Someone was sitting in his seat.
William stopped at the café entrance, the morning crowd flowing around him as he processed the anomaly. His regular table—corner position, sightlines to both exits, close to the service corridor—occupied by a woman he'd never seen before.
She had short dark hair, sharp features, a laptop open in front of her. Her coffee was half-finished. She'd been here a while.
"That's my table. She knows it's my table."
The realization crystallized as he approached. This wasn't coincidence. This was contact.
"I think you're in my seat."
The woman looked up with a smile that didn't reach her eyes.
"Mr. Green. Please, join me."
She knew his name. She'd ordered his usual coffee—William could see it sitting across from her, still steaming. She'd been waiting.
[SYSTEM SCAN: ACTIVE]
[SCANNING...]
[RESULT: UNKNOWN — Data insufficient]
[WARNING: Target data unavailable. Exercise caution.]
The scan failed. First time since Copenhagen that someone had returned nothing—no threat rating, no capability assessment, no psychological profile. Either she was genuinely unknown to whatever database the system accessed, or something was blocking the read.
William sat down anyway. Running would confirm he had something to hide.
"You have me at a disadvantage. You know my name, my coffee order, my table. And I don't know you."
"Olivia Grant." She extended her hand. "Freelance journalist. I'm investigating irregularities in the defense contractor sector."
The handshake was firm, professional, revealing nothing. William catalogued what he could: European accent with American undertones, expensive watch on a journalist's budget, posture that suggested training more rigorous than media school.
"That sounds fascinating and completely outside my area of expertise."
"Does it?" She tilted her head, studying him. "You attended the Sanguine fashion show last month. The one where Viktor Novikov had that unfortunate accident."
"She knows about Paris."
"I attend a lot of events. Networking is part of the job."
"Of course. Security consulting must involve extensive networking." Her smile sharpened. "Tell me, Mr. Green—do you often network at events that end with prominent figures dying under mysterious circumstances?"
William's Manipulation stat kicked in—he deployed the consultant mask, deflecting with practiced ease.
"Novikov's death was ruled an accident. Tragic, certainly, but hardly mysterious."
"The chandelier, yes. But there was another death that night. A security guard named Eric Fournier. Suppressed pistol, professional methodology. Not an accident."
His pulse spiked. He controlled it—deep breath masked as a sip of coffee—but she noticed. Her eyes tracked the motion of his hands.
[WARNING: Subject reading user microexpressions]
[ASSESSMENT: High-level social perception capability detected]
"I read about that. Terrible business." William set down the coffee. "Why would a journalist be interested in a security guard's death?"
"Because it doesn't fit the official narrative. The ICA—you know what that is?"
"I've heard the name."
"They attributed the main event to one of their assets. But the guard's death was different. Different methodology, different timing. Almost like there was a second contractor working the same venue."
"She's tracking the same pattern Diana Burnwood flagged. She knows about UNKNOWN-7, or at least the outline of it."
"Sounds like conspiracy theory territory."
"Does it?" Olivia leaned forward slightly—close enough that William could see the flecks of amber in her brown eyes. "You were at that venue, Mr. Green. You have a background in security consulting that appeared out of nowhere two months ago. You've been asking questions about ICA operations through channels that don't usually attract consultant attention."
Every word was a scalpel, cutting closer to the truth.
William tried charm—the warm smile that had worked on Torres, on Marguerite Delacroix, on a dozen marks across Amsterdam and Paris.
"Miss Grant, I think you may be overcomplicating things. I'm a consultant. I go to events. I talk to people in my industry. That's not espionage—it's business."
She didn't flinch. If anything, her smile grew more predatory.
"Of course. Just business." She slid a business card across the table. "If you remember anything about that night—anything unusual—I'd love to hear about it."
The card was cheap stock, laser-printed, no watermark. The name "Olivia Grant" and a phone number. A ghost's calling card.
William pocketed it without looking.
"I'll keep that in mind."
Olivia closed her laptop and stood.
"I'm sure you will, Mr. Green. You seem like someone who keeps a lot of things in mind."
She left the café without looking back. William sat with his cold coffee and the weight of being truly seen for the first time since arriving in this world.
"She saw through the deflections. She read me like a book."
[OBSERVATION: Subject demonstrated resistance to manipulation beyond user current capability]
[ASSESSMENT: Olivia Grant is not a journalist. True identity and affiliation unknown.]
[RECOMMENDATION: Counter-investigation required]
The coffee was lukewarm now. William drank it anyway, needing the caffeine hit while he processed what had just happened.
She'd ordered his usual before he arrived. That meant surveillance—extended, careful, the kind of work that required resources beyond freelance journalism budgets.
The phone number on her card. He could call it, try to trace it, dig into whoever "Olivia Grant" actually was.
William pulled out his burner phone and dialed.
Three rings. Then her voicemail—cheerful, generic, telling him to leave a message.
He hung up.
"She's a ghost. And ghosts don't hunt other ghosts without reason."
[QUERY: User intentions regarding Olivia Grant investigation?]
"Find out who she really is before she finds out who I really am."
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