The man in the clean collar goes still in Professor Dayton’s study. Then he drags back his cuff and shows the scar on his wrist, thin and pale, the same old service mark Dallas carries.
Adrian Pike
You remember this. Same unit. Same cut. I was never here to watch you, Fontaine. I was sent because they’re about to erase you.
The room feels smaller. Ash sits on Dayton’s desk like gray snow. Murderbone lowers his head, watching the man instead of the door.
Professor Dayton
Erase him? Speak plainly, man. What kind of contemptible office talks like that?
Adrian Pike
The kind that burns files, kills records, and buries the people who know too much. They did it to my unit already. You’re next.
Dallas Fontaine
He is telling the truth, or he believes it hard enough to bleed through.
Outside, rain taps the window like impatient fingers. Inside, the clean collar is gone, and only the scar remains, tying the warning to Dallas’s own forgotten past.
“I say "I'm still here lieutenant Hart. But the rest of the unit erased. Why?”
SUCCESS (Legendary Psychology, rolled +0)
Dallas Fontaine
I am still here, Lieutenant Hart. But the rest of the unit was erased. Why?
The clean-collar man flinches at the rank, then exhales like a man dropping a shield. His eyes go to the scar, then to Dallas, as if measuring the distance between two ruined ledgers.
Adrian Pike
Because they were easier to bury than to brief. We pulled files, body-cam logs, transfer slips. One order came down, and the whole unit became a mistake somebody wanted off the books.
Professor Dayton
Off the books by whom? Do not spare us the name if you have one.
Adrian Pike
I have a title, not a name for him. Hart. Internal records. He handled the wipe, the reassignments, the silence. Men like me were told to stand down or join them.
Dallas Fontaine
A handler. Not just a watcher. Someone who edits people out and leaves the frame standing.
Rain ticks at the glass. The index card on Dayton’s desk sits beside the routing chain, the museum evidence tag, and a route slip corner peeking from the dossier stack. Outside, a dark sedan slides past the curb and disappears without stopping.
Adrian Pike
If Hart is still active, then your name is already on the next clean-up list. That is why I came here, Fontaine. Not to test you. To warn you before they finish the job.
“I ask Hart who erased my unit.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Interrogation, rolled +1)
Dallas lets the silence hang just long enough to make the question feel like a lock picking under pressure.
Dallas Fontaine
Who erased my unit?
The clean-collar man looks down at the scar on his wrist, then back up at Dallas, and the urge to hedge leaves his face.
Adrian Pike
Hart did. He signed the wipe order, routed the reassignments, and pushed the false reports through the office chain. Your unit did not vanish by accident, Fontaine.
Professor Dayton
Hart. A handler with paperwork access, not a ghost story. That is the shape of it.
The words land hard. Dallas now has a name, a mechanism, and a human face attached to the erasure, and the case stops being rumor and becomes personal record theft with a pulse.
Adrian Pike
He uses people as buffers, then erases the buffers. If he is still in circulation, then whatever happened to my unit is coming for you too.
“I say "Sir you are Lt. Hart. This guy is named Hart also?"”
SUCCESS (Legendary Psychology, rolled +1)
Dallas Fontaine
Sir, are you Lt. Hart? The Hart you mentioned, is that the same man?
Adrian Pike
He flinches at the rank, then gives a tight, confirming nod. The name fits too well to be a coincidence.
Adrian Pike
Lt. Hart, yes. That is what he called himself when he signed my transfer papers. Same man.
Professor Dayton
A uniformed liaison with paperwork authority. Not a myth, a clerk with reach.
Professor Dayton
Then this is no mistaken identity. Hart is the one who handled the erasures, and he knows exactly whose files he is burning.
Adrian Pike
He does not just burn files. He burns the people attached to them. If he marked your unit, he marked you.
“Say "one last question Sir. You led our covert ops unit. Task force Odin." I point to the scar. "We all bled when we gave the oath. How did you evade this other Hart?"”
FAILURE (Legendary Interrogation, rolled -4)
Dallas Fontaine
One last question, sir. You led our covert ops unit, Task Force Odin. We all bled when we gave the oath. How did you evade this other Hart?
The question lands hard. The man in the clean collar goes still, and the answer dies behind his teeth before it can form.
Adrian Pike
Odin. He remembers the old name. That makes this uglier.
Adrian Pike
I did not evade him cleanly. I was routed, reassigned, and buried under paperwork until my name became a dead end. That is how Hart survives, he does not hunt the loud ones first, he edits the records until nobody is left to miss them.
Professor Dayton looks from the scar to the index card chain, the shape of the trap settling into place.
Professor Dayton
So the man is not just a handler. He is the hand that moves the whole filing system, and Dallas is already in it.
The clean-collar man swallows, then lowers his gaze to the desk. Dallas gets no tidy confession, only the ugly truth, Hart did not miss him, he chose to leave him standing.
“Say "one last question Sir. You led our covert ops unit. Task force Odin." I point to the scar. "We all bled when we gave the oath. How did you evade this other Hart?"”
