Chapter 2: The Serpent Broker
Every secret has a seller.And every seller has something they fear more than death—Exposure.
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Marrakesh – Midnight Market District – 1:33 AM
The souk was alive, even in the early hours—neon shimmered off humid brick walls, spices clung to the air, and undercurrents of weapons trade and data-for-cash deals swam through the alleyways like heat-hardened ghosts.
Alex Virell walked through it like he belonged—hood up, face shadowed, steps casual. But his mind was a sharpened blade.
He wasn't here to buy.
He was here to retrieve.
Specifically: stolen Dominion tech.
Someone had taken fragments from the Virell Vault—tech that should've died in the fire—and sold them on the black network. That tech had just resurfaced in the hands of a rogue micronation, weeks away from deploying it.
The seller was known only as: The Serpent.
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Alex met the contact—Nalin—at a rooftop bar above the spice district. Nalin was nervous, twitchy, and too thin for a man running encrypted routes between warlords.
"You know who he is?" Alex asked, sipping water.
"No one knows who he is," Nalin muttered. "Some say ex-KGB. Others think he's not real."
"Then how do I talk to a ghost?"
Nalin slid over a jade coin with a cobra etched in gold.
"Drop this at Gate 77 before dawn. He'll come to you."
Alex held the coin to the moonlight.
"Gate 77 it is."
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3:12 AM – Gate 77 – Industrial District
It wasn't really a gate.It was a blast door under a burned-out textile factory.
Alex dropped the coin into a rusted box.
Silence.
Then the ground shuddered.
An underground hatch hissed open.
A man stood beyond it.
Tall. Wrinkled. Dressed in loose ceremonial robes with tactical boots beneath.
The Serpent.
"Alex Virell," he said, voice old but sharp. "You have your mother's precision. Your father's arrogance."
"And you have my family's blood on your hands," Alex said flatly.
The Serpent smiled.
"Good. Let's talk like men who understand what power costs."
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Inside the Underground Chamber
The walls were lined with obsolete servers, prototype drones, AI-enhanced microchips, and glowing blueprints projected onto curved screens.
Dominion code flickered along one wall—looping lines of Virell cipher turned into weapons-grade firmware.
Alex stared at it.
"You sold this?"
"Not all," The Serpent replied. "Just enough to light a fire and watch who runs toward the smoke."
Alex turned to him.
"You baited world powers."
"No," the Serpent said calmly.
"I baited you."
He tapped a console. A hologram of Alaric Morn appeared—former spymaster, presumed dead, and now very much alive.
"Your father didn't die because of rebellion," the Serpent said.
"He died because he tried to bury Morn. And now Morn wants you. Both of you."
Alex clenched his fists.
"Morn has no right to that legacy."
"Neither do you," the Serpent said quietly. "You haven't earned it yet."
He stepped forward.
"But I'll make you a deal."
Alex raised a brow.
"You have nothing I want."
"Oh, but I do," he said, reaching into a case.
He pulled out a drive sealed in titanium and placed it between them.
"Everything Morn has planned. Communications. Black site locations. AI prototypes. Even the names of your traitors."
"What's the price?" Alex asked.
The Serpent leaned in.
"I want Lia.Brought to me. Alive.And I'll tell you why your mother ran from Ardent."
Standoff
Alex didn't move for a long moment.
Then he smiled faintly.
"I'm not for sale. And neither is my sister."
He turned—walked three steps.
The Serpent raised a remote.
"You won't make it out alive."
Alex didn't turn around.
"I already did."
He dropped a disc.
EMP pulse.
The entire chamber flickered and went dark.
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Aboveground – Rooftop Extraction Point
Alex climbed out of a side tunnel just as a black drone picked him up.Inside, Mira handed him a dry towel.
"Get it?" she asked.
He pulled a second drive from his sleeve—not the one the Serpent gave, but the one he stole during the blackout.
Backup Dominion schematics.And a list of upcoming Ardent Council gatherings.
"Yep," Alex said.
"And a list of people who just became very killable."