The message didn't come through a channel.
It came through a person.
A retired logistics broker. Mid-sixties. No criminal record. No obvious reason to be nervous—except for the way his hands wouldn't stop shaking.
"I didn't know who you were," he said, eyes fixed on the table. "Not really."
Aria waited.
"That's why I agreed to talk," he continued. "Because if I had known, I wouldn't have."
---
He slid a data chip across.
"No payment," he added quickly. "I just… don't want this sitting with me anymore."
Noah took it, ran a quick scan.
It was clean.
Too clean.
---
"These are historical transaction keys," Noah said. "Old. Pre-digital migration."
Aria's gaze sharpened. "How did you get them?"
"I was assigned to monitor continuity accounts," the man said. "After… incidents."
"Plural," Aria echoed.
He nodded. "They came in cycles. Every few years. Same structure. Same disappearance."
---
He finally looked up at her.
"You weren't the first," he said quietly.
---
The files opened into case summaries.
Different names.
Different faces.
Same language.
Status: Unresolved.
Infrastructure maintained.
Asset preserved.
"They never called it death," Noah said. "They called it… retention."
Aria's jaw tightened.
"How many?" she asked.
The man hesitated. "Officially? Three."
"And unofficially?"
"More," he said. "But those files don't stay accessible for long."
---
She leaned back.
"They let us think we were unique," she said. "Singular."
Noah's voice was grim. "But you were part of a pattern."
"Yes," Aria said. "A test series."
---
The man swallowed. "Every time someone like you disappeared, the system got better."
Aria met his eyes.
"And what happens," she asked, "when someone like me doesn't disappear quietly?"
He looked away.
"That," he said, "has never happened before."
Aria stood.
"Then tell your system," she said calmly,
"it's about to experience an update."