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“It looks abandoned.”

“It is supposed to.”

“Comforting,” she said.

I moved to the access panel. No power—expected. I opened the lower compartment and stopped. The manual activation key was intact.

Unexpected.

I hesitated, and Talia noticed. “What?”

“Nothing yet.” I engaged the emergency circuit.

The panel came alive: black screen, old Veil insignia. My pulse slowed. I entered no identifier—did not need to—and the biometric field activated automatically and recognized me.

The screen changed.

GHOST-VEY/R

Talia inhaled behind me, and I went still. That alone was wrong; my identifier should not have been cached locally.

Then another line appeared.

IDENTITY VERIFIED

I did not move. “Talia.”

“I see it.”

The next line populated.

WELCOME BACK, GHOST-VEY/R

Cold moved through me. This protocol had never used welcome language—not once.

Then:

ROUTE MODIFIED BY COMMAND

My hand went toward my weapon, and Talia stepped closer. “Modified how?” she asked.

I did not answer.

The screen updated again, one final line.

EXPECTED ARRIVAL WINDOW: ACTIVE

I stared at it. Three decoys, offline routing, no active Ghost access until this moment—none of it mattered. Someone had not followed us here.

They had been waiting for me to choose it.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Talia

The trap closed before Veyr finished turning away from the access panel.

One second, the Ghost route was open behind us.