Deep beneath Snezhnaya Capital, the low hum of the ventilation ducts provided the only background noise. The woman code-named "Nightingale" pushed a heavy cleaning cart, its rubber wheels rolling smoothly over the cold metal floor with a steady, muffled rhythm. A faint, unnoticeable smudge of grease stained her cheek, and her work uniform was slightly too large, allowing her to blend completely into the deepest veins of this iron behemoth. Only her eyes, hidden beneath the brim of her cap, were sharp as blades, scanning the cleaning robot charging docks on both sides of the corridor marked with complex serial numbers.
Signal lost.
Those four words hammered repeatedly in her mind, each strike bringing a wave of cold suffocation. The target—the rice-grain-sized bug recording the conspiracy between Pierro and Dottore in the core secret room—had completely vanished from the monitoring screen. Failure? No, it must never be failure. That listening post was planted at an enormous cost by the House of the Hearth, striking directly at the hearts of the Fatui's Director, the Jester, and the Second Harbinger, the Doctor. Once the operation was exposed, the consequences would be unimaginable. Pantalone's scattered remnants, along with the conservative old aristocrats lurking in the shadows and eyeing Provek with covetous eyes, might have their informants in some corner of this foul air.
Chapter 188