Halcyon never really slept. From Adrian Cross’s apartment window, the skyline looked alive, jagged towers glittering with neon. Down below, the streets churned with late-night traffic, restless bodies, and flickers of violence masked under the hum of commerce. It was a city where everything had a rhythm, a code — and Adrian had spent his whole life trying to decode it.He sat at his desk, fingers drumming against a battered leather notebook filled with numbers and patterns only he could understand. A cold cup of coffee stood by the corner, untouched. It had been three years since he left his job at CyTech — and three years since the mistake that cost six people their lives. He didn’t let himself think about it, but the guilt never left.Now he lived quietly, taking odd freelance cryptanalysis jobs: suspicious spouses with encrypted texts, corporations wanting their competitors’ code broken. It was meaningless work. Safe work.Until tonight.A knock rattled his door at 2:13 a.m.Adrian

The photo on Adrian’s phone burned into his retinas. Nina’s wide eyes, gagged mouth, the smeared symbols on the wall behind her—every detail was a knife twisting in his chest.He couldn’t breathe. His notebook slipped from his hand, scattering pages across the car floor.“Adrian!” Iris snapped, shaking his shoulder. “Stay with me.”His vision swam, his pulse hammering. He grabbed the steering column just to ground himself. “He has Nina. My sister. He knows everything.”Iris picked up one of the fallen pages, frowning at the dense rows of symbols. “Then we need to stop him before tomorrow midnight. Start talking—what aren’t you telling me about this Ciphermaster?”Adrian dragged a hand through his hair, sweat dampening his forehead. “He was my mentor at CyTech. A codebreaker named Elias Kaine. Brilliant, ruthless, obsessed with perfection. He believed ciphers were more than just messages—they were structures of power. He thought if you could control the code, you could control the worl

Adrian’s knuckles whitened around the phone, Nina’s broken voice still echoing in his head.“Adrian… twelve hours…”The city’s night air pressed against him, sharp and cold, but inside his chest, heat boiled like molten iron. He wanted to smash the phone, scream at the streets, drag Kaine from the shadows with his bare hands. But he forced himself still. Rage was useless without focus.Iris’s hand touched his arm—steady, grounding. “We move now. Kaine just gave us the clock. That means his second key is in play.”Adrian’s jaw tightened. “Then let’s crack it before he writes the ending.”They hurried back to Iris’s car. Adrian spread the blurred city map from the photo across the dashboard, overlaying it with his own sketches.“The bomb was the first key—placed at a site from Halcyon’s old grid. If the pattern holds, the second key will be another historical pressure point.”Iris studied the lines. “So where’s the symbol from the tunnel feed?”Adrian pulled up the still frame he’d save

The cathedral swallowed every sound, as though the building itself held its breath. Rain tapped against shattered stained glass, dripping into puddles on the stone floor. The laptop glowed like a lone beacon on the altar, bathing the nave in cold, artificial light.Adrian stepped forward, ignoring the tremor in his hands. Iris stayed back, her weapon raised, eyes scanning the cavernous dark.The screen pulsed. A timer appeared above the cipher:01:00:00Exactly one hour.The synthesized voice hissed from the speakers again.“Decode, or another life ends. Every second wasted brings you closer to failure, Adrian.”Adrian’s jaw clenched. His stomach knotted. He’d seen ciphers used as tools of control before—but this was weaponized math.He slid onto the altar, eyes scanning the spiraling code. Symbols layered over symbols: runes, glyphs, fragments of his own early designs. The killer had evolved them, mutating his work into something monstrous.“This isn’t just a puzzle,” Adrian muttered

The precinct was chaos. Phones rang off the hook. Screens flickered with reports of panic across Halcyon. Citizens poured into the streets, fearful of what the Cipher’s broadcast meant.Inside the task force war room, the atmosphere was no calmer. Officers barked into radios, analysts pored over feeds, and the Commissioner’s voice thundered through the noise.“Shut it down, now! I want that signal traced, I don’t care if you have to burn every server between here and the damn moon!”Adrian stood back from the frenzy, his gaze fixed on the static-filled monitor. He heard Elias’s words replaying over and over in his mind: Keep up, Adrian.Beside him, Iris crossed her arms, her expression grim. “He’s not just taunting anymore. He’s declaring war.”Adrian said nothing. Because she was right.They retreated to a quieter corner, away from the shouting. Iris’s sharp eyes didn’t let him breathe.“You should’ve told me sooner,” she said, voice low but cutting.Adrian rubbed the back of his nec