Related Cases (6)
Related Novels (3)
Related Chapters (4)
The Altered File
Words: 2987 · Source Novel:: Ghosts in the Code
Victor Morgan, vice president of Erebus Industries, is summoned to an emergency board meeting. On a colossal screen, his digital personnel file flickers to life, now containing a fabricated criminal record for embezzlement and a psych evaluation diagnosing him with violent tendencies. His access to every system is revoked in real time, and he is escorted out of the obsidian tower. Simultaneously, a packet of information is delivered to his rival, Julian Green, containing Morgan's private medical data and a suggestion for a subtle, untraceable neurotoxin. Morgan begins to realize that in this world, a person is not a body but a line of code, and his has been rewritten.
The Mirror's Edge
Words: 3245 · Source Novel:: Shadow Trust
Elias takes full control of the prison, but his victory is hollow. Federal investigators dig deeper, and Rourke confesses under pressure. Elias learns Caleb survived and vanished. Meanwhile, Caleb—now Morgan Hale—returns to Ironhollow disguised as a freelance journalist investigating prison corruption. He interviews detainees and guards, slowly assembling evidence against Elias. But he struggles with his new identity: he feels no grief for Caleb Vance, only cold detachment. He realizes that the man who trusted Elias died years ago; the riot merely buried the corpse. His quest is not revenge, but completion—to erase even the memory of his former self.
The Night of Ashes
Words: 3260 · Source Novel:: Shadow Trust
The riot erupts on a winter night. Three guards are killed, and Caleb is found unconscious in the admin wing, a shiv planted beside him. Elias calls the press, framing Caleb as the architect of chaos. But Caleb wakes in the hospital to find a note from an unknown source—his own handwriting from a month ago, reading: "If you're reading this, I am already dead. Trust no one." He realizes he predicted this trap but left himself a way out: a fake identity he created years ago under the name "Morgan Hale," with a bank account and a safe house. He slips out of the hospital, leaving his old life behind—and letting Elias believe he succeeded.
Ashes of a Valentine
Words: 2147 · Source Novel:: Deadly Valentine
Ellis Morgan, a sharp but emotionally guarded claims adjuster for Apex Indemnity, examines the gutted remains of Cedar Ridge. The official report blames ThermoTech Builders’ negligence, but Ellis discovers a heat-fused plastic sleeve containing a typed sonnet: “For Dominic, whose heart was a liar.” The poem’s obsessive language doesn’t fit a simple accident. She photographs the evidence before the police dismiss it as scrap. That night, her anonymous database search returns three other unsolved fire deaths where similar love-themed condemnations were found. A pattern emerges: all victims had documented infidelities. When her own apartment is broken into and the poem is stolen, Ellis realizes the killer is watching—and has just added her to the investigation’s next page.