“My mother built an independent server vault beneath it. She believed no board should be able to erase safety records.”
“Can Lucian access it?”
“Not without me.”
Roman glanced toward the side exit.
“You understand that once you help me, Crowe will consider you an enemy.”
“My family declared me dead before the champagne was warm.”
Mara zipped the jacket over the remains of her gown.
“I think we have moved beyond misunderstandings.”
The abandoned theater became empty eleven minutes later.
Roman’s people moved without visible panic. Equipment disappeared into road cases. Weapons vanished beneath coats. Dr. Voss guided Mara through underground dressing rooms toward a tunnel that had once connected the theater to a neighboring hotel.
“The city’s oldest buildings are full of forgotten passages,” the doctor said.
“Roman remembers all of them?”
“Roman remembers exits.”
“Because he is cautious?”
“Because he was once fourteen years old and trapped inside a restaurant while three men tried to kill his father.”
Mara looked ahead.
Roman walked at the front of the group, speaking quietly to a man with a shaved head and a dark red scarf.
“Who is that?” she asked.
“Darius Holt. Roman’s operations chief.”
“Was he involved in taking me?”
“He drove the second vehicle.”
Darius glanced back as though he had heard them.
Mara held his gaze until he looked away.
The tunnel ended inside an underground railway platform that had been abandoned before Mara was born. A maintenance train waited on the tracks.
Roman opened the passenger door for her.
She did not move.
“Where does this go?”
“North through the old freight tunnels.”
“To the lighthouse?”
“Eventually.”
“Why not drive?”
“Crowe controls the traffic cameras.”
“And you control abandoned trains?”
“I have diverse interests.”
Mara climbed aboard.
The carriage had been converted into a mobile command room. Monitors covered one wall. Maps of Vesper Bay spread across a steel table. A young woman with copper-colored hair sat before three laptops.
Roman introduced her as Keira Moss, a former signals analyst.
Keira looked Mara over.
“The dead engineer.”
“The title is temporary,” Mara said.
Keira smiled.
“I hope so. Dead clients rarely pay.”
“I am not his client.”
Roman took a seat opposite Mara.
“No,” he said. “She is not.”
The train moved into darkness.
Keira opened a live satellite map of the harbor. Several ships glowed green. Others appeared yellow or red.
“These are standard registered routes,” Mara said.
Keira touched the screen.
Seven gray shapes appeared between them.
Mara leaned closer.
“What are those?”
“Vessels photographed entering the harbor but absent from all commercial registries.”
“Ghost ships.”
“Exactly.”
Mara studied their movements.
They followed irregular paths between medical relief docks, private fuel terminals, and Crowe Energy platforms.
One vessel had reached Greyhaven every month for the past four years.
“That facility is abandoned,” Mara said.
“Then someone is maintaining an expensive habit of visiting ruins.”
Roman placed a memory drive on the table.
“This came from a customs officer who disappeared last week.”
Mara connected it to an isolated terminal.
The files were corrupted, but fragments of Tideglass code remained visible beneath the damage.
Her code.
Someone had removed the safety authentication layer and added a hidden command structure.
“Lucian cloned my system.”
“Can he operate it?”
“Not fully. Tideglass requires a living operator profile. It monitors reflex patterns, breathing, eye movement, and decision timing. A copied biometric sample would fail.”
Roman’s expression darkened.
“Unless the operator is declared dead.”
Mara nodded slowly.
“When a registered architect dies, the system enters succession mode. Behavioral authentication is suspended for seventy-two hours while the board transfers authority.”
“The merger takes place tomorrow.”
“At four in the afternoon.”
Keira turned from her monitors.
“Meaning Crowe has until three days after your official death to rewrite the ownership structure.”
“Once his company becomes the authorized operator, the behavioral lock will rebuild around his profile.”
“And you cannot reverse it?”
“Not remotely.”
Roman looked toward the black tunnel beyond the window.
“Then we reach the lighthouse before the merger.”
The first explosion struck beneath the rear carriage.
The train jumped from the rails and slammed back down.
Mara was thrown against the table.
The lights died.
Sparks filled the carriage.
Roman caught her before she fell beneath an overturned equipment rack.
“Stay down.”
Gunfire cracked through the tunnel.
Bullets struck the metal exterior like thrown stones.
Darius shouted from the rear compartment.
“They blocked the north junction!”