log_14 The Snake That Bites Heaven13
[Washington D.C. β Late Night]
The car sat in an underground parking garage.
Moira Morse stared at the screen of her device in the driver's seat. A text-only report. No decoration of any kind.
"Santa Fe Observatory β intrusion confirmed. Traces of data access within the research block. One security guard found unconscious near the perimeter fence. Injuries minor."
Moira scrolled.
"No footage of the intruder. Signs of repair at the fence opening. Method consistent with someone possessing inside knowledge."
Inside knowledge.
She kept staring at the screen, motionless, for a while.
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A report template sat at the bottom of the screen. A single destination. A string of symbols.
Her finger hovered over it.
If she reported this, what would happen?
The higher-ups would review Santa Fe's security setup. They would reassess the classification level of the research. And β Moira's own scope of oversight would come under review.
Why wasn't this prevented in advance?
She had no answer to that question.
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Moira closed the screen.
She would not send the report. Not yet.
Instead, she opened another file. The bar attack. The highway pursuit. The siege at the safehouse. The same two people, every time.
A former CIA officer. And a woman with no name, no record.
It was natural to assume the same two were behind the Santa Fe intrusion. No confirmation. But for Moira's purposes, it was enough.
"Take care of those two, and this is over."
She said it quietly, to no one.
A report would set the whole organization in motion. It would take time. Meetings. Procedures.
If Moira handled it herself, it would be finished by tonight.
"I'll take care of it."
The phrase she always used in Weston's study. This time, she would simply do as she'd always said.
She typed a short message and sent it to a different number.
"Two targets. Top priority. I'll track the location from here."
Sent.
She started the engine. The car climbed the ramp out of the garage and into the D.C. night.
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[Three days later β a small town, Montana]
A room in a cheap motel.
C sat on the edge of the bed, looking out the window.
Light from the town leaked in through a gap in the curtains. A small town. One neon sign, blinking. Far off, the engine of a passing truck.
The meeting with Marcus was tomorrow night.
C closed her tablet. The data recovered from Santa Fe was already running through analysis. A few more hours until results.
Time with nothing to do.
For once, she didn't know what to do with it.
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Watching the lights outside the window, a different light surfaced in her memory, unbidden.
Dimmer. More unsteady.
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[Memory]
The lights of that city always flickered.
She couldn't tell if they were bright or dim. Couldn't tell if the flow of people was fast or slow.
That night, she still had a name. Now, she couldn't even remember what it had been.
She was lost. Not lost in the sense of direction. Something more fundamental β she no longer knew where she was supposed to be.
The music drifting from the city had an unpleasant rhythm. In all that noise, it was the only thing that came through clearly.
It sounded like the city itself, whispering.
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It was a bar, down a back alley.
A corner of the counter. She stared into her glass, avoiding everyone's eyes.
"Good work. How's your long-awaited vacation going?"
A voice.
High or low β she couldn't tell, not right away. Gender, age β none of it was placed by the voice alone.
She looked up. Someone had taken the seat beside her. Long pink hair. Behind round glasses, green eyes were looking at her. A coat that resembled a lab coat.
Out of place. Nothing like anyone else in the bar.
"Vacation? ...Lucky guess."
She answered.
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For a while, neither spoke. The person beside her ordered nothing. Just sat there.
"You're lost in something."
The words came out of nowhere.
"What?"
"In this city. And outside of it too."
She said nothing. It had landed.
"Who are you?"
The figure beside her laughed, faintly. The laugh, too, sounded like neither a man's nor a woman's.
"Do you know the name of the serpent in Eden? The story in the Bible."
"...What?"
"In that scene, the serpent didn't need a name."
She looked into the eyes behind the glasses. Green. The color seemed to shift with the light.
"Role comes first. A name, if it's ever needed, can come later."
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Something inside her responded.
Snake.
She felt like she'd heard that word somewhere before. A story about a snake, and someone. A girl.
When had she heard it? From whom?
She couldn't remember. Only the outline of the memory remained. Nothing inside it. At the very least, it hadn't been the story of Adam and Eve.
"A snake, and a girl..."
She was a little surprised to hear those words come out of her own mouth.
The figure beside her said nothing. Just smiled.
The smile looked like an answer.
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"Everyone senses it, on some level."
The figure beside her produced something small from inside their coat.
"A layer has formed beneath this society β something like the deep web."
The figure in the lab coat continued.
"You've seen a fragment of it. That's why you're lost. What if it wasn't an accident, wasn't force majeure β what if something was behind it."
She was confused. As if her thoughts were being read straight through. The voice seemed to layer over itself, many times at once.
The figure handed her what they'd taken out β a USB drive.
"Everything you want to know is in there."
The label on the drive read: "[Year] β Sinking of the [Ship Name]β"
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"Only a deeper darkness can interfere with the deep darkness."
The figure said it quietly. "We have that."
The city's music reached her again. The rhythm sounded different than before.
It wasn't unpleasant now.
"That's an apple called truth. Eat it, and there's no going back. And this time, you become the snake β the one who hands the apple to someone else."
The air around them felt as if it had been set apart, into some other space entirely.
"If you're willing β the contact is on that drive."
A short while later.
The figure in the lab coat left with someone who looked like a secretary, who had come to collect them. They never looked back at her. They must have been certain.
Her answer didn't come, that night.
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[Present]
C opened her eyes by the window.
A notification had appeared on the tablet screen. Analysis results.
The Santa Fe data. The composition tables and internal communication logs Marcus had photographed.
C scrolled.
"Primary contact: CMF3612874"
She stared at the string of characters for a moment.
The format was familiar. Her own organization used identifiers in a similar form.
But this one belonged to someone else.
C closed the tablet and began packing.
Tomorrow night, she'd meet Marcus.
Outside the window, the lights of the town still flickered.
C closed the curtain.
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