MIKE
I didn’t answer Alfred right away.
Instead, my eyes drifted to the floor, where his research lay scattered—notes, maps, scribbled theories and half-burned pages. I crouched, slowly picking up a torn photo of what looked like a convoy route. Then another—an image of Siren, blurry but unmistakable, standing near an unmarked vehicle.
I swallowed hard.
“She’s not the way you think.”
Alfred’s brow furrowed.
“What?”
I looked up at him. “That’s what Agent Dereck said before he died”
Alfred’s expression shifted—eyes darkening with realization.
“‘She’s not the way you think,’” I repeated, the words colder now, heavier. “He meant Siren. I didn’t understand it then. Thought it was just shock... but now?”
Alfred slowly turned away, walking over to a pile of files by the wall. He dug through them with urgency, tossing aside folders until he pulled out one, thick with dust and taped at the edges.
“I’ve been waiting for someone to confirm that,” he muttered, flipping it open and pulling out a worn, yellowed article.
He handed it to me.
I squinted at the faded headline:
“OLIVIA FORD — U.S. PRESIDENT’S WIFE — REPORTED MISSING”
There was a grainy photo of Olivia beside the President, taken at some official event years ago. My eyes narrowed. The resemblance…
The article had been half-redacted. Stamped across it in digital watermark:
“REDACTED — CLASSIFIED ARCHIVE — NO PUBLIC ACCESS”
“I tried to find more,” Alfred said, voice low and urgent. “But this article? Wiped from every official record. Only survived because someone printed it and forgot to shred it.”
I glanced at him. “You traced the author?”
Alfred nodded grimly.
“She died in a car crash three weeks after this was published. Filed as an accident. I tried to contact her daughter—Claire—but there’s nothing. No online activity, no apartment, no employer. Like she vanished.”
“Or someone made her vanish,” I muttered.
Alfred stepped closer.
“Now tell me, Mike—how does a missing First Lady, a covered-up article, and a rogue agent named Siren all tie together? What the hell happened three years ago?”
I stood there, staring at the article, the puzzle pieces slowly coming together—but the image still felt incomplete, like something important was just out of reach.
I looked up at Alfred.Alfred motioned with his head toward the far end of the safehouse. A narrow hallway, dark and cold, led to a rusted door. He pushed it open, and I followed him inside.
The moment the door creaked open, my eyes widened.
The room was alive—glowing with soft blue light from at least a dozen monitors. Wires snaked across the floor like vines. The hum of servers filled the space, broken only by the quiet clacking of keys.
And then I saw her.
Short-cropped hair. Hoodie half-zipped. Calm and poised like someone used to working behind layers of firewalls and secrets. She sat at the center of it all—like the conductor of some digital symphony. She turned, and our eyes met.
Cool. Calculating.
But there was something familiar in them.
She stood, stepping away from her chair with a half-smile.
“Nice to finally meet you, Agent Mike,” she said, stretching out her hand for a shake.
I didn’t move. My mind raced.
“I... I don’t know you,” I said, confused.
She didn’t look offended. Just amused.
Then she picked up her phone, dialed a number, and stared at me as it rang. My phone buzzed in my pocket.
I slowly pulled it out, and when I saw the caller ID—my blood ran cold.
Riley.
The anonymous source who’d been feeding me information. The one I thought was buried deep within Alpha’s tech department.
“You?” I whispered, disbelief crashing over me. “You’re Riley?”
She gave a small nod, hanging up the call.
“The digital version of me, yes. Riley’s just the name I use when I don’t want people to ask too many questions.”
I stared at her.
“Then who are you really?”
She smirked faintly and turned back toward her monitors.
“Let’s just say I’ve been watching the same shadows as you... but from a different angle.”
Alfred crossed his arms.
“She’s been helping me piece together Siren’s digital footprint. Every alias. Every hidden comms channel. Every financial transaction. She's our best shot at getting real answers now.”
Riley—if that was even her real name—looked at me with a spark of intensity. “You ready to stop following orders and start following the truth, Agent Mike?”
As Riley typed away, her fingers a blur across the keyboard, I couldn’t shake the question gnawing at me.
"Why are you helping us?" I finally asked.
Her hands paused mid-motion. For a second, she didn’t turn around—just stared at the screen as streams of encrypted code scrolled past.
Then she said it—calmly, almost like a reflex.
“I’m not helping,” she murmured. “I just want to find the truth.”
I frowned. “That’s not a normal answer.”
She sighed, then finally turned to face me. There was no smirk this time. No games. Just something raw in her eyes.
“My name isn't Riley,” she said softly. “It’s Elena Wallace.”
I blinked. “Wallace?”
Alfred straightened. “Wait—Wallace, as in... President Benjamin Wallace?”
“My father.”
The air shifted. I remembered the headlines. Everyone did. Wallace’s death had burned itself into the collective memory of America. A nation stunned. Just as he was declared the official winner of the election, about to take his oath...
He pulled out a pistol. And ended his life on live television. The media had a frenzy.
Then the stories came—corruption, off-shore accounts, betrayal. His legacy was buried under a mountain of scandal. That was the fall of the Wallace era... and the beginning of Ford’s.
“He wasn’t corrupt,” she said, her voice tight. “He was silenced.”
I stared at her. “How can you be so sure?”
“Because I was there that night,” she said. “He got a call... just before going onstage. He looked like he’d seen a ghost. I tried asking him what it was about, but all he said was, ‘They know.’ That’s it. Then he walked out, and—” her voice cracked slightly, “—he never came back.”
Alfred leaned forward.
“And you think Siren’s involved?”
Elena nodded.
“I think the truth he knew—the one that got him killed—is connected to Siren, President Ford... and something bigger. Something still alive.”
She turned back to her computer, refocusing. “Which is why we’re doing this. Not just to find Siren... but to find them.”
I swallowed hard. “Who’s them?”
She didn’t answer.