Leon Kennedy

Chapter XXXIII

The briefing room felt colder than usual.

Leon noticed it the moment the doors sealed shut behind him—the faint drop in temperature, the way the air seemed too still, filtered too clean. The kind of room designed to hold secrets without letting them breathe. Dim overhead lights cast muted reflections across polished floors, while the walls glowed with restrained intelligence displays: maps without labels, data without names, threats reduced to shapes and motion.

Hunnigan stood at the central console, posture immaculate, tablet cradled in one hand. She didn't look up as Leon approached. She never needed to. "Good morning," she said calmly.

Leon took his place across from her, arms folding loosely over his chest. "That depends," he replied.

That earned him a brief glance—sharp, assessing. A corner of her mouth twitched, not quite a smile. "Fair enough," she said. Then, with a flick of her wrist, the screens came alive.

A cityscape appeared first. Anonymous. Industrial. Gray blocks stacked against one another like forgotten bones. The image zoomed inward, narrowing until a single structure dominated the display. Concrete. Glass. No signage.

"This facility operates under the name Helix Pointe," Hunnigan began. "Publicly, it's registered as a biomedical analytics firm specializing in predictive modeling and data synthesis."

Leon tilted his head slightly. "That's a lot of words for a building that doesn't want attention."

"Correct," Hunnigan replied. "Helix Pointe doesn't publish research. It doesn't court investors. And it doesn't advertise." The image shifted—blueprints now, layered schematics peeling back walls, floors, underground levels. "It exists to collect," she continued. "Not biological samples. Information."

Leon's gaze tracked the schematics—instinctively. Entry points. Blind spots. Too many redundancies. "What kind?" he asked.

Hunnigan tapped the tablet. A new title appeared on the central screen.

THE SILENT LEDGER

Leon felt it settle into him before the words finished rendering. Not fear—never fear—but recognition. The kind that didn't ask permission. The kind that reached back into every mission he'd ever survived and quietly reminded him how patterns worked.

He didn't move. Didn't blink.

"The Silent Ledger is a privately maintained intelligence archive," Hunnigan began, her voice even, professional. "It's been compiling for years—off the grid, no formal ownership, no nation-state signature."

Leon shifted his weight slightly, eyes locked on the screen. "So it's not stolen intel."

"No," she replied. "It's observed."

The display changed. Lines appeared. Nodes. Timelines layered over one another like translucent skin.

"Movement logs," Hunnigan continued. "Communication metadata. Financial irregularities. Travel patterns. Academic records. Psychological profiles."

Leon stepped closer to the table, resting one hand against its edge. He studied the projections—not as data, but as behavior.

"That's not intelligence," he said quietly. "That's leverage."

Hunnigan didn't correct him. She didn't need to. "Yes." She replied.

The screen fractured into a wider schematic. A web—alive, sprawling, intersecting. Faces dissolved into dots. Names collapsed into alphanumeric identifiers. Relationships reduced to distance and frequency.

Leon exhaled slowly through his nose.

"The Ledger doesn't just identify operatives," Hunnigan said. "It predicts them. Anticipates behavior. It highlights vulnerabilities before the subject even realizes they exist."

Leon's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. "Meaning?" he asked.

Hunnigan paused—not long enough to be hesitation, just long enough to choose precision over comfort. "Meaning it can tell you who someone loves," she said. "What they protect. What they'd break for. And how to apply pressure until they do."