The lobby of Vireon Systems was a temple of glass, steel, and muted ambition. Seraphine, now Alexa Cross, a recently transferred IT support specialist. Adjusted the strap of her tool-laden laptop bag. It felt like a child's toy compared to the custom rigs she built in her workshop, but it sold the part. The bag, like her sensible blouse and slacks, was a costume.

A presence materialized beside her, solid and silent. Eric Vance, their cover for Bulwark, looked every bit the new security contractor, broad, impassive, and built like a brick wall. He gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod. No words were needed. They were in.

"Your badges," a receptionist chirped, her smile not quite reaching her eyes. Alexa pinned hers on, the laminated photo staring back at a woman she barely recognized.

"Remember," Oracle's voice was a ghost in her ear, a private channel only she could hear. "Low profile. You're there to map the infrastructure, not redesign it. Phantom has already seeded your credentials. Use them."

Their first test came immediately. A flustered manager from the third floor was waiting, arms crossed, as they stepped off the elevator.

"You're the new IT? The scanner in Accounting has been 'processing' for twenty minutes. It's holding up payroll." The man's tone was sharp, laced with the impatience of someone whose important day was being interrupted by a technical glitch.

This was her opening. A mundane, perfect entry point.

"Let me take a look," Alexa said, her voice softer, higher than her usual tone. She followed him, feeling Bulwark, Eric, fall into step behind her, a silent guardian scanning the environment for threats far more dangerous than a malfunctioning printer.

The scanner was, as Phantom had promised, rigged with a simple remote lock that Cipher could now release on her command. But Alexa couldn't fix it too quickly. A real IT tech would troubleshoot. She made a show of checking cables, restarting the device, and frowning thoughtfully.

"The payroll server it's trying to connect to has surprisingly robust firewall protocols for a simple accounting machine," Cipher murmured in her ear, her fingers flying over a keyboard miles away. "Curious. Planting a data sniffer now. Okay, ready when you are."

Alexa pressed a seemingly random combination of buttons on the scanner's control panel. With a cheerful beep, it whirred back to life.

The manager grunted, a sound that passed for gratitude. "About time."

As they left the accounting department, Alexa discreetly placed a tiny, magnetic transmitter under a filing cabinet. It was no bigger than a ladybug, one of her own creations. One down.

"Good," Oracle commented. "Bulwark, you're clear to sweep the access points on the executive floor. Phantom will create a distraction for the guards in five."

The day continued in a rhythm of staged problems and subtle intrusions. Alexa replaced a keyboard and embedded a keystroke logger. She "fixed" a network switch in a storage closet, secretly hardwiring a backdoor into the building's internal network. All the while, she played her part, a competent, forgettable, and utterly benign.

During her lunch break in the sterile cafeteria, she sat alone, picking at a salad. Her eyes, hidden behind glasses with non-prescription lenses, passively tracked employee movements, memorizing patterns.

Then she saw him.

It was Phantom. But it wasn't him. He was Daniel Shaw here, a name as bland as the off-white office walls. He moved with a completely different posture, shoulders slightly slumped, a nervous energy in his step, his face arranged in an expression of perpetual, mild apology. He was carrying a stack of files that looked ready to topple, playing the part of a harried, junior data analyst to perfection. He was so deep in his cover that for a split second, even she didn't recognize the man she'd trained with for years. He was a ghost, and it was both impressive and unnerving. Nathan is truly gone, she thought, completely erased.

Her earpiece, set to the team's open channel, crackled to life with Theo's voice.

"Uh oh. Heart rate spike, Alexa. You seeing a ghost or something?"

Theo's accidental choice of words was so perfect it was chilling. She forced her breathing to steady, tearing her eyes away from the Phantom an analyst.

"Negative, Asclepius," she murmured, lifting her coffee cup. "Just... bad coffee."

"Sure it is," Victoria's voice sing-songed, laced with knowing glee. "I'm looking at the cafeteria feed. You're staring at... oh. Oh, I see him. Wow. Daniel is really committing to the bit. He's good."

There was a note of genuine professional admiration in Cipher's tone.

"Focus, Artificer," Oracle's voice cut in, calm but firm. "Phantom is doing his job. You do yours. The mission."

Alexa looked down at her salad, her appetite gone. The Phantom's transformation was a stark reminder of the layers of deception they were all operating under. They were all wearing masks, some more literal than others. The mission was no longer a simple extraction, it was a hunt. They were there to find and recapture the double agent, Mr. Domanic, a man who knew their protocols, their faces, and how they thought. A man who had chosen to betray them.

So why did seeing her own teammate, a living mirror of their shared duplicity, feel like the most dangerous warning of all?

The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur of fake smiles and concealed devices. As Alexa and Eric rode the elevator down at 5:06 PM, she allowed herself one deep breath. Phase one was complete. The web was being woven.

But as the elevator doors opened to the public lobby, her blood ran cold. Leaning against the reception desk, flashing a polished, evaluative smile, was Mr. Sterling, her boss's boss, the Senior Vice President of Operations.

"Alexa Cross, right?" he said, pushing off the desk with an air of casual authority. "Heard you had quite the first day. Saving payroll and all that." His eyes, sharp and calculating, held hers for a moment too long. For a terrifying moment, she couldn't tell if he was just making polite conversation with a new hire, or if he was testing her, seeing if the convenient new IT specialist was a little too convenient. The mission had just gotten exponentially more complicated, and the man at the top of the chessboard had just looked down and noticed one of his new pawns.