Chapter 2: Becoming Vance

My secure base of operations—a sterile, unmarked penthouse overlooking the harbor—was designed for exactly this: metamorphosis. The moment I locked the door behind me, the weapon known by no name shed its skin and began the exhaustive, demanding process of becoming Elias Vance.

I laid the Thorne Corp file open on the minimalist steel table. My own data, the digital life I was about to inhabit, was projected onto the wall. Every detail, every inconsistency, had to be ironed out until the fabricated history was more solid than reality. The Syndicate’s process was ruthless and flawless. Elias Vance wasn't just a fake name; he was a meticulously engineered ghost with a seven-year professional trajectory.

Birthplace: Seattle.

Education: Unnamed, but prestigious, degrees in Cybersecurity and Global Corporate Governance.

Career: A string of high-profile, successful, short-term contracts. The pattern established: He cleans up messes nobody else can, demands a king's ransom, and disappears. Elusive. Exclusive. Perfect.

The beauty of the disguise was that it was built on my real skills. I am a world-class security expert. My knowledge of hacking, defense protocols, and corporate infrastructure is unparalleled. I just usually deploy those skills with malicious intent. Elias Vance was merely the moral reflection of my true abilities.

I spent the next forty-eight hours submerged in the details of the persona. I didn't sleep. I didn't eat. I simply absorbed. I learned to speak with the subtle, clipped accent of old Seattle money. I chose the right tailor, the perfect watch, the specific brand of expensive, obscure whiskey that Elias Vance would occasionally drink. Every gesture, every calculated silence, was practiced until it was muscle memory.

In one file, there was a photograph of Julian Thorne. It was a high-resolution headshot from a recent Forbes article, taken moments before a public speaking engagement. He was wearing a dark suit, impeccably cut. His hair was midnight black, swept back, revealing a high, intelligent forehead. But it was his eyes that caught me—a startling, clear grey, framed by the hint of exhaustion. They held the aloof, guarded look of someone perpetually waiting for a crisis. They were beautiful. And profoundly isolated.

I stared at the image for a long moment, a flicker of something unwelcome trying to surface in my chest. Isolation. It was the only thing I truly understood, the only constant of my existence. I was built in isolation, and my work depended on finding and exploiting it in others.

Exploit his loneliness, The Director’s voice echoed in my head. He trusts too easily when he believes he is alone.

I dismissed the thought immediately. This was merely an observation, a data point. Julian Thorne was a target, not a kindred spirit.

My internal clock, governed by years of discipline, told me it was time to move from digital construction to physical preparation. I walked over to the adjacent room, which served as my armory and closet. I selected the clothing for the first few weeks—expensive, neutral, designed to blend into the executive landscape without drawing attention. Authority, not flash.

Then, I looked at my hands. They were weapons—trained for intricate disassembly, whether of a server or a man’s throat. But they also needed to look like the hands of a high-level consultant. I spent an hour practicing the elegant, relaxed posture of a man who commands deference rather than demands it. I worked on my handshake—firm, quick, professional, leaving no lingering warmth.

As I dressed in the thousand-dollar suit that was now my uniform, I caught my own reflection. Elias Vance. He looked competent, confident, and utterly impenetrable. A man with nothing to hide because he had perfected the art of hiding everything.

I picked up the burner phone—the only device that would ever connect me back to The Syndicate. I sent the single, coded message: Ready.

Less than a minute later, the reply flashed: The interview is tomorrow at 0900. Do not fail.

Failure was not an option. It wasn't just a dismissal; it was erasure. The Syndicate never allowed its failed assets to retire; they simply disappeared. I knew the stakes intimately. My brother, Marcus, had tried to walk away five years ago. I hadn't seen him since, but the memory of the sheer, panicked desperation in his last call was a cold lesson I carried with me.

I checked my briefcase. Inside, nestled beneath innocuous security proposals and financial audits, was the customized data stick. It was the key to the first phase of the plan: a rootkit designed to plant deep into Thorne Corp's network during my initial security assessment, creating a silent conduit for data siphoning. I ran through the insertion protocol one last time, timing the sequence down to the millisecond.

The man in the mirror smiled slightly—the practiced, reassuring smile of an expensive consultant. It didn't reach my eyes.

Julian Thorne, I thought, as I picked up my briefcase. I’m coming for you.