architect of their enemy's spy network.
But they had no choice.
Their ghost web was amateurish compared to the Vanguard's centuries of experience.
They needed a teacher. And so, The Quartermaster, motivated by the simple, pure desire for survival, began to talk.
He taught them the art of the shadow war.
He explained the Vanguard's cell-based structure, designed so that no single agent could compromise the entire network.
He taught them how to create 'legends'—false identities so deep and so well-documented that they could pass even a clan's security screenings.
He showed them how to use misinformation not as a shield, but as a weapon, to plant rumors so believable that they would cause their enemies to chase their own tails.
Most importantly, he told them of Charon.
"Charon is a purist," The Quartermaster explained, a flicker of professional respect in his voice.
"He believes the Vanguard's strength is its invisibility. Vex's obsession with the anomaly, his creation of super-soldiers... Charon sees it as a reckless deviation from their core principles. He sees Vex as a threat to the entire organization." It was Charon who had left the note, who had pointed them toward the Correction Center.
Not as an ally, but as a cat, using them as a mouse to test the strength of a rival cat. The Quartermaster, with his final gift of information, had just handed them their new grand strategy: they would not just fight the Vanguard.
They would become the fulcrum in a civil war between its two most powerful leaders.