One camera feed tears into static. When it stabilizes, Mara Voss stands at the collapsed loading dock, rain silvering her smartcoat as she faces directly into the lens.
Mara Voss
Daniel. Open the service entrance and we can end this without another breach.
The image speaks through a stolen municipal maintenance channel. Its audio carries no tunnel echo, and the camera timestamp skips backward by three seconds.
Transit System
Identity conflict. Helix Meridian credential pattern detected. Source classification unresolved: spoof, remote proxy, or compromised credential copy.
At the abandoned freight terminal, the real Mara remains with the surviving corporate response team. Here, only her image occupies the loading dock feed.
Daniel
The feed shows Mara, but the signal is not coming from the dock.
Mara Voss
You have a functioning substation, a restricted package, and a municipal network that cannot protect you. Grant access, Daniel.
✓ Quest Accepted
Identify the source of the false Mara transmission
“Can I identify the signal's source from this console?”
YES, BUT (Likely, rolled 62)
Daniel traces the stolen maintenance channel across the hardened console. The route resolves through three municipal relays before terminating at an abandoned Helix Meridian signal repeater beneath the freight terminal.
The console’s intrusion audit spikes as the trace completes. One surveillance camera burns out, and the substation broadcasts a fresh diagnostic ping into the compromised network.
Daniel
The image is remote, but the repeater is Helix property.
Transit System
Source identified: Meridian freight terminal repeater. Signal path includes active municipal credential theft. Trace visibility compromised.
Mara’s projected face fractures into horizontal bands. Behind the distortion, the feed briefly exposes a second encrypted handshake riding beneath her voice.
Mara Voss
You found the relay. That changes the negotiation, Daniel. Now you know I can see more than your camera grid.
The console marks the repeater’s physical access point and flags a narrow maintenance route from Substation Twelve. The answer is clear, but the network now knows where to look.
“I sever the compromised diagnostic channel”
SUCCESS (Good Electronics, rolled +1)
Daniel drives the console into isolation mode and cuts the compromised diagnostic channel at its hardened backbone. The stolen maintenance route collapses across the display.
The projected image of Mara freezes mid-expression, then breaks into harmless gray noise. The substation’s remaining cameras return to their normal encrypted loop.
Transit System
Compromised diagnostic channel severed. Municipal credential theft halted. External visibility reduced to baseline.
The repeater’s handshake vanishes from the audit trace, leaving only the physical access marker Daniel already recorded. Fresh diagnostic traffic no longer leaks from Substation Twelve.
Mara Voss
You cut the line. Efficient, Daniel. It will not make the repeater disappear.
Her voice arrives as a final compressed fragment from the console speaker, stripped of the stolen camera feed. Then the channel goes silent.
Daniel
The substation is no longer broadcasting the breach.