SUCCESS (Legendary Interrogation, rolled +0)
Dallas holds the room still. The clean-collar man draws a slow breath, then reaches for his own wrist like the scar has weight.
Adrian Pike
I did not outrun Hart. I got moved. Three transfers, two sealed files, one doctored commendation, and suddenly my face was in a drawer nobody opened unless they needed a favor.
Professor Dayton
Paper burial. Bureaucratic disappearance. Efficient, if rotten.
The man gives a short, humorless nod toward the desk, toward the map of routes and the ash-streaked papers.
Adrian Pike
Hart does not erase a man all at once. He strips the attachments, the reports, the witnesses, the next of kin, until the person becomes a clerical rumor. Then he decides whether to let the body live or not.
Dallas Fontaine
That is not surveillance. That is a death file with better handwriting.
Adrian Pike
You asked how I survived. I survived because I was useful enough to keep breathing, and expendable enough to keep lying.
Professor Dayton stops tracing the index card chain and looks up, shaken by the scale of it.
Professor Dayton
Then Dallas is not being watched. He is being prepared for removal.
“I say " He let you live to torment you.It must have been aweful to see the men you trained, you led. Erased. And you did NOTHING..."”
SUCCESS (Legendary Psychology, rolled +0)
Dallas Fontaine
He let you live to torment you. It must have been awful to watch the men you trained get erased. And you did nothing.
The clean-collar man flinches like the words hit a bruise he has been guarding for years. His hand tightens on the wrist scar, then falls away.
Adrian Pike
I did more than nothing. I survived. That was the first crime.
Adrian Pike
I told myself silence was leverage. Then Hart took the leverage too.
Professor Dayton
That is how the system works. It makes obedience feel like prudence, until prudence becomes complicity.
Ash shifts under Dayton’s fingers as he turns the index card chain aside. The route slip and the museum evidence tag sit beside the papers, small and ugly proof of a larger machinery.
Adrian Pike
I watched good officers get reassigned into fog. I watched their faces disappear from rosters before their names disappeared from memory. If I had stepped out, I would have joined them.
Adrian Pike
My name is Adrian Pike. Hart made certain the version that mattered died first.
“I press Adrian for Hart's orders”
SUCCESS (Legendary Interrogation, rolled +2)
Dallas Fontaine
Then tell me Hart's orders. What did he have you do?
Adrian Pike swallows hard and looks past Dallas, like the answer is written on the rain-streaked glass.
Adrian Pike
Names first, then movements. He told us who to flag, who to bury in clerical noise, who to strip from schedules before they were ever arrested.
Professor Dayton
Not arrest. Erasure by procedure. That is the working method.
Adrian Pike
If a target kept asking questions, Hart ordered a clean reassignment, lost badge, dead file, new station. If they still pushed, the file got marked for removal.
Dayton goes still over the desk, eyes fixed on the route slip and evidence tag as the shape of the machine settles into place.
Adrian Pike
You are already in the margin, Fontaine. Hart's orders were to watch you, measure who reached for you, and decide when the page gets torn out.
“I say "OK Pike, we work together for now, but after I erase Hart we still have a score to settle. I'll be coming for you. I owe it to the team. You understand I hope. You betrayed us "”
SUCCESS (Great Willpower, rolled +4)
Dallas Fontaine
Okay, Pike. We work together for now. After I erase Hart, we still have a score to settle. I’ll be coming for you. You betrayed us.
Adrian Pike
He does not flinch. The clean collar looks heavier on him now, like a badge of shame he cannot peel off.
Adrian Pike
I understand. I earned that.
Adrian Pike
If Hart is still moving, then I am useful to you alive. My notes, my routes, my names, take them.
Professor Dayton
Good. Then we stop speaking in fragments and start speaking in sequence.
Professor Dayton
Pike, give me the clean version of Hart, where he sits, and who signs off when the files vanish.
Adrian Pike
He is not a rumor. Hart works records oversight, second floor, annex corridor. He keeps a private ledger, and he uses it to decide who disappears without a paper trail.
Adrian Pike
And for what it is worth, Fontaine, you are not the first man I warned too late.
✓ Quest Accepted
Erase Hart
“Demand Pike hand over the specific access codes for the second floor annex.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Interrogation, rolled -1)
Dallas Fontaine
Give me the access codes for the second floor annex.
Adrian Pike
Yes. There is a hallway code, and an inner door code. I should not have them, but I do.
Adrian Pike
The hallway code is 2-7-4-1. The inner door code is Hart's own override, 6-0-9-3.
Professor Dayton
That is enough to get them in the room. Not enough to keep them alive.
Pike reaches into his coat and sets a bent keycard on the desk beside the route chain card. His hand lingers there for a beat, then pulls back like he expects the paper to bite.
Adrian Pike
Hart logs exits, not entries. If you go in, go in fast. He keeps the ledger close.
Rain ticks at the window. Outside, headlights sweep past and vanish, leaving the study in a brief, watchful dark.
+ New Item Acquired
Bent keycard
“I use the annex codes and go upstairs”
SUCCESS (Legendary Agility, rolled -1)