The name "Dr. Aris Thorne" hung in the cold air of the server room, heavier and more toxic than any gas they had faced. The photo of the man with the kind smile seemed to mock them, a disgusting contrast to the truth they had just unearthed.
"No... it can't be," Gryphon murmured, shaking his head. "Thorne? He was one of the people who helped establish the BSAA after Umbrella's fall. He's a legend. A hero."
"The greatest legends often hide the darkest secrets," Kael said, his voice like ice. His entire war, the sacrifice of Alpha Squad, his loyalty to the BSAA... it was all built on a foundation of lies, and the architect of that lie was one of the very men he had once respected.
"He's a senior advisor," Rook said, his voice filled with disbelief. "He has access to all mission reports, personnel files, strategic plans..."
"...and all our weaknesses," Wraith concluded, her face pale. "He knows everything about us. About the Nest. About the real Oracle."
The truth hit them like a tidal wave. They weren't just fighting a criminal network. They were fighting the very power structure that had created them. The enemy wasn't on the outside. The enemy was at the top of the food chain. The "Third Party" wasn't some unknown entity. It was part of the machine they had once served.
Silence fell. Even the server fans seemed to quiet down, as if holding their breath. They thought they had escaped the hell of the Congo. But they had only just realized that hell was just a small playground, and they had just angered the real demons running it.
While everyone was still reeling from the shock, Wraith didn't stop. A hacker's instinct, an innate paranoia, wouldn't let her rest. She was still running deep diagnostics on Hunnigan's data block, unable to believe the enemy would leave such a treasure trove without a trap.
"Wait," she said suddenly, her eyes narrowing.
"What now?" Gryphon asked, exhaustion heavy in his voice.
"There's something hidden in the core structure of the data block," Wraith explained, her fingers flying across the keyboard. "It's not a virus. It's not an encryption routine. It's... it's almost nothing. Just a tiny fragment of code, disguised as a checksum."
She ran another analysis program. A complex diagram appeared on the screen. "Damn it."
"Spit it out, Wraith," Kael urged.
"It's a beacon," she said, her usual composure gone. "A tracking beacon. It's designed to operate silently. When the data block is accessed for the first time from an IP address outside their network... it activates. It doesn't send a signal right away. It waits. Gathers data on our location, on the system we're using. And after a set amount of time, it sends a single, encrypted data burst to a master server."
A chill went through the room.
"Us getting this data block," Kael said, his voice dropping low. "It wasn't luck."
"No," Wraith confirmed, looking straight at him. "It was the trap. They wanted us to take it. They turned our own victory into a tracking device and had us carry it home."
They had marked themselves for death.
"Disconnect it! Throw it away!" Rook yelled.
"We can't!" Wraith countered immediately. "The code is linked to a self-destruct protocol. If I try to delete it or physically disconnect it, it'll trigger instantly. This entire data block will be overwritten with gibberish. We'll lose everything."
She pointed to a small countdown timer running in the corner of the screen. TIME UNTIL SIGNAL BURST: 00:14:59.
"It's a time bomb," Gryphon said, his face hardening. "We have fifteen minutes before the Nest's location is exposed to the enemy."
"It's worse than that," Wraith said, pointing to another line of code. POST-TRANSMISSION: ACTIVATE ELECTROMAGNETIC OVERLOAD. TARGET: SOURCE STORAGE DEVICE.
"English, Wraith," Rook snapped.
"It'll generate a massive EMP," she explained. "Strong enough to fry not just this storage device, but the servers in a five-meter radius around it. It'll cripple our server room."
Silence. The trap was brutally perfect. It didn't just report their location, it destroyed the evidence and disabled part of their base.
Fourteen minutes.
They were on a sinking ship, and they had only minutes to find a lifeboat.
"So what's the plan?" Jotun asked, his voice a terrifyingly calm bass, like the eye of a hurricane.
"We have to ditch the drive," Rook insisted.
"No!" Kael and Gryphon said in unison. "The data inside is too valuable. It's the only weapon we have against them."
"Then what do we do?" Rook asked, desperation creeping into his voice. "Sit here and wait for them to come knocking?"
"No," Wraith said. "There is a way. It's insane. And it's extremely risky."
All eyes turned to her.
"I can't delete the beacon, but I can move everything around it," she explained. "I can create a new virtual partition, copy the entire data block—minus the beacon code—to it. Then, I'll isolate the partition containing the beacon and migrate it to a separate physical storage device, a portable hard drive."
"Then we just get rid of that drive," Gryphon said, understanding.
"Exactly. But," Wraith stressed, "the process of copying and moving such a massive amount of data in a short time will create a huge digital 'energy spike'. It'll overload the processors. The cooling systems will have to go into overdrive. Anyone monitoring the Nest's network, including Oracle, will see a giant, anomalous power surge on their screens. They'll know we're onto them."
"They'll know we've found the trap," Kael concluded.
"And they won't wait anymore," Gryphon added. "They'll act immediately."
It was a final gamble. They had to expose their own hand to save the data and hopefully mask their final location.
"How long?" Gryphon asked.
"Ten minutes," Wraith replied. "If everything goes smoothly."
TIME UNTIL SIGNAL BURST: 00:12:34.
Gryphon looked at his team. "Do it."
Wraith set to work, her fingers flying over the keyboard like a concert pianist playing a frantic symphony. Progress bars began to fill the screen. The whirring of the server fans grew louder, roaring as if under immense strain.
Kael, Gryphon, Rook, and Jotun stood guard, weapons ready, their eyes glued to the security monitors, waiting for the inevitable.
Five minutes passed.
Data Copy... 48%
"Something's coming," Jotun said, pointing to a long-range radar screen.
A small dot had just appeared at the edge of the radar.
"What is it?"
"Too fast for a commercial plane," Wraith said, not taking her eyes off her work. "And its trajectory... it's heading straight for us."
Data Copy... 73%
The dot on the radar grew larger. The Nest's automatic identification system began to analyze it.
Analyzing signal...
No civilian transponder code.
No military transponder code.
Warning: Next-generation stealth technology detected.
The room dropped a few degrees.
"It's not one of ours," Gryphon said, his voice barely a whisper.
Data Copy... 95%
"Hurry up, Wraith!" Kael urged.
On the radar screen, the unidentified aircraft was very close. It decelerated, switching to hover mode.
Warning: Weapons bay doors opening.
Warning: Multiple small objects deployed.
Copy complete. Migrating beacon.
"Done!" Wraith yelled, ejecting a portable hard drive from a server.
But it was too late.
A BOOM shook the entire plane. Not an explosion. An impact. Then another.
They're on board.
A red alarm flashed on the main screen, with a single line of text.
WARNING: HULL BREACH IN PROGRESS.
The enemy wasn't coming anymore.
They were here.