The corridor goes still after the shot. The crushed relay on the floor spits one last blue spark, then dies. In the office doorway, the Oversight Clerk pants through his teeth, bleeding and pale.
Oversight Clerk
Don’t... don’t let him find me first. You want the name, Fontaine? It is Bishop. I never met the face, only the orders.
Jackson tightens his aim on the hall. Dayton’s stare hardens, like he is measuring how much more rot the building can hold.
Dallas Fontaine
Bishop’s not a name. It’s a mask. Who wears it?
Oversight Clerk
A man in oversight. Higher up. Clean hands. Quiet voice. He said the Harbor Unit would never look inward.
The clerk fumbles a keycard from his pocket and lets it clatter onto the desk. A printed access strip sticks to the card, stamped with a single office node: Internal Oversight, Level Three.
Professor Dayton
That is not a field operator. That is the source. The handler sits above the mole, and above the handler sits the man who built the route.
Dallas takes the card. The trail is no longer a rumor. It points straight into Harbor Unit oversight, where the mastermind is waiting behind a clean door and a dirty title.
✓ Quest Accepted
Identify the man above Internal Oversight, Level Three
+ New Item Acquired
Keycard with access strip
“Grab the keycard and head straight for the Level Three oversight office. Telling the clerk to identify the overseer when we get there”
SUCCESS (Legendary Agility, rolled +1)
Dallas snatches the keycard cleanly and turns on his heel, the office already shrinking behind him. The clerk’s voice catches in his throat as Dallas heads for the hall, the access strip flashing Level Three in the fluorescent glare.
Dallas Fontaine
You’re coming with us. You’re telling me who stands above Level Three when we get there.
Oversight Clerk
I told you the name. Bishop. If you mean the man above him, I... I never saw him.
Jackson shifts to cover Dallas’s move, then falls in beside him as Murderbone tracks the doorway, low and ready. Dayton snatches the dead phone off the desk and studies the access strip like it might confess if he stares long enough.
Professor Dayton
Internal Oversight, Level Three. That door is not for clerks. It is where the paper trail becomes a person.
The wounded hallway figure lies motionless against the wall as Dallas reaches the threshold. Blood smears glisten on the linoleum, and the shattered relay gives a faint, dying tick from somewhere behind him.
Dallas steps into the corridor with the keycard in hand, the route fixed now on a single clean office deeper inside Harbor Unit. The clerk’s ragged breathing follows him out, but no new answer does.
+ New Item Acquired
Level Three access strip keycard
“I head to Internal Oversight Level Three”
SUCCESS (Legendary Agility, rolled +0)