BLOODCAPE
Chapter 123 – Serrated Trust

Chapter 123: Chapter 123 – Serrated Trust

Tessa hadn’t meant to open the footage again.

She’d told herself it didn’t matter. That people had good days — sharp reflexes, lucky guesses. That Hernan — golden boy, laughing eyes, always composed — had simply nailed the sim. Nothing more.

But something about the way he moved had been wrong.

Not just perfect. Premeditated.

The training footage played silently across her dorm wall, projected from her tablet into air. The screen shimmered faintly, light spilling across the darkened room. She sat cross-legged on her bed, sweatpants and hoodie still damp from her cooldown run. A half-finished protein shake sat on the floor beside her.

She hovered over the scrub bar. Dragged it back.

Timestamp: 00:13.42

Enemy drone unit dropped from the western wall fixture.

Tessa advanced frame by frame. Hernan had already pivoted before the wall opened. His blast was halfway charged by the time the drone was even visible.

Not reaction.

Prediction.

She exhaled. Pressed her knuckles to her mouth.

"Okay," she murmured. "One coincidence."

But there was more.

She tapped open the metadata panel — training logs, AI behavior flags, participant inputs. The kind of backend data no cadet reviewed unless they were contesting a score.

Or checking for a lie.

Clearance timestamp:HERNAN-017 : SIM ACCESS LOGGED – 07:08:12Session start:07:07:59

She blinked.

Checked again.

He’d accessed the sim after it started?

Not possible — unless he’d already been inside the system. Or piggybacked a mirrored dataset through a ghosted channel.

Her pulse ticked higher.

Gemini’s absence. Hernan’s rooftop tremor. The way his jaw locked when she mentioned Solaris. All of it felt like clues handed to her out of order.

She opened the internal archive. Typed:

GEMINI + ZODIAC + SENTRY + REPORT-ALPHA

One file returned. Public version. Redacted. She scanned it fast.

Casualty report: [2 redacted]Environmental anomaly: [classified]Mission success status: [override logged]

There.

Sloppy.

The override tag wasn’t masked. Not a staff key. It was a Zodiac override — likely from Gemini. That meant the record was altered manually after submission. After review.

Why?

The door latch clicked behind her.

Tessa spun.

Aya.

Still damp from the showers, a towel looped lazily around her neck. She didn’t look surprised.

"You’re rewatching his run," she said. Not a question.

Tessa nodded. "Just... something off."

Aya entered, let the door seal behind her. She didn’t sit. Just leaned against the wall, arms crossed.

"I’ve been checking his sim logs for a week," she said. "He moves like a precog. But there’s no registry. No known signature."

Tessa’s gut tightened. "So it’s not just this one?"

"Nope. Four sims. Different layouts. Randomized threats. Same outcome."

"Could be predictive modeling," Tessa offered, half-hoping Aya would confirm it.

Aya’s voice was dry. "Except the seed’s randomized fifteen seconds before launch. No one’s that good."

Silence. Too long.

Tessa finally killed the projection.

"I don’t think he’s cheating," she said softly.

Aya raised a brow. "You think it’s something worse?"

"I think..." Tessa hesitated. "Cheating would be easier to explain."

Aya didn’t press. Just nodded slowly, then pushed off the wall.

"Alright. Here’s my proposal."

Tessa looked up.

"We both watch him. Separately. No bias. No judgment."

"And if we find something?"

Aya smiled faintly. "Then we compare notes."

"And until then?"

Aya paused at the door.

"No sharing theories," she said. "Not yet."

The door clicked shut behind her.

Tessa sat still. The screen had gone black, but her thoughts hadn’t. She pulled the Gemini mission report up again.

And this time, she didn’t read it like a cadet.

She read it like a witness.

Hangar Bay 12 hummed with pre-dawn inertia.

Everything about it was too quiet — no chatter, no drills, no clatter of weapons against crates. Just the low whir of grav-loaders and the pulse of the shuttle’s external lights blinking in perfect sequence.

Hernan stood near the edge of the bay, half-zipped into his mission jacket, scrolling through the brief on his wristband.

Recon Only. Subdistrict Zeta-3. Expected Hostile Activity: Low.Team Assignment: Hernan Solari, Nico Reyes, Cadet Gemini (F)

Not Gemini.

Her.

He closed the file and scanned the hangar. Nico hadn’t arrived yet. Just a bored drone tech tweaking signal arrays, and a medic running the emergency kit count.

And her — standing alone by the shuttle ramp, helmet in hand, unmoving.

The twin-mask grace was gone.

She looked... raw. Unpaired. Weight shifting unevenly. Posture wrong. Like she wasn’t sure which version of herself had shown up this morning.

Hernan approached without sound.

"Cold morning," he said.

She looked up, slow. Her eyes didn’t meet his — just floated nearby.

"You ever feel like... someone’s recording you?" she asked.

Not paranoid.

Not joking.

Just curious. Like the question had been growing in her mouth for days.

Hernan tilted his head. "You mean surveillance?"

She shook her head. "I mean... like there’s always a version of you being watched. Even when you’re alone. Like your body’s just... the footage."

It landed harder than he expected.

He wanted to say yes.Wanted to say I know. I record myself so I can stay me.But he didn’t.

Because maybe she was spiraling.Or maybe she wasn’t.

"I think some of us never learned how to shut it off," he said.

She nodded faintly, the motion uncertain — like it wasn’t meant to be seen.

Footsteps clicked.

Leo.

He walked toward them like a shadow that hadn’t picked which side of the light to belong to. No cape. No flare. Just his black uniform, regulation gloves flexing like they remembered violence.

"You’re early," he said, voice clean.

"Prep’s easier when you don’t need sleep," Hernan replied.

Leo smiled. Short. Precise.

"I read your sim report. Impressive."

"Thank you."

"No errors. No delays. Zero anomalies."

Not a compliment.

A diagnostic.

"I train for pressure," Hernan said.

Leo’s gaze snapped to Gemini. "Cadet. Recon only. No direct contact unless cleared."

She nodded. Barely.

Then he turned back to Hernan.

"I want full telemetry from your scout drones. Send it to me. Bypass the archive."

A smile without warmth.

A request without choice.

"Understood."

Leo nodded once. Then walked away without looking back.

The silence after he left was worse than his presence.

Nico arrived just as the shuttle ramp hissed open.

"Wow," he muttered, sensing the tension. "Did I miss the funeral?"

Neither answered.

Inside the shuttle, lights shifted to mission-red. Hernan took the seat closest to the window. Gemini sat opposite. Nico leaned against the wall, calibrating drone feeds.

The launch countdown began.

Hernan glanced out the window once.

Tessa stood at the far end of the hangar.

Arms crossed. Still as a blade waiting to be drawn. Watching the shuttle, watching him. Not waving. Not turning away.

Just watching.

Like she was memorizing the shape of him.

Or calculating what it would cost to stop him.

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