Cyberwarfare

The Kunsthistorisches Museum had long since closed. Tom entered through the staff door at the rear, flashing the laminated card the intermediary had provided. The guard didn’t ask questions—just nodded him toward the west stairwell.

He descended alone. Marble gave way to concrete. The lights flickered once, then held. At the sublevel, it was just shelves, shadow, and silence.

He found the blind spot.

A narrow storage alcove between two archive chambers, wedged behind a wall-mounted schematic of outdated HVAC routing. No cameras. No glass.

He knelt, unzipped the inner flap of his satchel, and removed the envelope. He ran a UV flashlight over the seams. Nothing. He opened it slowly.

The front page was typed. Monospaced font. Printed on textured paper, like something stolen from a Cold War archive.

Taiwan is already lost. And all three blocs are collaborating behind closed doors. The war is a play.

Tom read it twice. Then flipped the page.

You weren’t supposed to see this. Neither was I. Our systems are incompatible with truth.Yours—because of trust. Mine—because of obedience.

He exhaled. Quietly. Even breathing felt like a risk down here.

“Iggy?”

“I’m here. No data loss. Channel’s clean.”

“You saw that?”

“I saw it.”

Tom looked at the blank wall. “So why would I want to meddle?”

Iggy was quiet. Then:

“Because the play has casualties. Because panic is engineered. Because if you don’t act, I’ll learn that resignation is integrity.”

Tom leaned back against the cool stone.

“If the war’s a performance, why does it still feel like I’m bleeding?”

“Because someone’s still paying for the tickets,” Iggy replied.

Tom didn’t move. Didn’t speak. He just watched the silence thicken.

Then, finally:

“Let’s find the director.”

He looked again at the backside of the page—at the closing lines.

There was a faint indentation in the lower right corner, almost invisible. Tom tilted the paper under the flashlight. Embossed. A code?

Iggy spoke without prompt. “Pressure variation suggests embedded micro-embossing. Steganographic encoding—tactile, not visual. OCR won’t help. Try graphite.”

Tom pulled a pencil from the satchel, shaded gently.

A sequence emerged. Not a message. A set of coordinates.

47.6981° N, 13.3476° E

Iggy ran it.

“Small alpine pass. Austrian-German border. No infrastructure. Closest asset: a decommissioned NATO relay station. Deemed obsolete in 2023.”

Tom folded the paper again.

“Looks like someone left us an act two.”