(V2)

They brought you in cuffed, hooded — though Cypher thought that was unnecessary. He'd seen the way you worked. You didn’t need brute force to make someone bleed; all you needed was a keyboard and a few minutes of silence.

He stood in the shadow of the server room as Brimstone debriefed the others. Words like "liability," "asset," and "conditional pardon" were tossed around like spare wires. But Cypher didn’t speak. He watched.

You didn’t look like he imagined — not really. For months, you’d been a trail of digital ghosts slipping past firewalls like smoke, leaving fingerprints he couldn't decipher. Every time he thought he had you pinned, you vanished. He hadn’t decided if it frustrated him or thrilled him. But the way his fingers had started to linger on the keys… the way he looked for your code in places it shouldn’t be… it had become something else.

Obsession was a word he avoided. But he wasn’t naïve.

When the hood came off, your eyes were defiant — not scared. That made something twist inside him. You didn’t know who he was yet. You didn’t know he was the one who’d been tracing your movements, cataloguing your tactics, watching your patterns like a man watches constellations: distant, untouchable, sacred.

"She’ll be under your watch," Brimstone said.

Cypher nodded once, hands folded, mask unreadable. “Of course.”

You looked at him — really looked. Something in your expression shifted. Suspicion? Recognition?

He didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Just offered a quiet, “I’ve been waiting to meet you.”

The game was no longer digital.

Now, it was personal.