The tension in the underground control room had thickened into something almost suffocating. Cynthia's mind raced as she absorbed the weight of Dr. Adrian's revelation. If Vincent Kane was merely a distraction, a puppet dangled before them, then who was truly orchestrating everything?
"We need to act fast," Marcus muttered, his fingers flying across the console. "I managed to isolate a recurring access point buried in the system logs—whoever is pulling the strings has been using it to send directives, but the encryption is something I've never seen before."
Lena leaned over his shoulder, eyes scanning the screen. "This doesn't look like any standard corporate security cipher. It's… deeper, embedded into the architecture itself."
Adrian stepped forward, his gaze dark. "That's because this isn't just infiltration. It's an integration. This system wasn't hacked—it was designed from the ground up to accommodate an external influence."
Cynthia's breath caught. "Are you saying that from the very beginning, AeroGallacianSpace was compromised?"
Adrian nodded slowly. "Not just compromised. Engineered."
A heavy silence fell over the room.
Prometheus exhaled sharply. "That means we've never been ahead of them. Every discovery we've made, every countermeasure we've deployed… they accounted for all of it."
Cynthia clenched her jaw. "Then we change the rules of the game."
Marcus hesitated. "If we do that, we risk exposing ourselves completely. We don't know the full scope of their reach."
Cynthia's gaze hardened. "We don't need to know their full reach—we just need to cut them off before they can react."
Adrian placed a folder on the table. "I may have a lead."
The group gathered around as he flipped open the file. Inside were satellite images, financial transaction logs, and a single, unmarked blueprint.
"This," Adrian said, pointing to the blueprint, "is one of their primary relay points. If we sever it, we disrupt their ability to monitor and manipulate us in real-time."
Lena's expression tightened. "And if they see us coming?"
Adrian met her gaze evenly. "Then we finally see exactly how powerful our real enemy is."
Cynthia took a deep breath, the weight of the moment pressing against her ribs. They had been on the defensive for too long. It was time to push back, to break the cycle.
No more shadows. No more silent architects controlling their fate.
"Let's move," she said.
The pieces were finally shifting. And this time, they wouldn't play by someone else's rules.