The security footage from the bodega across from Dmitri's shop was grainy, compressed, the kind of quality that made identification nearly impossible. But identification wasn't what I needed.
I needed methodology.
The Memory Palace pulled the footage apart frame by frame, cataloging details that conscious observation would have missed. Three men. Military bearing — not the swagger of street-level muscle, but the particular stillness of professionals who didn't need to prove anything. They moved in formation without appearing to, each covering angles the others couldn't see.
Entry time: 3:12 AM. Exit time: 3:47 AM.
The coincidence of the timestamp hit like a physical blow. 3:47. Same time I'd arrived in this body. Same time the watch always stopped. The universe was either sending messages or laughing at me.
"Professional extraction," Vex observed from the windowsill of the safe house I'd relocated to — a rented room in Sunset Park, paid cash, no documentation. "They knew exactly what they were doing. Thirty-five minutes for a complete interrogation and cleanup."
"Not interrogation. Questioning." The distinction mattered. "If they wanted to hurt him, they'd have taken longer. This was information gathering. Efficient. Clinical."
"You recognize the methodology?"
"I recognize who uses it." The Memory Palace churned through associations, connecting patterns I'd been avoiding since Dmitri went dark. Moran. Sebastian Moran, Jamie Moriarty's most trusted lieutenant, the man who'd been hunting threats to her organization for longer than I'd been alive in either body.
The conclusion was inescapable. The man I'd been warned about in the meta-knowledge — the professional killer who served as Jamie's right hand — was in New York. And he was hunting someone using her name.
Me.
I sat down on the rented bed, the springs groaning under my weight. The room smelled like dust and old cigarettes, the particular staleness of spaces that saw too many temporary occupants. Not home. Not safe. Just... somewhere to think.
"Sebastian Moran," I said out loud, testing the weight of the name. "Former British Army colonel. Served in Afghanistan before being recruited by Jamie Moriarty. Specializes in hunting people who threaten her interests."
"You know him?"
"I know of him. Enough to understand what I'm dealing with."
"And what is that?"
"Someone I can't beat. Not directly. Not through force or surveillance or clever positioning." I pulled the watch from my pocket, its hands frozen at 3:47. "He's had decades to become what he is. I've had weeks."
Vex hopped down from the windowsill, her green eyes catching the dim light filtering through the grimy window. "Then what do you do?"
"I don't try to beat him. I try to convince him I'm not worth beating." The logic was forming as I spoke, the Memory Palace organizing possibilities faster than my conscious mind could track. "Moran doesn't act on his own authority. He serves Jamie. Everything he does is in her interests."
"So?"
"So I need to present myself as useful to those interests. Not a threat to eliminate, but a resource to acquire." I stood up, pacing the small room. "I've been using her name. That's why he's hunting me. But if I can demonstrate that using her name benefits her network — that I'm extending her influence rather than diluting it — he might decide elimination isn't worth the effort."
"That's a lot of 'mights.'"
"It's all I have."
The watch ticked once in my hand — a single beat that shouldn't have been possible given its frozen state — then went silent again. More mysteries. More questions I couldn't answer.
I pushed them aside and focused on the immediate problem. Moran had the advantage: superior resources, superior training, superior intelligence network. I had exactly one thing he didn't: knowledge of problems affecting Jamie's NYC operations that I could solve.
The gang conflict Konstantin had mentioned. Two crews fighting over territory, drawing police attention to spaces Jamie's supply lines needed quiet. If I could resolve that — quickly, cleanly, without violence that invited investigation — I'd have proof of value.
"I need to find out which gangs are causing problems for Moriarty's network," I said. "Local level. The kind of thing that would be handled by someone like me if Jamie had local representation."
"You want to do Moran's job for him."
"I want to show him I can do his job better. At least in this space." I pulled out my phone and scrolled through the contacts I'd accumulated over seven weeks of fixer work. "There's a broker who handles territory for half of Brooklyn. He'll know which crews are making noise."
"And then?"
"Then I request a meeting with Moran. On my terms, in a space I control, with intelligence that proves I'm worth talking to instead of killing."
Vex was silent for a long moment. When she spoke again, her voice carried that ancient weight I'd learned to recognize — millennia of observation, of watching humans make choices that determined whether they lived or died.
"You're gambling everything on your ability to read someone you've never met."
"I'm gambling on my understanding of how Jamie Moriarty's organization works. Moran is loyal to her. If I threaten her interests, he eliminates me. If I serve her interests, he tolerates me. There's no middle ground." I pocketed the phone. "The only question is whether I can prove my value before he decides I'm not worth the risk."
"And if you can't?"
I didn't answer. Some questions didn't need responses.
---
The message went out at midnight. A single text to a contact who might or might not be connected to Moran's network: I know you're looking for the person using Moriarty's name. That's me. I have information about the Delacruz-Santos conflict that would interest your principal. Request face-to-face. I'll come to you.
I didn't expect a quick response. Moran would verify the message, assess the risk, calculate whether meeting me was worth the exposure.
The response came in six minutes: Red Hook. Warehouse 17. Tomorrow, 9 PM. Come alone.
The speed of the reply told me everything I needed to know about how seriously Moran was taking this. He'd been waiting for me to surface. The hunter had been patient, but he'd also been prepared.
I had twenty-one hours to solve a gang conflict that had been festering for months.
The clock was running.
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