I stared at the RedHalo interface for what felt like an hour, just watching the little blinking cursor in the corner.
Still no messages. No new files. No updated orders.
Which, okay fine. Maybe they were busy.
Maybe Command was doing that whole "stay quiet and monitor" thing.
But it didn't feel like that.
It felt like silence on purpose.
And that's what made my stomach twist.
I tapped the keys fast, opening my mission log and adding a new entry before I could talk myself out of it.
FIELD UPDATE – PRIORITY
Contact with Matteo Vanelli confirmed.
Subject shows evidence of agency-level training.
Possible double agent or rogue asset.
Recommending surveillance and security escalation.
Urgent response requested.
I hit Send.
The screen flickered and paused.
Then nothing.
Just the usual homepage. No acknowledgment. No "file received." Not even a little green checkmark.
I refreshed like twice. Then three more times for good measure.
Still nothing.
A chill slid down my back. The kind that had nothing to do with being cold.
I closed the interface and reopened it.
Same thing.
Except this time, when the page loaded, something was different.
At the bottom of the screen, tucked into the archive panel where deleted files were supposed to go, was an old message I'd written two weeks ago.
The first field report I ever sent.
The one where I outlined everything I'd learned about the Vanelli family, the artifact's last known location, the exact time-stamped intel from RedHalo's pre-mission briefing.
Except… that version wasn't right.
I opened it fast, my heart started racing.
And there it was.
Whole sections were gone.
Entire paragraphs about the artifact's origin? Deleted.
The part where I flagged inconsistencies in RedHalo's map data? Gone.
The note I added about a missing contact who was supposed to meet me at orientation? Vanished.
I didn't delete this.
Someone else did.
Someone inside the agency.
I wasn't being ghosted.
I was being scrubbed.
I jumped to the access logs. Not a normal feature, you had to know the right way to even get in. But I'd figured out a lot of things I wasn't supposed to. Perks of being a paranoid overachiever with a mild authority problem.
And yep. There it was.
RESTRICTED ACCESS - LEVEL 6
Someone higher than my clearance had been inside my logs. Three times. All in the past week.
All from RedHalo HQ.
I slammed the laptop shut and stood up so fast I almost knocked over my chair.
This wasn't just radio silence anymore.
This was a cover-up.
They were hiding something from me. Something big. And maybe, just maybe, I was never meant to find it.
I paced my dorm for a solid ten minutes, barely noticing the sounds of Gabi and Lani arguing in the hallway about whether or not there were bedbugs in the communal couches.
Normally, I'd jump into the chaos, distract myself, pretend I was just another happy freshman with too many secrets and not enough sleep.
But I couldn't fake it tonight.
Not after what I'd seen.
I needed answers. And I wasn't getting them from the front door.
So I went through the back.
RedHalo has a hidden sub-interface. Most field agents don't know it exists. It's meant for "deep cover" operations, people who've been off the grid too long and need unfiltered access.
My mentor showed it to me once, before she went for her last mission.
Took me forever to memorize the steps.
Now I typed them in by muscle memory:
"initiate.subnet.dash_access"
"agent.reauth.protocol.stealth23"
"code: greystar // field open"
The interface changed.
No more sleek dashboard it was just black text on white. Old school.
My heartbeat increased as I dug through the hidden logs.
And that's when I found it.
A duplicate mission file.
Stamped with my name.
But not mine.
This version wasn't about recovering the artifact.
It was about monitoring Agent Grey, me.
The directive wasn't just to collect evidence.
It was to report "emotional stability," "threat potential," and "giving in to external manipulation by the Vanelli subjects."
I read it three times.
And then once more just to be sure I wasn't imagining it.
They didn't just send me here to solve a mystery.
They sent me here to see if I'd break.
I sat back in my chair, my fingers felt numb.
So that's what this was.
Not a recovery mission.
A test.
A setup.
A warning.
All the weird gaps in intel. The missing contact. The messed-up map. The lack of backup. The way RedHalo kept acting like I was the only piece on the board, like they were just watching from a distance, waiting to see how I'd fall.
And the Vanellis? Maybe they weren't even the main suspects.
Maybe they were bait.
Or worse, tools.
Used to test how far I'd go. How close I'd get. How compromised I'd become.
It made me sick.
I wanted to throw something or scream, smash the laptop.
Punch a wall, Cry, just something.
Instead, I just sat there thinking.
If RedHalo was watching me, I needed to play smarter.
Keep logging reports like nothing's wrong.
Pretend I'm still loyal, still following the mission and still their perfect little field agent.
Meanwhile, I start my own mission.
Off-the-record.
No reports.
No backup.
No rules.
If I'm being used… I'm going to find out why.
And I'm not stopping until I get the truth.