BLOODCAPE
Chapter 100 – Some Doors Don’t Lock Twice

Chapter 100: Chapter 100 – Some Doors Don’t Lock Twice

Tessa’s hands were shaking.

She hated that.

She could stitch a wound blindfolded. Could field-reset a bio-stimulator while sprinting. But now, standing in the middle of her dorm room, fingers fumbling through pockets and straps, she couldn’t get the zipper on her med bag to close.

She forced it. The metal teeth rasped together. The bag jerked.

Not clean. Not quiet. But done.

Her breath fogged slightly in the air. The ventilation had slowed—meaning the override was already active. Whoever had triggered it was controlling the oxygen flow in her sector.

No alarms. No sirens.

Just silence.

And Tessa had learned, fast, that in the Academy, silence was the last thing that happened before control.

She threw the med bag over her shoulder, zipped her hoodie, and crossed to the door.

The lock blinked red when she tried it.

Already dead.

She didn’t panic. She pulled a bypass tool from her belt—standard in her first aid kit. Not legal, but not traceable either.

She forced the circuit.

The door opened.

And no one was waiting on the other side.

That scared her more than anything else.

She moved fast. Quiet steps, down the west corridor—Level 5. No cadet traffic here. No cameras blinking red. Just stretch after stretch of reinforced silence.

She reached the stairwell. Half-shadowed. Her fingers had just brushed the railing—

When a voice stopped her.

"That’s far enough."

Tessa froze.

Camilla Varn stepped out from the shadow of the stairwell wall.

Wearing black. Full infiltration suit. Tracker node clipped to her hip. Neural cuffs on her belt. Pulse-stunner still holstered. Unraised.

Tessa stared.

Camilla didn’t look like a lab director.

She looked like a weapon that had once been used very precisely—and then stored badly.

Tessa kept her voice low, even.

"Are you here to arrest me?"

Camilla didn’t blink. "If I were, you’d already be down."

Tessa swallowed.

"Then what is this?"

Camilla stepped forward once, just into the edge of light.

"I wanted to see how far you’d get."

Tessa’s hands curled around the strap of her med bag. "You’re using me as bait."

Camilla’s voice was calm. "That wasn’t a denial."

"No, it wasn’t."

Tessa took one step back. Her heel hit metal.

"You want me to lead you to him. Or to whatever program he’s part of."

"I want to see how this ends," Camilla said. "And you’re already inside the part where the wrong decision locks you out forever."

"I’m not going to be contained."

Camilla’s voice stayed quiet. "Containment was the Zodiac’s word."

She took another step forward.

"Mine was retrieval."

Tessa’s chest tightened.

"Why?"

Camilla didn’t answer. Instead, she tilted her head slightly, as if studying not Tessa—but something inside her.

Then: "Because you’re walking into something that was meant to bury you."

Tessa blinked. "That’s poetic."

"It’s accurate."

A long beat passed.

Then Tessa said, "Then I’ll walk through it."

Camilla’s hand—previously hovering just above the neural cuff—dropped to her side.

She didn’t unclip the weapon.

Didn’t raise her voice.

She just nodded once.

"Then I guess we do it together."

Tessa stared at her.

Waiting for a trap.

Waiting for the other hand to close.

But it didn’t.

Camilla didn’t move closer. Didn’t issue orders. Just stood still, like she was waiting for Tessa to choose.

And in that second, something shifted.

Tessa realized Camilla wasn’t afraid of her.

She was afraid of who else might be watching.

—

Hernan hadn’t moved since she left.

The door had shut. The silence had returned. But something had stayed behind—the shape of her presence, still hovering in the space she’d occupied. Like heat that lingers long after the flame goes out.

He sat on his bunk, hands resting on his thighs, elbows loose, eyes unfocused.

Not thinking.

Just watching the stillness.

The desk light across the room had long since dimmed into standby. No alerts. No pings. No surveillance.

Just breath.

Then—

A sound.

Soft. Mechanical. Ancient.

Not Academy-tier.

It came from the drawer.

The second one.

The one with the pad no one else knew about.

Hernan didn’t blink.

He stood, moved across the room with surgical calm, and opened the drawer.

The grey pad inside was already awake.

No boot screen.

No user prompt.

Just a single line flashing in burnt orange:

TRACKER NODE ALPHA – SOLARIS LINE – REACTIVATED

Hernan stared.

The line updated.

ID MATCH: 94.6% GENETIC SYNC DETECTEDLOCATION: CLASSIFIEDSTATUS: SHADOW-BOND ENGAGED

He exhaled once. Through his nose.

Not out of fear.

Out of calculation.

This wasn’t his node.

It couldn’t be.

His signal wasn’t bonded to Alpha. His designation was sub-layered. Fractional. It was built to echo, not to broadcast.

But this—

This was the original.

The node created for Solaris.

The node no one had touched in ten years.

The node that wasn’t supposed to exist anymore.

And now it was live.

Hernan tapped into the backend shell. Old access codes still worked. Camilla must not have updated the locks—or hadn’t expected anyone else to still have the keys.

He bypassed the first layer. Decrypted the signal path.

The sync—94.6%—wasn’t a single match.

It was two.

Two traces feeding the same ancestral tag. One line branching twice.

He cross-referenced them.

One was familiar.

His.

The other—

His hand stopped.

Trace ID: LYNE.TSource: Medical Entry Track, Cadet Class 6.

He stared at the name.

Tessa.

The signal had lit for both of them.

Not just him.

He initiated a diagnostic scrub. Deep gene-comparison. Legacy layer.

Solaris → Hernan = 92.1%Solaris → Tessa = 94.6%

His stomach dropped. Not because he felt sick.

Because for once, the numbers didn’t lie.

The match to Tessa’s genome was higher than his.

He backed out of the diagnostic.

Re-read the signal header.

SHADOW-BOND ENGAGED

That didn’t mean tracking.

That meant sympathy. Connection.

Not a tag. Not a trace.

A key.

Solaris’s node wasn’t just following a line.

It was waiting for a signal.

And she had triggered it.

He locked the pad.

Stood slowly.

His jaw set.

"She’s not watching me," he said aloud, voice flat.

No one answered.

No one needed to.

He stepped away from the desk, one hand brushing his coat off the back of the chair.

Slid it on.

His fingers curled into fists once, then relaxed.

"She’s watching for him."

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