The hum of the command hub felt different this time—less like a ticking clock and more like a quiet, steady heart.
Bastian and Michael walked in, their tactical jackets dusty and smelling faintly of ozone and fried circuitry. Michael tossed a fried hard drive onto the main desk with a heavy clack, a tired but victorious grin pulling at his face.
"Racks are scorched, hard drives are scrap metal, and the domain has been scrubbed down to the root," Michael announced, leaning against the console. "The auction site is officially dead. Your listing doesn't exist anywhere on the web, Kira. Not even on the darknet archives."
Bastian leaned against the wall, crossing his arms with a rare, genuine tilt of his head. "No more bounties, no more trackers and we have already dealt with Roman downstair
