Except…
Kaiden paused.
This wasn’t here before.
Where once there had been a broken link, Kaiden now found it led to a new folder. And inside that folder were files he’d never seen before: more evidence of one of the Party’s many crimes. Similar to some of the others, but as he read closely, Kaiden was sure – he’d never read this particular case before.
Why is this here now all of a sudden?
The thought rooted itself in his mind and he couldn’t shake it. It didn’t make sense. No one had altered the database.
Hold up.
The thought hit him all at once.
Holy shit. How did I miss this?
He navigated to the database’s main screen and checked its change log. Sure enough, the most recent change was listed as today. A couple files had been added. But who did that?
I did, Kaiden realized as he checked his inventory.
Back at Odditor’s, he’d scooped up Zelda’s account information and the brass padlock representing the piece of the database Bernstein had lost to Odditor. He’d tried to open it – they all had – but it’d been password protected, and with no riddle to even hint at the solution. Zelda had been confident she’d figure it out sooner or later, but looking now, it seemed she didn’t have to.
Seeing as Kaiden was trapped in the medbay for healing while the others finished the next quest, he’d grabbed the database from Braker, the NPC they’d entrusted it to, and now that he was looking at the changelog, he could see exactly what had happened.
He’d had Odditor’s piece of the database as he’d added the rest of the database to his inventory. From the looks of things, having the two pieces in the same inventory had fused them back together. Kaiden looked closer at the changelog.
14:09:06 Database detected nearby…
14:09:10 Database confirmed nearby.
14:09:11 Location check begun…
14:09:15 Location confirmed: Veritas II – Bernstein08-owned vessel.
14:09:16 Database reconnection begun…
14:10:52 Database reconnected. All files updated!
Apparently, upon being in the same inventory, the two pieces had detected each other. And then… there was some sort of location check? Was that a safeguard Bernstein had built in? Kaiden hadn’t even known that was possible in Nova. But as the changelog showed, all files in the database had been updated – including those that had only contained broken links before.
Kaiden gave the database a few commands and the newly completed files came to the forefront of his vision.
Case file: evidence of corruption.
Case file: evidence of abuse of power.
Case file: suspected blackmail and abduction.
Case file: evidence of unlawful arrest.
He read through them and they all appeared normal. That was, until he came to the last file in the list.
Case file: Operation Killswitch
“Killswitch?” he said aloud. He’d seen the folder before, but it’d never contained any useful information. Now, however, he saw it was flooded with files. He clicked the first one and read about three sentences before opening comms to the others.
“Guys,” he said, trying not to panic. “You need to get back here, ASAP.”
Chapter Fifty-Two
“It was, was good you contacted me about this,” Odditor said from where he stood with Kaiden and the others. Around them, the elevator hummed as they descended down, down, down into the deep. Down to where Kaiden’s hope lay; to where The Syndicate waited, and to where maybe, just maybe, he’d find a chance to save Nova.
“We only found out about this because of the piece of the database you had,” Kaiden said. “We had a file on Killswitch, but it was empty. When the database was completed, we learned the awful truth.”
Odditor nodded at that. He’d changed since Kaiden’s desperate call to him. He was still eccentric, still himself, but at the same time, the airy detachment he’d worn had fallen away. This wasn’t a game anymore. The details Kaiden had found on Operation Killswitch had changed everything and even Odditor himself seemed to recognize that.
“The Syndicate will hear you out. I’ve made sure of it,” Odditor said. “But however this goes, I’m already amassing my forces. Whenstone is seeing to it. As for your plan,” he looked at Thorne, “it’s sloppy and unimaginative.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“But considering the, the circumstances…” Odditor sighed. “Well, we’re going to work with what we have.”
The elevator clanked to a stop and the door in front of them slid open. The stale, damp air of the deep-water base flooded Kaiden’s digital lungs but he hardly felt it. His mind was on the task ahead. He’d failed here once before, but that was no longer an option. Killswitch had changed everything. The attack on Warden HQ was moving forward immediately, with or without The Syndicate’s help.
There’s just the small matter that we’re all but doomed to fail without them...
“Wait in the antechamber,” Odditor said, pointing to the room ahead of them. “I’ll be in my suite pulling some, some strings.” With that, he strode off, quicker than Kaiden had ever seen him move.
Kaiden’s nerves only increased as he entered the antechamber. The last time he’d been here he’d fallen on his face. Failed spectacularly.
“Hey, you got this, dude,” Titus said, grabbing his shoulders and roughly massaging them like Kaiden was a boxer between rounds of a hard fight. “You’re going to kick ass out there.”
“You have to,” Zelda added unhelpfully.
“I know, I know,” he said, more to calm his own nerves than anything.
“Look, it’s simple,” Thorne said. “This is a threat like we’ve never faced before. We have to unite or we’re all done. That’s the bottom line. You’ll make them see that.”
She was right. That really was all there was to it.
Titus took down the tournament and won us Maximus’ support. Zelda ran the labyrinth and made an ally of Odditor. Now it’s my turn. Everything’s been leading up to this. So, uh, no pressure, yeah?
The door at the far end of the antechamber slid open with a slight hiss and all at once Kaiden could see into the great room of The Syndicate once more. The calamitous
