The Cypher’s approach triggered the opening of the Orun Gate. A swirl of light and a vortex of energy, it carved a hole into the space-time fabric of the universe, creating a window to another side of the universe. Stacia nodded, and Dina steered the ship into the wormhole’s event horizon just as the missiles struck. The explosions shuddered the Cypher. Sparks erupted from consoles. The main cabin lights darkened. Emergency lights flicked on, illuminated the doors and walkways. All about them, bulkheads slammed into place, cordoning off the decks in preparations for breaches. The detonation destabilized the event window of the Orun Gate. The cosmic maw simply collapsed.

All signals within the gate, including the Cypher’s, ceased.

25 ISHANT SANGSUWANGUL
The Citadel

“They’re good. Oh, they’re real good.” Mumbling to himself, Ishant half snorted at a joke only he heard and redoubled his efforts. Various nodes ran through the bulkheads of every structure in Muungano. The nodes were like nerve clusters, the systems mimicking biological nodules. Peeling back a layer of his bioplastic arm, he had plugged into an AI node. From there, he ran his encryption protocols. “I got you now.”

No matter what Maulana said, Ishant knew he hadn’t been tracked. He couldn’t tell Amachi how he knew. The Dreaming City used one level of encryption protocols. The Niyabinghi and the HOVA used another. Ishant had designed the next generation. No one else had it. That was the basis of his fellowship. Hakeem Buhari had always been a hero of his.

Ishant backed out of the junction nook. Drawing his cloak about him, he clung to the shadows, tracking the quarry he couldn’t identify. This would serve as his command post. The spy had to still be here on Oyigiyigi. Ishant tracked the comings and goings of all ship traffic. And their cargo. And the passengers. One figure and their cargo moved about the station like a duppy among shadows.

Basically, he tracked an absence.

If fifty people disembarked from a ship from the Dreaming City, but only forty-nine were on the manifest, his data ghost was present. Whoever they were, they were good. Moving in crowds, hiding in plain sight. Then came the other complicating factor: Whatever phantom ripples they left in their passing—unaccounted for manifests, gen-ident sigils, and so on—were being systematically erased. As if a digital encryption worm followed them. Ishant had designed similar things that allowed him and Jaha to arrange clandestine meetings off the books, but the sophistication of this one was still intelligence-grade.