POV: Aurora
The first thing isn't Umbra. It's a silly alert in the corner of the screen.
One of the decoy accounts we use to monitor network noise flags a new word:
"Ghost analyst unmasks pattern of relocated omegas."
My mouth goes dry.
I open the link. It's a small media outlet, the kind that thrives on leaks: a couple of graphs, relocation percentages, vague references to Seraphim and "confidential projects." The numbers aren't exactly my tables, but they look too similar.
It's no coincidence. It's our minimal data package, the one Dante and I prepared to release "blind."
Seeing it out there is different from designing it.
I close the tab and open Umbra's monitoring panel: searches, terms, noise. "Omegas," "relocated," "Noir," "Seraphim." In less than five minutes, a new cluster appears: "ghost analyst."
My skin prickles.
Dante enters silently. Even so, I smell him first: forest, metal, old whiskey.
"What happened?" he asks as soon as he sees me.
