THE SYNDICATE

 

THE SYNDICATE

VI

Five Years Ago — Quantico

The alarm screamed through the dormitory like a banshee. Carl jolted awake, his body snapping upright as though struck by lightning. Around him, the barracks erupted into chaos — half-dressed cadets stumbling out of bunks, groaning, fumbling for boots and uniforms. The air was heavy with the smell of sweat, metal, and detergent.

“MOVE IT!” roared the sergeant from the hallway, his voice slicing through the morning air like a whip. “Up, up, up! You’re not here to sleep, you’re here to earn it!”

Carl pulled on his uniform, his pulse pounding. The early dawn bled through the narrow windows, a pale wash of gray-blue that made the place feel like a prison more than a school. Quantico wasn’t for the weak. It was a crucible — built to break boys and forge agents.

He joined the line outside, straight-backed, silent. The others shuffled beside him: sleepy, irritable, unprepared. He could see the fury in the sergeant’s eyes as he passed. This is where legends are made, Carl thought. Or destroyed.

Carl had always been a natural behind a computer. He could break a system faster than most could boot it up. Software Penetration, API Concealment, Automation — he’d aced them all. But when it came to physical drills, he lagged. His muscles burned faster, his lungs gave out sooner, and every sprint left him feeling like his legs were full of lead.

Mayweather had noticed.

“If you can’t perform, you’re out,” she had told him, eyes cold and sharp beneath her sleek blond hair.

Her words echoed in his head every morning before dawn. If you can’t perform… you’re out.

Today’s challenge was the shooting range. The Virginia sun hung heavy in the sky, oppressive and unforgiving. Sweat rolled down Carl’s temples as he picked up the small-caliber pistol. The metal felt alien in his hands — cold, heavy, uncooperative. He aimed, exhaled, fired.

Bang. Miss.

Bang. Miss again.

He gritted his teeth. His hands trembled slightly, but he steadied them, took a deep breath, and fired once more. This time, the bullet drilled straight into the dummy’s forehead. Perfect shot. A flicker of satisfaction crossed his face — brief but powerful.

Moments later, they were herded into the War Room.

It was a temple of technology — screens lined every wall, each workstation armed with a supercomputer engraved with the cadet’s name. Agent Mayweather stood at the front, immaculate in a white suit, a small American flag pin gleaming on her lapel.

“An unknown assailant is carrying a bomb in Times Square,” she said crisply. “You have access to all surveillance cameras within a thirty-mile radius. Find him. This is a test — every character has been engineered.”

Carl’s instincts told him otherwise. Those feeds weren’t simulated. The data was too clean, too dynamic. This was real.

He began typing. His fingers flew across the keyboard, lines of code spilling across the screen like poetry. He activated facial recognition, scanning thousands of faces at once. A potential hit — a Pakistani-looking man — flickered briefly before the system returned a null result. Facial concealer tech. Clever.

But Carl was cleverer.

He bypassed the security layer, embedded a thermal algorithm, and filtered by metallic heat signatures. If someone carried a thermite bomb, their body temperature would spike. He ran the search, eyes darting between feeds. The data stream was endless, hypnotic — until the soft ping of a match broke the silence.

Target located.

He encrypted the data and sent it to the main server.

Moments later, Mayweather’s voice cut through the room. “Stop your progress. We have a winner. Mr. Carl—congratulations. You’ve identified the suspect first. Meet me in my office in one hour.”

Carl blinked, stunned. Around him, the other cadets stared in quiet disbelief. A few shot him looks of envy, others admiration. But all he felt was relief — and the quiet thrill of victory.

---

Mayweather’s office was vast and spotless, the sunlight glinting off a shelf of medals, plaques, and framed commendations. Carl stood at attention, trying not to stare.

“Carl, is it?” Mayweather asked, her tone measured but not unkind.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Please, sit.”

He obeyed, heart drumming like a snare.

“You’ve proven yourself to be one of the best hackers we’ve seen in years,” she said. “The Bureau would be foolish not to keep you.”

Carl’s heart leapt. “You mean—?”

“I’m offering you a position,” she confirmed, her lips curving slightly. “You’ll start immediately after graduation.”

He could barely contain his excitement. “Thank you, ma’am. You won’t regret it.”

“I hope not,” she said softly, her expression unreadable.

When he told his roommate, Raj — a Pakistani-American cadet with an easy smile and too much caffeine in his veins — the two of them nearly tore the room apart in celebration.

“I knew you’d make it, man!” Raj laughed, pulling him into a hug. “You’re too good not to.”

Carl smiled. For the first time in a long while, he felt seen.

---

Five Years Later — Washington D.C.

The night was still. The city slept. Carl walked out of the Federal Building with his collar turned up against the wind and a small USB flash drive in his pocket — a single sliver of metal holding enough data to burn the world.

Inside it: encrypted government files. Dirty deals. Covert operations. War profiteering. Blackmail that reached senators and generals alike.

His footsteps echoed down the empty street as he headed home. The lamplight bled gold across the wet asphalt. Children’s bicycles leaned against porches, abandoned. Every window was dark.

At his apartment, he locked the door, threw his jacket on the counter, and plugged the drive into his laptop. The glow of the screen washed over his face as he began to decrypt. Firewalls fell before him, one by one.

What he saw next turned his stomach. Documents. Names. Assassinations dressed as accidents. Weapons trades with warlords. A web of corruption stretching through every corridor of power.

He shut the laptop hard. His hands shook.

He needed to see him again.

The CandyMan.

Carl opened his Tor browser, fingers moving instinctively through hidden networks until he reached a buried forum — a digital underworld masked beneath harmless subreddit threads.

>> Do you believe me now?
The message blinked. Seconds later, a reply appeared.
>> Yes. Meet me in Times Square. 0100 hours.
>> Okay, newbie.

Carl stared at the screen for a long moment, then pulled the drive out. He rolled it between his fingers, the metal warm from the laptop’s heat.

That small object now held the power to overthrow an empire.

He smiled faintly — not from joy, but from disbelief.

For the first time, he understood the cost of truth. And the weight of power.

He pocketed the drive, finished his coffee, and whispered to the empty room, “The CandyMan will know what to do.”

Then he turned off the lights.