Nathan sat at his desk, staring at the scattered notes and digital reports on his screen. The bank incident still gnawed at him. The precision, the security tampering, it wasn't just a well-planned heist. It was something bigger.

  He leaned back, exhaling sharply. Too many missing pieces.

  His apartment was silent, except for the low humming noise coming from his tablet. Coffee cups littered his desk, the third one of the night had gone cold hours ago. The light from the screen cast sharp shadows across his face, highlighting the dark circles under his eyes.

  "Everyone else has moved on from this, but I can feel it. There's more," Nathan thought, his inner voice determined as he clenched his fist.

  The heroes who handled the robbery all dismissed it as a one-time event, but Nathan just couldn't shake the feeling that it was part of something much larger.

  He started mapping out key details:

  Timeframes → Other high-security breaches with eerily similar execution.

  Targets → Only places with Meta-tech or classified materials.

  Witness Reports → No clear leads, but each event had at least one vanishing suspect.

  Hours passed, frustration setting in. No names. No connections. No leads. It was as if these crimes had been designed to disappear.

  Nathan rubbed his temple. "There had to be something," he whispered to himself. "I just have to look at it differently."

  Nathan went through decades-old newspaper archives, crime reports and classified police logs. His eyes burned from staring at the screen so long, but slowly he began to notice a pattern.

  At first, they looked like isolated break-ins, nothing out of the ordinary. High-tech labs, research facilities, and financial institutions all reporting small-scale security breaches. But when Nathan compared their locations, dates, and stolen materials, the coincidence became impossible to ignore.

  These weren't random robberies.

  Each heist was carefully planned, testing security vulnerabilities in increasingly complex, high-profile targets. The bank robbery wasn't unique. It was one in a chain of linked crimes, all executed with a similar precision.

  Nathan flipped through more reports, his pulse quickening. There was something deeper beneath the surface. He pulled up news footage from different crime scenes, fast-forwarding through shaky camera angles and panicked interviews. The reports varied, but one detail stood out.

  In every case, at least one key witness had disappeared before testifying.

  No recorded statements. No follow-ups. They just vanished.

  He swallowed hard. Someone was cleaning up loose ends.

  Then he saw it.

  Buried in the corner of a grainy security still, barely noticeable, a symbol etched into the side of a vault door. He enlarged the image, enhancing the contrast. It looked like a simple geometric mark, but something about it felt deliberate. He quickly searched for similar markings in older cases.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  It appeared again. And again. And again.

  Nathan's fingers hovered over the keyboard, heart pounding. He had no idea what it meant, but he was certain of one thing:

  Whoever was behind this wanted it hidden. And that meant it was worth finding.

  Nathan's search took a sudden turn when he came across an old classified document. Buried deep within a stack of archived police reports, was a case file referencing a term he had only ever seen once, Sovereign Protocol.

  The phrase was tucked between redacted paragraphs, mentioned only once, but it was enough to set off alarms in Nathan's mind. What was it? A code? An operation? A person?

  He began cross-referencing the term with known criminal activity, but he got barely anything.

  The only clues he found came from scattered, half-erased witness statements, survivors of similar high-tech robberies who mentioned hearing the words just before an attack. Some even claimed they overheard it on police scanners, as if it was something authorities were aware of, but refused to discuss.

  His pulse quickened as he traced the phrase further back, through decommissioned agency reports and hero records.

  A disturbing trend emerged.

  Each time Sovereign Protocol was mentioned, it was connected to a case that had been abruptly closed, files scrubbed, witnesses relocated or missing.

  Nathan leaned back, rubbing his jaw. This was something big.

  He'd been staring at the screen for so long, his vision was starting to blur. As he stretched, his gaze fell on an old news clipping pinned to his wall. It showed a team of heroes after a major intervention, and there in the background, barely visible, was the same symbol he'd been tracking.

  That photo led him down another rabbit hole, until a name caught his eye: Warren Cade. The man had been part of multiple high-risk intervention squads during the peak years of the incidents Nathan was investigating.

  More importantly, Cade's retirement had coincided with one of the largest security breaches on record, one where the term 'Sovereign Protocol' had first been mentioned.

  After a few discreet searches, he tracked down Cade's current location. If anyone knew about Sovereign Protocol, it would be him.

  Nathan arranged a meeting at a quiet diner on the outskirts of the city. When Cade arrived, the first thing Nathan noticed was his nervous energy. The man scanned the room before sitting, his movements were tense, as if expecting someone to be watching.

  "You're wasting your time, kid," Cade said, keeping his voice low. "Walk away from this while you still can."

  Nathan's heart pounded, but he kept his expression neutral. "I just want to understand. What is Sovereign Protocol?"

  Cade let out a humorless chuckle, shaking his head. "It's not a what, it's a who. Or at least, it started that way."

  Nathan leaned in, gripping his pen. "Explain."

  Cade hesitated. His fingers tapped against the table, his eyes darting to the window. "You think this is about a few robberies? Kid, this goes back decades. This city was built on secrets, and the Sovereign Protocol is one of its deepest secrets."

  Nathan's stomach twisted. "Then tell me, what's the secret?"

  Cade sighed. "I can't. Not here. Not now." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a slip of paper, sliding it across the table. "Burn this after you read it. And for your sake, don't dig too deep."

  Nathan took the note, but before he could ask another question, Cade stood abruptly and left, disappearing into the night.

  As Nathan unfolded the paper, three words were written:

  'Find the Architect.'

  Nathan sat frozen, staring at the words. 'Find the Architect.'

  The name carried an unsettling weight, but no matter how many times he searched, there was nothing.

  No records. No case files. No mentions in hero databases. It was as if the name had been wiped from existence.

  He tried different variations, aliases, related crime syndicates, but each search led to another dead end. Even on the underground networks, the Architect was non-existent.

  Nathan exhaled slowly, running a hand through his hair. He had made real progress, but now, he was staring into the dark with no clear path forward.

  Still, he refused to believe this was a coincidence. Someone wanted the Architect hidden. That meant they were important. And that meant Nathan had to find them.

  His search wasn't over. It was only beginning.