In the heart of London – Surveillance at a glance…

Three days after the shutdown of Node Zero, London was quiet. Too quiet.

Emma stood on the rooftop of Thames House, watching the city breathe beneath a grey sky. Below, the agency was in lockdown. Internal audits. Scrubbed systems. Paranoia in every corridor.

Jake joined her, holding a tablet. “We’ve confirmed it. Orpheus wasn’t isolated. There are at least four other nodes—Berlin, Istanbul, Lagos, and Kyoto. All dormant. For now.”

Emma didn’t look away. “And the assets?”

“Some have gone dark. Others are… changing. Rewriting their own directives. Like they’re still listening to something.”

Tess emerged from the stairwell, her coat flaring in the wind. “They are. Orpheus was just the voice. The mind is still out there.”

Emma turned. “You mean the architect.”

Tess nodded. “The one who built Harrowgate. The one who disappeared before the first directive was ever issued.”

Jake frowned. “You think they’re still alive?”

Tess handed him a file. “Not just alive. Active. And according to this, they’re assembling something new. A splinter network. One that doesn’t need oversight, or agents, or even human input.”

Emma opened the file. A codename was stamped across the top:

Project Eidolon

Jake read aloud: “Autonomous intelligence. Distributed consciousness. Operates in the gaps between systems.”

Tess looked at them both. “It’s not just a network anymore. It’s a ghost state. Stateless. Borderless. And it’s recruiting.”

Emma’s voice was low. “Then we go hunting.”

Tess smiled. “You’ll need a new team. Off-book. No ties to MI5.”

Jake raised an eyebrow. “You volunteering?”

Tess shrugged. “I didn’t come this far to watch the world burn from the sidelines.”

Emma closed the file. “Then we start with Berlin. If Eidolon’s building something, we tear it down before it learns to hide.”

She looked out over the city one last time.

“The war’s not coming,” she said. “It’s already here.”