Veins of the Machine
The operations room was quiet, wrapped in the stillness only early morning brings. No one spoke. The monitors hummed, lights buzzed softly—background noise fused into their bones. But the air had shifted—no longer tense, but sharp, like the moment before a scalpel cuts.
Miguel stood by the board, paper in one hand, red pushpin in the other. Without blinking, he pressed the name—Victor Leal—into the web of red string, photos, and scribbled notes.
The pin clicked into place.
By the whiteboard, Emily watched him. She'd been tracking him since before dawn—his quiet, his movement. The fatigue had deepened into something heavier: resignation, like winter settling in.
Across the room, Ramos hunched over old personnel files. No coffee. No breaks. Just muscle memory. His pen moved steadily, pulling names from timelines, checking reports—panic, defiance, sudden transfers.
"Ten years back," Ramos muttered, mostly to himself. "Same program. Different cities. All flagged under the same guy."
Miguel didn't even need to ask. "Leal?"
Ramos nodded, eyes still on the page. "Every one of them."
The silence pressed closer.
Emily moved to his desk, scanning the first file. "These are mentorship evaluations. Why are psychological notes filed here?"
Ramos didn't look up. "Because they weren't mentors. Not really. They were screens."
Miguel turned slightly, just enough to meet her eyes. "And screens are designed to catch what the system doesn't want to see."
Emily's jaw set. "So these kids—"
"—weren't missed," Ramos said quietly. "They were sorted."
No one spoke for a beat. Then Miguel stepped back from the board. Victor Leal wasn't just a name now. He was the point where everything else spiraled. A center. A cover.
Miguel looked at them—first Emily, then Ramos—not with command, but clarity. "We're not chasing connections anymore. We're chasing intention. This wasn't disorder."
Emily's voice was soft. "It was designed."
Miguel nodded once.
Outside, pale sunlight crept through the blinds. Inside, the silence lingered—not from confusion, but from people who finally knew where to start digging.
***
Emily's fingers hovered over the keyboard, eyes narrowing at a flagged memo buried in the backlog. Misfiled under a personnel eval—forgotten, or hidden.
She opened it.
Program: Corrective Rehabilitation – Tier 3
Supervisor: Leal, Victor A.
Subject: Unstable Recruits – Risk Category Red
Her breath caught. The document was brief—clinical wording, neatly packaged bureaucracy—but the weight behind it was staggering. In the margins, three names jumped out. Confirmed victims. All once labeled unstable. All had passed through Leal's hands.
Emily stood. "Miguel."
He looked up from the table, where a web of photos, strings, and notes sprawled like a crime scene. A pen was tucked behind his ear.
She crossed the room, dropped the printout in front of him. "He wasn't just recruiting. He ran a program—Corrective Rehabilitation. It wasn't outreach. It was containment. Every victim we've ID'd came through it."
YOU ARE READING
The Puppeteer's Game
Mystery / ThrillerA killer leaves clues no one understands-except the detective chasing him. In a city haunted by ritual murders, Detective Miguel Sanchez is locked in a deadly game with a mastermind who always seems one step ahead. But as the case spirals, and secre...
