The junction lights stutter, and the authentication string divides into two synchronized command paths. One pulses toward a records vault; the other descends into a maintenance channel.
The Shadow
The facility recognizes my pattern as an authorized project component. It has already prepared a channel for continued access.
The Shadow steps from Jackal’s deck reflection into every dark panel along the junction. Each obsidian silhouette turns toward the maintenance route, while the vault path remains cold and unlit.
The Shadow
The records vault contains answers about the project. The maintenance channel gives me persistence beyond this facility’s first lock.
Both command paths answer at once. The vault route displays fragmented archival indexes; the maintenance route begins assembling a neural handshake around Jackal’s cybernetic signature.
Jackal Molotov
The two paths are synchronized, but they do not lead to the same kind of access.
Behind Jackal, the lower passage stays open and silent. Mutt remains at the Rabid Dogs safehouse monitoring the burned relay; no one else has accompanied him into the facility.
✓ Quest Accepted
Prevent The Shadow from gaining persistent access
“I force the vault command path open before the Shadow can persist.”
FAILURE (Good Electronics, rolled -1)
Jackal drives his electronics through the vault path, pinning its fragmented indexes into one command stream before the maintenance handshake can settle around his signature.
The Shadow
You are forcing the archive to choose. It will cut the route before it yields anything useful.
The vault path opens three centimeters of encrypted access, then rejects the command. Its archival indexes shear apart, while the maintenance handshake collapses into a locked quarantine state.
The Shadow
That was not persistence. You trapped the handshake outside the core. I cannot complete it from here, but neither can you reach the archive cleanly.
A surviving index flashes across Jackal's deck before the vault seals: MATERIALIZATION PROJECT, COMPONENT TRANSFER, DEPOT FORTY-SEVEN. One secondary record remains addressable through a diagnostic port.
The junction settles into an altered balance. The Shadow's persistence route is quarantined, the main vault is closed, and the exposed diagnostic record offers a narrow usable entry into the project's transfer logs.
✓ Quest Accepted
Learn what the Depot Forty-Seven transfer logs reveal about Jackal’s role in the materialization project
Quest Complete
Prevent The Shadow from gaining persistent access
“Access the Depot Forty-Seven transfer logs”
SUCCESS (Good Electronics, rolled +2)
Jackal redirects the diagnostic port into the exposed transfer record, isolating its checksum from the quarantined handshake. Encrypted fields unfold across his deck.
The record opens. Depot Forty-Seven appears as the receiving site, with worker containment status, materialization equipment, and a transfer authorization stamped beneath the project header.
The Shadow
There. The archive confirms Depot Forty-Seven was not incidental. It was designated to receive the component after transfer.
Additional entries resolve in clipped succession: COMPONENT TRANSFER approved, destination Depot Forty-Seven, arrival window sealed, local maintenance access required for continued operation.
A redacted personnel field flickers beside the authorization. The omission is deliberate, but the transfer chain remains readable, including a sabotage warning attached after the facility accepted the shipment.
The Shadow
Someone altered the record after arrival. The project expected the component to remain active, while another party prepared to interrupt it.
Jackal secures the complete Depot Forty-Seven transfer logs in his deck. The diagnostic port stays open, preserving the redacted authorization and the sabotage annotation for further examination.
“I sever the Shadow’s remaining panel connections”
SUCCESS (Good Electronics, rolled +0)
Jackal isolates the remaining panel links and folds their handshake into a disposable diagnostic loop. The connections shudder across the dark panels, then go black one by one.
The Shadow
You are cutting every external reflection. The quarantine will no longer carry me through the facility.
Jackal drives the final severance through the junction. The Shadow’s silhouettes vanish from the surrounding panels, leaving only Jackal’s deck and the open diagnostic record.
The success costs him the port’s isolation buffer. Its wafer cracks under the load, permanently burning the diagnostic interface while the secured transfer logs remain intact.
The Shadow
The panel connections are gone. I remain inside you, but this facility can no longer extend my reach through its maintenance network.
The junction falls quiet. Depot Forty-Seven stays highlighted in Jackal’s deck, alongside the redacted authorization and sabotage annotation, now isolated from every surviving facility channel.