Chapter 16: Contingencies

  Jules Carter leaned back in her chair, boots propped on the edge of the console, watching the decryption matrix unspool across the screen. She’d been chasing this signal loop for hours, some buried relay string patched through three obsolete nodes and a half-dead weather drone. It wasn’t supposed to be interesting.

  But it was.

  “Always the quiet ones,” she muttered, sipping synth-caf gone cold.

  CAPRA’s voice chimed softly from the corner module. “Is that a reference to Kaelar or yourself?”

  “Yes,” she said dryly.

  The truth was, he irritated her. Or at least, the idea of him did, always fixing things without asking for help, always one step ahead in some way that didn’t feel earned but was. And the way he talked to CAPRA… like it was a person, not a tool.

  That part she didn’t hate.

  Jules narrowed her eyes at the screen. Another subroutine folded open, his signature buried in the repair logs again. Clean. Efficient. Too damn tidy.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  “You ever wonder,” she asked the air, “what someone like him looked like before he got tired?”

  CAPRA’s response was almost a whisper. “Sometimes.”

  The lights flickered overhead, briefly.

  Jules sat up straighter, checked the feed. No fluctuation logged. Just a ripple of shadow in the corner of the room. It was probably nothing. Probably.

  She let the code cycle run.

  “You know,” she said aloud, quieter now, “I met him before the medbay fire. Back when he still smiled like it meant something. Didn’t even recognize him when he pulled me out.”

  CAPRA said nothing.

  The screen refreshed. Another anomaly bloomed across the stream. Not Kaelar’s work.

  Her fingers tapped through the logs. This one was messy—halting bursts of data, time-stamped just minutes before she accessed the sector.

  She froze. “CAPRA, has anyone else accessed this string?”

  “No registered access since your last entry. But… something ran parallel to your trace. Not logged. Not mine.”

  Jules stared. Was someone else watching her work? Or was the signal itself trying to echo back?

  She pulled up the anomaly in a deeper diagnostic shell. It fluttered in her display—alive, almost reactive. When she pinged it, it pulsed. Twice.

  "That’s new," she whispered.

  “Behavioral?” CAPRA asked.

  “Maybe,” she said, leaning in. “Or bait.”

  She reached for her message queue. Began to type something to Kaelar. Deleted it.

  Then typed again:

  You don’t always have to carry it alone.

  She stared at it. Then archived the draft.

  She wasn’t looking for answers.

  She just didn’t want to be the only one asking the questions anymore.

  Outside her terminal window, one of the station lights dimmed. Just for a second.

  Then flickered twice.