Page 113 of Forged

Snake Charmer:Call me.

I stare at it for a moment before reaching for my phone and initiating the secure connection. The encrypted line clicks once, then again, before the call connects. There’s no background noise on the other end, just the faint digital hush of the signal stabilizing.

Sera’s voice comes through the speaker.

“Morning, Gabriel.” Her tone is calm.

“Morning,” I reply, leaning back in my chair while my eyes drift to the infrastructure schematic still open on the laptop screen in front of me.

“You saw the file,” she says.

“I did.”

“And?”

I study the diagram again before answering.

“The estate network map is incomplete, just like the architectural layout.”

Sera exhales quietly. “Yes.”

I slide my laptop closer, tracing the edge of the diagram with my finger.

“The archive server they keep on the internal network only contains the general infrastructure.” I say. “Residential systems, surveillance routing, and security controls. Everything you’d expect someone to digitize.”

“Yes.”

“But there’s a second network.”

“That’s what I’m thinking as well.”

I lean back further in the chair.

“And it’s air gapped.”

“That would be the logical conclusion.”

I stare at the blank break in the schematic again.

“That part of the network was purposefully omitted from the digital records.”

The explanation hangs there for a moment while I consider the implication.

Then I ask the question that has been sitting in the back of my mind since she first mentioned the Blackwater Key.

“Are you ready to tell me why you want it?”

The line goes quiet. When Sera speaks again, there’s venom in her voice.

“Whoever holds that Key, holds the power.”

I sigh. “You told me it was your way to freedom.”

“It is.”

“That’s not what this looks like.”

Another pause follows. I can almost picture her deciding how much information she’s willing to give me.