He carefully untangled himself from her limbs, making sure not to wake her.
He grabbed a pair of sweatpants from the floor, pulled them on, and walked out into the dark living room.
He opened his laptop. The screen flared, casting a harsh, pale blue light across his face.
He bypassed the standard internet, loading the encrypted Onion routing protocol. The dark web terminal materialized on his screen, a brutalist wall of jagged green text against absolute black.
He opened the secure messaging board.
A single, encrypted notification blinked at the top of the screen.
The mercenaries had answered.
The text on the screen was sterile, devoid of any punctuation or formatting.
Request acknowledged. Parameter verified. Meeting required to establish terms of engagement. Neutral ground. Coordinates attached. Tomorrow, 1400 hours. Come alone.
A string of encrypted GPS coordinates followed, along with a secondary burner protocol for communication.
