Somewhere beyond the borders of the country hosting the OOTP facility — beyond its surveillance systems, beyond the reach of anything the Director or his officials monitored — a different building existed.
It didn't announce itself.
No signage. No visible security. Just a massive structure of black and grey sitting alone against a grey sky, the kind of building that looks like it was designed to be ignored by anyone passing it. Cold in the way that deliberate things are cold. Silent in the way that prepared things are silent.
Inside, a meeting room occupied the upper floor — spacious, dimly lit, decorated with the specific precision of people who have money and want you to understand that the money is not the point. At the center of the room, a large screen displayed a single image.
A symbol.
A warrior locked in combat with a serpent — neither winning, neither yielding, the struggle captured at its most absolute moment.
The people in the room sat in silence and looked at it.
Then a voice broke the quiet.
"Any new information regarding the OOTP?"
Another voice — calm, unhurried — responded from across the table.
"Not yet. But we're about to receive a briefing."
As if on cue, the screen flickered. The symbol disappeared. Static bloomed across the display for a brief moment — and then it stabilized into a feed.
Two figures appeared.
One stood slightly back, partially swallowed by the dimness of wherever the transmission was originating from — cloaked, face hidden, only the general shape of a person visible. Beside him, clearer, standing with the particular ease of someone comfortable being seen:
Mendes.
The cloaked figure's head tilted slightly toward the camera.
"Good day… everyone." His voice was smooth. Controlled. The voice of someone who has learned that the quieter you speak, the more carefully people listen. "I trust you are all well."
"We are," one of the room's voices replied. A brief pause. "Though I hope your group hasn't been discovered."
Mendes stepped forward slightly, just enough to make his presence felt. "Timor is not some amateur shadow organization." There was no defensiveness in it — just the flat certainty of someone stating a fact they've never had reason to doubt. "We operate with precision. No carelessness." The corner of his mouth moved. "We learned from the best."
"Enough."
The word came from the far end of the room.
Heavy. Absolute. The kind of voice that doesn't need volume because it already occupies the space before the words arrive.
Every head turned.
The Founder sat at the head of the table — partially obscured by shadow, the specific kind of shadow that powerful people seem to carry with them rather than simply occupy. He hadn't moved. He didn't need to. The room had already reorganized itself around his attention.
"Report."
The cloaked figure on the screen straightened. A brief pause — the pause of someone gathering their words, making sure they're right before committing to them.
Then he spoke.
"…Vesper."
The moment the name left his lips — silence.
Not ordinary silence. The specific silence of something going wrong in real time, the kind that spreads through a room before anyone has consciously registered what happened.
Mendes' eyes flickered — just once, just briefly. His expression gave nothing else away but behind his eyes something moved.
(So that's his real name.)
The cloaked figure on the screen went very still.
One second. Two.
Then — a low sound emerged from him. Not quite a laugh. The sound of someone who has found the situation more interesting than alarming, which was somehow more unsettling than alarm would have been.
"…I see."
His head tilted — slow, deliberate.
"Careless." His voice dropped a register, and the single word carried more weight than a sentence would have. "Let that be the last time my name is spoken that freely."
Nobody responded.
Even the Founder — who responded to everything — remained silent for a long moment. He simply looked at the screen with the particular attention of someone cataloguing information rather than reacting to it.
Then Vesper straightened. The stillness settled back over him like a coat being adjusted — composure reclaimed, the brief crack sealed over so thoroughly it was almost possible to believe it hadn't happened.
"As I was saying." His voice was smooth again. Controlled again. "Following the success of the system breach, we have successfully introduced structural instability into the OOTP. Their preliminary stage has already been altered as a result." He paused — letting the room receive that before he continued. "Originally, seventy candidates were meant to advance to the next stage. Now — only sixty."
A murmur moved through the room. Quiet but present.
The Founder leaned forward slightly. The movement was small but it changed the energy of the room immediately — the specific shift that happens when the most powerful person in a space decides to engage rather than observe.
"…All from a single breach?"
A slow smile formed in the shadows.
"Interesting."
Then his tone shifted — sharper, more deliberate.
"That boy." He let the words sit for a moment. "The one you used." A pause. "What was his name again?"
Mendes answered without hesitation. "…Farouk."
"Yes." The Founder's voice lowered. "How did he obtain the data chip? And more importantly—" He held the pause. "—will he become a problem?"
A brief silence on the screen's end.
Then Vesper smiled — and there was something in the smile that made the word reassurance feel like an inadequate description for it.
"He won't. I can assure you." He raised his hand slowly — fingers forming a precise symbol, deliberate and practiced. "The information he accessed was never enough to expose us. Everything he knows leads nowhere we don't control." His voice settled into something that carried the weight of complete conviction. "For everything we do…"
"…is for the glory of—"
VINCERE.
The Founder mirrored the gesture without hesitation. The word had barely finished landing before his hand was already moving.
"Good." His voice carried the specific satisfaction of someone whose expectations have been met exactly. "Continue as planned. Remain cautious." He settled back slightly — and then, almost as an afterthought, the way powerful people produce their most significant statements: "Ah. Before I forget."
The room shifted.
"You should prepare yourselves." A faint grin formed in the shadow. "You will be receiving a gift."
Vesper's composure held but something moved beneath it — curiosity, carefully managed. "A… gift?"
The Founder chuckled softly. Not warmly. The chuckle of someone who finds anticipation amusing to observe.
"No need to rush. You'll see soon enough."
His gaze moved — and landed on Mendes specifically. The weight of being directly looked at by this man was visible even through a screen.
"And you." A beat. "You have a match."
Mendes met the look evenly. "Yes."
"Don't get distracted." A pause. "Win."
"…Of course."
"Dismissed."
The screen glitched once — and then went dark.
The symbol returned. The warrior. The serpent. Locked in endless conflict with no resolution visible from either side.
The room held its silence for a moment.
Then the Founder spoke — not to the screen, not to the symbol, but to the room.
"Any intel?" His voice had changed slightly — still heavy, still dominant, but carrying a different quality now. Something more personal underneath it.
A voice responded from the far side of the table. "Bert?"
The Founder's head turned toward the source.
"Not yet, sir." The voice was measured. Careful. The voice of someone delivering an answer they know isn't the one being hoped for.
The Founder absorbed it without visible reaction.
A long silence followed — the kind that has texture to it, that isn't simply the absence of sound but the presence of thought.
Then — slowly — he stood.
He faced the screen. The symbol. The warrior mid-battle with the serpent, frozen at the moment of maximum conflict.
When he spoke, his voice had dropped into something that didn't belong in a meeting room. Something older than strategy. Something that had been carried a long time and hadn't gotten lighter for it.
"…Soon."
A pause that breathed.
"Very soon."
His eyes stayed on the screen — on the symbol, on the warrior — as if seeing something in it that wasn't visible to anyone else in the room.
"I will have my revenge."
The words came out quiet. Not as a declaration. As a promise made to someone who wasn't in the room.
"…Through your son…"
A pause.
"…Endric."
The name landed in the room like something dropped from a height — and the silence that followed it was complete.
Then — a laugh. Low and dark and entirely private, the laugh of someone who has been waiting for something long enough that the waiting has become part of who they are.
It echoed through the room long after the sound itself had stopped.