POV: Leloma
Location: Shared Quarters, Caleront
Time: Cycle Day 14.09
Tags: CISO activity, message trace, emotional restraint, unseen breach, private uncertainty
She re-entered without sound. The quarters knew her step.
Lights stayed dim. The air still held trace warmth from the night before—Veinshot, solder, recycled breath. She didn’t pause in the main room.
Just set the flask on the counter. Checked the kettle orb. Still warm. Still half-full.
She stood there longer than necessary.
Then crossed to the low seat by the wall. The one CirrusV always pretended not to favour.
The screen was dark, but not inert.
A single glyph blinked near the bottom-right corner.
Faint. Easy to miss.
Leloma swiped once across the back frame.
The screen opened—only slightly.
Not to the message.
But to the log.
Access Event: 13.91
Mesh node: internal
Initiator: [blank]
Archive segment: filtered replay
Message fragment: viewed
Auth trace: unconfirmed
Operator: not her
She blinked. Once.
Did not lean forward.
Someone had seen the message.
The one she’d hidden.
But not through her key.
Not with CISO protocol.
Something more primitive.
Or more intimate.
The screen offered no further detail. The event timestamp was exact. But the image log had degraded. Compressed by a local filter. Possibly overwritten.
Possibly deliberately.
She closed the screen.
Didn’t lock it.
Instead, crossed the room and stood by the window.
Caleront lay quiet beneath.
The moons were slightly out of alignment.
That always happened when the mesh desynced.
Only by a few microns—but she noticed.
Her own reflection stood against the glass.
Except—
for a fraction of a second—
she could have sworn there were two.