The tugboat creaked with every movement, as if warning them to stay quiet. Mallory wiped her face with a rag soaked in river water, trying to wash away the grime and adrenaline. Tuck worked a splinter from his palm using a bent paperclip, while Nate sat cross-legged on the deck with the shard balanced in front of him, pulsing in slow, dim rhythm.
No one had spoken for twenty minutes.
Finally, Tuck broke the silence. "So. Who the hell are the Whisper Cell?"
Mallory looked up from the boat's broken porthole. "Old rumor. Black book operatives from the Cold War era. Supposedly disbanded."
Tuck gave a dry laugh. "Right. And I'm a reincarnated moon priest."
Nate didn't look up. "They're not disbanded. They're dormant. They never stopped. Just went quiet."
Mallory narrowed her eyes. "You've met them?"
"Once," Nate said. "In Prague. Before I was cut loose."
Tuck blinked. "You mean before you were labeled non-operational and presumed dead?"
Nate nodded. "That part."
Mallory leaned forward. "What did they want then?"
"They wanted me to not find what we just found."
---
At dawn, they docked at a deserted refueling station under an overpass north of Baton Rouge. Tuck pulled the boat into the shadows while Mallory and Nate scanned the perimeter.
The place was gutted. Half the fuel lines were corroded. Most buildings had been stripped by scavengers. Still, it offered cover and a signal-safe zone.
Nate activated the shard's surface port with a makeshift biometric probe.
A language blinked across its surface—like calligraphy carved in motion.
Mallory leaned in. "That's not human."
"It's constructed," Nate said. "Deliberate. The patterns repeat. Like a handshake protocol."
Tuck scowled. "A protocol for what?"
Before anyone could answer, the shard pulsed. Not just a flash—but a wave. A pulse that hummed through the bones.
The air shifted.
Nate's vision fuzzed at the edges. Mallory staggered back, dropping her multitool.
And in that moment, the world whispered.
A voice—not sound, but understanding. Compressed into meaning.
"RELAY OPERATIONAL. COORDINATES ACCEPTED. ZERO VECTOR ESTABLISHED."
Then silence.
Tuck stared. "Did you feel that?"
"I think the world felt that," Nate said.
---
Hours later, inside an abandoned train car turned safehouse, Mallory sat with her back to a heater, scrolling through intercepted radio bursts.
"Government chatter's spiking," she said. "Norad, Stratcom, NOAA. All of them caught something at 0400 hours. Energy fluctuation in low orbit. Now they're triangulating."
Nate rubbed his eyes. "They'll trace it here."
"We need to move," Tuck said.
Nate held the shard. "No. We need to find the others."
Mallory looked up. "Others?"
Nate nodded. "That was a relay. It wasn't just talking to something. It was talking with something."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning there are more like it. Possibly already awake. And if they link..."
Mallory finished the sentence. "...something big happens."
---
They headed west by truck, disguised as flood response crew, cutting through state lines and surveillance drones. Tuck rigged their plates. Mallory spoofed their heat signatures.
Two days later, in a half-burned motel outside Amarillo, they made contact.
She walked in wearing desert fatigues and a scar across her cheek like a roadmap. Called herself "Iris."
"You've triggered something," Iris said without greeting. "And now you're on every list from here to Langley."
Mallory didn't flinch. "You're Whisper?"
"Not anymore," Iris said. "Now I freelance. But I have access. And right now? You need that more than pride."
Tuck leaned back. "What's in it for you?"
Iris smiled without warmth. "Survival. Same as you."
Nate put the shard on the table. "We need the location of the second relay."
She didn't blink. "There is no second relay."
Mallory's eyes narrowed. "Then what's activating?"
Iris tapped a folder on the table. Inside were satellite images, seismic readings, and a photo of an underground chamber beneath the Mojave.
"There isn't a second shard, but there is a second anchor. And it's waking up."
---
Back at their hideout, Nate stood on the roof, looking at the stars. The air was cold. Silent. Distant thunder whispered from the west.
Mallory joined him, hands in her jacket.
"You alright?"
He nodded. "Just trying to think past the next move."
She looked at him. "You ever think we're just poking something that should stay buried?"
"All the time."
"And?"
"And I'd rather know what's coming than wait in the dark."
She smiled slightly. "That's the problem with you idealist types."
He looked down at the shard, still pulsing.
"Idealists didn't build this," he said. "Something else did."
And far above them, orbiting Earth like a patient predator, something watched back.
---