LOG 05 — Yong Tin Kei Enters

Time: 03:30
Location: Old City CID Command Room

03:30.

When I walked into the room, no one was speaking.

Not because of me.

Because something already felt wrong.

Two screens.

Left—Kai Ming Imperial Court.
Right—Alexis Tech.

One silent.
One overlit.

One untouched.
One overwritten.

I didn’t greet anyone.

I walked straight in.

Scene first.

Timeline next.

Didn’t take long.

Because the two lines were never separate.

People were talking.

Too much talking.

“No ransom in the first case—”

“Second one is technical—”

“Could be different crews—”

“Could be imitation—”

I didn’t let them finish.

I asked one question:

“Before the second abduction—who was still waiting for the first ransom call?”

Silence.

Clean silence.

No one answered.

Because they all knew.

They were waiting.

I tapped the screen.

“Then it’s not sequential.”

I looked at them.

“It’s parallel.”

No one spoke after that.

“You’re waiting for their next move.”

I said.

“They’re already done.”

I aligned both timelines.

First case.

21:30 in.
21:34 gone.

Second case.

02:08 start.
02:10 finished.

No reaction gap.

“They’re not reacting to us,” I said.

“They’re operating on their own clock.”

Someone leaned forward.

“You’re saying they already—”

I nodded.

“Planned it.”

I didn’t raise my voice.

But the room felt smaller.

“Extraction.”

“Suppression.”

“Data removal.”

“Transfer.”

I looked at the screens.

“Not improvisation.”

“Not testing.”

I turned back.

“This is process.”

The air tightened.

Then the East City liaison handed me a file.

“Chang Hsin-Yan’s addendum.”

I read it.

Short.

Precise.

Target.
Value.
Extraction.
Transfer.

I didn’t comment.

Then I looked up.

At her.

First time.

Direct.

She stood across the room.

Still.

Detached.

Like she wasn’t looking at people.

Only structure.

I asked:

“Third target category?”

No hesitation.

“Transport.”

I nodded.

“Port.”

She glanced at me.

Just once.

That wasn’t conversation.

That was confirmation.

“If this is node sampling,” she said,

“real estate, cyber—”

“next is flow.”

“They’re not taking people,” I said.

“They’re taking pathways,” she answered.

Someone shifted.

Uncomfortable.

A commander spoke:

“We don’t have enough evidence for that scale of assumption.”

I looked at him.

“You want evidence.”

I pointed at the screens.

“They want time.”

Pause.

“Pick one.”

He didn’t reply.

Another voice:

“East City is advisory. Command stays here.”

I didn’t even look at him.

“This isn’t your case.”

I placed the file down.

“It’s theirs.”

No more arguments.

“Cross-district integration.”

I said.

“Now.”

“Full resource merge.”

“No layered restriction.”

“That’s not protocol—”

“Protocol has already been used.”

I looked at them.

“You want to run it again?”

Silence.

Good.

“Build the list.”

“Real estate.”

“Tech.”

“Transport.”

“Finance.”

“Energy.”

“High-value targets.”

“All of them.”

“Tonight.”

“Set alerts.”

“Any anomaly—”

I paused.

“Immediate escalation.”

The room started moving.

Then I looked at her again.

“Time window?”

“Short.”

“How short?”

“Depends when they open the transaction.”

I nodded.

“Then we force it early.”

She didn’t argue.

“They’ll sanitize,” she said.

“Then we move faster,” I answered.

That was when I knew.

She reads structure.

I read tempo.

Different.

But aligned.

That kind of alignment—

is dangerous.

And effective.

I picked up the file.

Looked at the screens.

Two cases.

Now one system.

03:52.

The phone rang.

Duty officer.

Voice changed.

“Port…”

Pause.

“We’ve got another one.”

I didn’t react.

“Say it.”

He exhaled.

“Ken Holmes.”

“Missing.”

The room went silent again.

I looked at her.

She didn’t speak.

She didn’t need to.

We both knew.

We were late.

Not slow.

Late.

And someone—

was already inside the dark.