The message sat on my screen like a live wire.
We know you woke up early.
I scrolled back through my contacts.
No saved numbers matched.
No recent calls from unknowns.
I hadn’t told anyone about the rebirth.
Not even the pharmacist.
I could ignore it.
Or I could walk into a trap and see who was stupid enough to think they could outplay me.
I chose the trap.
The ferry terminal was a skeleton of steel and glass, half-lit by emergency strips.
Rain hissed off the puddles.
A single car idled near the ticket booth, headlights cutting through the fog.
I kept my hands visible and walked slow.
The driver’s door opened.
A man stepped out….late fifties, salt-and-pepper beard, eyes like he’d seen too many bodies float in from the Sound.
He wore a windbreaker with a faded fishing logo and a holstered pistol he didn’t try to hide.
“Kael Mercer,” he said.
Not a question.
“Depends who’s asking.”
“Call me Ferryman.” He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes.
“You’re not the only one who woke up with yesterday’s memories.”
My grip tightened on the machete strap under my jacket.
“Prove it.”
He reached into his pocket and tossed something at my feet.
A keycard.
AVG blue.
Ije’s clearance level.
“I stole that from her office three days ago,” he said.
“Before any of this hit the news.
Before anyone knew Bellevue was ground zero.”
I picked it up.
The chip still had power.
Her initials were etched in the corner: I.V.
“Why tell me?” I asked.
“Because you’re going to do what I can’t.”
He glanced at the water behind him, where the outline of a ferry bobbed in the dark.
“She’s using the Safe Points to extract people.
Not to save them.
To sort them.”
“Assets and overhead,” I said.
“Exactly.” He stepped closer.
“I can get you on the islands.
Quiet.
Off the grid.
But I need you to hit a campus vault first.
There’s a drive in there with the full vector map.
Every site.
Every name.”
“And you want it.”
“I want leverage.” He tilted his head.
“You want revenge.”
I slid the keycard into my pocket.
“What makes you think I’m after her?”
His smile finally reached his eyes.
It wasn’t friendly.
“Because I watched you follow her SUV yesterday.
And because you wrote her name in a notebook before the world even knew it was ending.”
He knew too much.
I should have killed him.
Instead, I asked: “When?”
“Two nights from now,” he said.
“Bellevue campus.
Midnight.
Security rotates every fifteen minutes.
You get in, you get the drive, you get out.
I’ll have a boat waiting at Elliott Bay.”
“And if I say no?”
“Then I tell her you’re alive.” He shrugged.
“And I watch you die again.”
He got back in the car.
The engine growled.
The headlights swung toward the road.
“Think about it, Kael,” he called through the open window.
“Two weeks early.
That’s not luck.
That’s a second chance.
Don’t waste it on pride.”
The car pulled away, vanishing into the fog.
I stood in the rain, the keycard burning a hole in my pocket.
Someone else remembered.
And he knew where I’d be.
I went back to the warehouse and opened the Ledger to a fresh page.
“Ferryman,” I wrote.
“Alliance or threat?”
I underlined threat twice.
Then I added a new line: “Bellevue vault.
Midnight.
Two nights.”
I closed the notebook.
Sleep wasn’t happening.
I started cleaning the pistol.