Hell's Guardian

By the end of my first year with The Veil, I had enough evidence to implicate Stiff in more crimes than I could count. But taking him down would require more than just data—it would take a plan.

And plans, as I’d learned, had a way of going sideways.

The hardest part of taking down Stiff’s organization wasn’t slipping past their guards or keeping my cover intact. It was the waiting—the slow grind of time while Mindy and I worked to unpick the threads of a tangled web that stretched across the globe.

After months of missions and espionage, we reached a point where physical infiltration alone wasn’t enough. Stiff’s empire was more than guns and operatives; it was a digital fortress. Databases, financial records, and encrypted communications held the real evidence of his crimes. To bring him down, we needed to tear it apart from the inside.

But getting access wasn’t easy.

“Clarke, their system’s a beast,” Mindy had said one night over our encrypted channel. Her voice, calm but tinged with frustration, carried through my earpiece as I stared at the cold steel walls of the base’s operations room. “They’ve got layers of firewalls, rotating encryption keys, and a security AI that’s practically sentient.”

To think Stiff had his own AI. Nothing as advanced as M, of course, but something that was going to still give us some trouble nevertheless.

M had confirmed it. Mindy now was confirming it.

Seriously I was starting to suspect that there was something going on behind the scenes with Stiff.

Could he have some sponsors? But which sponsors would be able to provide him with resources like these?

“What you’re saying is, we need a back door,” I replied, finally answering Mindy after getting lost in my puzzled thoughts.

“Exactly,” she said. “And that’s where you come in. You’re already inside. If you can plug me into their internal network, I can work my magic.”

I smirked. “You mean our magic.”

She laughed softly. “Sure, hero. Let’s call it that.”

*

The first step was figuring out how to connect Mindy to their system without tripping alarms. That meant identifying a terminal with external access—a rare find in a place where paranoia was policy. Fortunately, my AI companion, M, had a knack for spotting opportunities.

“There’s a terminal in the northeast wing,” M said one morning as I loitered near the break room. “It’s isolated from the main hub, likely used for external correspondence. It’s also monitored by a security officer named Crowe. He’s on shift every third day.”

“Good to know,” I muttered, sipping a coffee that tasted like it had been brewed in engine oil.

Three days later, I made my move. Crowe was predictable, his routine as rigid as the military haircut he sported. He took his lunch break at 12:15 p.m. sharp, leaving the terminal unattended for exactly twenty minutes.

“M, keep an eye on the cameras,” I said as I approached the terminal.

“Already bypassed them,” M replied. “You have a clean window.”

I slid a small device—a custom piece of tech Mindy had provided—into the terminal’s USB port. The screen flickered briefly as the device began transmitting its payload.

“Connection established,” Mindy’s voice crackled in my ear. “Nice work, Clarke. Now get out of there before Crowe comes back.”

I didn’t need to be told twice.

From that moment on, Mindy had her foothold in Stiff’s digital empire.

“Now comes the hard part,” she said during our next briefing. “I can sift through their data, but I’ll need you to stay in place and keep feeding me access points. They’ve got redundancy protocols all over the place—if they notice me poking around, they’ll shut everything down.”

“Got it,” I said. “Just tell me where you need me.”

The next few weeks were a blur of quiet sabotage. Every mission, every opportunity, was a chance to expand Mindy’s reach. I planted devices in server rooms, rerouted cables, and occasionally “borrowed” security credentials from unsuspecting teammates.

Each success brought us closer to the heart of Stiff’s operation. Financial records exposed a network of offshore accounts used for laundering dirty money. Communications logs revealed deals with corrupt officials and rival groups. And encrypted files hinted at something even darker—projects and experiments that made my skin crawl just reading about them.

But for every door we opened, another seemed to slam shut. Stiff’s security AI, which Mindy had nicknamed “Cerberus,” was relentless.

“This thing’s learning,” she said one night, her voice tight with exhaustion. “Every time I bypass one of its protocols, it adapts. If it catches me, it’ll trace the connection back to you.”

“Mindy, if it comes to that—”

“Don’t,” she snapped. “I’m not pulling out now. We’re too close.”

*

One mission stands out from that time—a critical operation that nearly cost us everything.

The Veil had been tasked with intercepting a shipment of advanced surveillance equipment bound for a rival organization. Our orders were clear: secure the shipment and leave no witnesses.

It was the perfect opportunity to expand Mindy’s access. The equipment was state-of-the-art, and if we could install a backdoor before it reached its destination, she’d have a new vantage point.

The mission went smoothly at first. We intercepted the shipment on a remote highway, neutralizing the guards with precision. But as I worked to install the backdoor, a red light blinked on the equipment—a silent alarm.

“M,” I hissed. “What’s going on?”

“Cerberus has detected the intrusion,” M replied. “It’s attempting to isolate the signal.”

“Shut it down!”

“I’m trying,” M said, his voice unusually strained. “But it’s faster than expected.”

Panic clawed at me, but I forced it down. “Mindy, do you copy?”

“Yeah,” she said, her voice shaking. “I see it. Hold on—I’m redirecting the signal through a proxy. That should buy us some time.”

Seconds stretched into an eternity as I watched the red light flicker. Finally, it dimmed, leaving only the steady hum of the equipment.

“It worked,” M said. “For now.”

*

The aftermath of that mission was a wake-up call. Cerberus was more than a security AI—it was a predator, constantly hunting for vulnerabilities.

“Mindy, we need to be more careful,” I said during our next briefing.

“No kidding,” she replied. “But you’re not backing out, are you?”

“Not a chance.”

She sighed. “Good. Because I think I’ve found something big—a project codenamed Pandora. It’s buried deep in their system, but from what I’ve seen, it’s tied to Stiff’s endgame.”

“Endgame?”

“Whatever he’s planning, it’s huge. And if we don’t stop him, it’s going to get a lot of people killed.”

My recollection of that day ended with a sense of unease. I’d gone from infiltrating Stiff’s organization to becoming a critical part of it. Every move I made felt like walking a tightrope, with Cerberus and Stiff waiting to cut the line.

But despite the danger, I couldn’t turn back. Mindy and I were in too deep, and the stakes were too high.

Whatever Pandora was, I knew one thing for certain—it had to be stopped.