Mara remains behind to hold the arena’s sealed surface. Selene and Euran follow the conduit into an abandoned municipal repair bay, carrying his transmitter and the recovered map.
Dead service drones hang from ceiling rails above rusted worktables. Rainwater ticks through a cracked skylight while the bay’s emergency console wakes beneath Euran’s damaged transmitter.
Euran Cross
The casing’s mine, but these access scars aren’t. Somebody pulled my diagnostic history straight from the tools.
Euran sets the transmitter beneath a work lamp and opens its shell with his mismatched prosthetic fingers. The servos whine as he compares its memory against the recovered map.
Euran Cross
They knew which jobs I took, which repairs I refused, even which parts I’d ask you for. That isn’t street gossip.
Euran Cross
You always have the right regulator, the right route, the right warning. I trust you more than anyone, Selene. I just need to know what I’m standing in.
The transmitter projects the bureau cell’s authorization trail across the dusty bay. Euran looks from the evidence to Selene, waiting without touching the controls again.
“*What?! Someone else has been watching my man. Oh hell no! I think to myself. Wait.. that means.. I must have noticed something.. I search my mind for clues.*”
SUCCESS (Great Investigation, rolled +1)
Selene lets the projected authorization trail blur at the edges and searches backward through two years of transactions, repairs, warnings, and conveniently timed cancellations.
Selene Nyx
The clues are in the pattern, not the files.
Memory supplies them cleanly: sealed warehouse jobs appearing on Euran’s schedule before he mentioned them, buyers asking for parts only he would need, and a black van twice parked near his stall.
She recalls the van’s partial plate, the driver’s silver throat implant, and a recurring access tag hidden inside three supposedly unrelated service requests. The driver is a young adult man with a lean build, close-cropped black hair, brown skin, and a dark utility jacket. The same watcher has been building a profile.
Euran Cross
You found something. Your face does that thing where the room gets smaller.
The console accepts Selene’s reconstructed fragments. A buried metadata trail resolves into one surveillance node, active beneath the municipal grid and linked directly to Euran’s repair history.
Euran Cross
That node has a live uplink. If we can reach it, we can see who’s been watching me, and why they wanted me blamed.
✓ Quest Accepted
Tell Euran about the watcher profiling him
“Huh hmm.. *I say staring at the information. I turn to him and touch his face soothing the worry lines of his face. Then quickly pull my hands away.* someone’s been profiling you. They’re been at it for awhile. Using you to cover up their own work. You are very skilled repair man. That’s why they picked you.. you went relatively unnoticed for a while.. until it was convenient for them. So now.. we have to turn it back around on them.. then let the police do the dirty work for us and feed them the information. This will clear you name. Also send out a warning.. don’t mess with Euran Cross. *I smile.*”
SUCCESS (Fair Reasoning, rolled +2)
Selene studies the surveillance node’s metadata, then turns to Euran. Her fingers touch his brow, smoothing the worry lines there, before she quickly withdraws her hand.
Selene Nyx
Someone’s been profiling you for a long time, using you to cover their own work. You’re skilled, and you went unnoticed until they needed a fall guy.
Euran Cross
A fall guy with a repair license. That’s almost flattering, if you ignore the part where they tried to bury me under a weapons trial.
Selene Nyx
We turn it back on them. We feed the authorization trail and the surveillance records to municipal police. That clears your name.
Selene routes the recovered node records into a sealed evidence package, preserving the access tags, watcher profile, and bureau authorization trail with an unbroken audit chain.
Selene Nyx
And we send a warning through every channel they used: don’t mess with Euran Cross.
Euran Cross
You make that sound simple. But the evidence is real, and for once, the people with badges can do the dirty work. Send it.
Send the evidence package to municipal police
Quest Complete
Tell Euran about the watcher profiling him