Page 128 of Villainous Rise

“Until next time, Keeper Bishop.”

CHAPTER 22

CIPHER

Son of a fucking bitch.

I stared at the holographic display, the blue light casting shadows across my workstation. The evidence was right there, unmistakable once I knew what to look for.

The shield generator and belt were disassembled before me, their components spread across my workspace in organized chaos. Most people would see nothing wrong. The Aegis’s investigators certainly hadn’t.

But I’m not most people.

There, embedded in the circuitry of both devices, was a signature I recognized all too well. A modified version of my own work. Tech I’d developed years ago and eventually sold off when I created better versions. The modifications were elegant, almost artistic in their subtlety. Someone had taken my old designs and repurposed them into something deadly.

I ran my hand through my hair, tugging slightly at the roots. This was my tech. My obsolete, discarded tech, but mine nonetheless.

The killer had modified my old resonance amplifiers to create what amounted to a remote detonator. But in the case of Supers, instead of an explosion, it triggers a catastrophic energy cascade within the victim. In Supers it would look like power burnout, a stroke, or a heart attack. For the civilian victims, it had simply led to catastrophic equipment failure.

Whoever did the modifications had a grasp of my designs that rivaled my own understanding. They’d taken my discarded resonance amplifiers and transformed them into something I never considered: a remote kill switch that mimics natural causes in Supers.

Fucking ingenious.

A part of me felt a twinge of professional jealousy. This is the kind of ruthless innovation that earned respect in the League. If I’d thought of this application first...

I shook my head, forcing myself back to reality. No. This wasn’t something to admire. Not because of the deaths, I didn’t particularly care if Alliance members were getting knocked off.

No, I cared because the execution was flawed.

I ran my finger along the edge of the circuit board, finding the microscopic fracture that would eventually cause the device to fail. That’s why I had abandoned the design in the first place. The resonance patterns became unstable after extended use, creating micro-fractures in the conductive pathways.

“Amateur,” I muttered, though I didn’t entirely mean it. “Brilliant but sloppy.”

I glanced over at Annie asleep in my bed. She was curled on her side, one hand tucked under her pillow, her breathing deep and even. After the colossal fuck up at the warehouse, I still couldn’t believe she was here.

I’d manipulated one of her darkest secrets out of her while wearing another mask, and though we’d talked through it, the hurt lingering in her eyes before she fell asleep told me she hadn’t quite forgiven me for it. Yet she still chose my bed over her apartment.

I couldn’t bear to be away from her, so I’d set up at the small workstation I kept in my bedroom at the Labyrinth. The constant visual reminder that she hadn’t walked away from me was worth sacrificing the superior equipment in my main lab.

I turned back to the components. I knew exactly how this tech worked, which meant I could trace it back to its source. And when I found whoever had been playing with my discarded toys? Well, that’s a problem for Cipher to solve, not Wraith.

I pulled up the sales records for the designs and followed the trail through all of the transactions, each supposedly designed to hide ownership but actually creating a clear breadcrumb path. The resonance amplifiers changed hands rapidly, moving from collector to tech dealer to parts specialist.

Then I hit a wall.

The last traceable transaction ended with a company called Nexus Innovations. After that, nothing. No digital footprint, no financial trail, no shipping records. Just a complete void where information should be.

I leaned back, a reluctant smile forming on my lips. Finally. Someone with half a brain.

I tried three different approaches to pierce the veil, but each one was met with sophisticated countermeasures. Whoever took possession of my designs after Nexus Innovations knew exactly what they were doing.

I switched tactics, abandoning the frontal assault for something more elegant. Instead of trying to break through their security, I slipped between the cracks, exploiting a vulnerability in their update verification system. It was a subtle approach, one that wouldn’t trigger alarms because it mimicked legitimate system behavior.

“There we go,” I whispered as their database unfolded before me. “Let’s see what you’ve been hiding.”

The answer surprised me.

Nexus Innovations never actually sold my designs. They were commissioned to modify them. The schematics were right there, detailed instructions for how to repurpose my resonance amplifiers into lethal devices.