Chapter 1: Janus

Saint-Raphaël, France, December

The Janus exhibit wasn’t the real reason Max had returned.

He stood before the ancient stone god, his reflection hovering in the glass. Two faces. Two sets of eyes. One staring into the past, the other into the future. December sunlight filtered through the archways of Saint-Raphaël’s Archaeological Museum, casting long shadows on the stone floors. Holiday cheer filled the air; something else gathered around Max. The two faces, etched by hands long turned to dust, seemed to watch a world that had changed in every way and not at all.

“Janus, god of transitions, beginnings, and endings,” Max murmured, his voice lost in the shuffle of feet and the blend of French, Italian, and English around him.

He unfolded a creased slip of paper from his pocket. Not his own notes. He had found it exactly where he expected: left for him, deliberately, inside a book he had touched the week before at a secondhand shop in Nice. A single phrase was underlined.

“A town that wears its duality well, just like you.”

Max’s pulse stayed steady. His gut didn’t. The signature at the bottom—a small, hand-drawn infinity loop—made his fingers tighten around the page. It wasn’t the first time he had seen that mark.

For a moment his eyes seemed to mirror the two-faced god in the glass. Guardians of a threshold. He looked away, but the thought held.

“Janus,” he murmured, his eyes tracing the ancient relic. “They sculpted you with precision. To observe without verdict: is that the real strength? To stand apart from the chaos of right and wrong?”

His words hung in the still air. Behind him, the soft displacement of air, footsteps gone suddenly quiet. He turned. The archway was empty.

Afternoon light caught him as he stepped out of the museum. Saint-Raphaël’s old town took him back into its maze of narrow streets and crowded squares, the air all sea salt and fresh baguette. His dress scarf did double duty against the maritime chill.

Maxwell Du Bois moved through the cobblestone streets the way he moved through everything: present, watchful, and already somewhere else. He paused at an old café and ordered a double espresso, the routine a small comfort. Around him patrons chattered, most lost in the glow of their screens. Max’s gaze moved over them, casual. This would be a goldmine: every person tethered to the café’s free Wi-Fi, exposed without knowing it.

One woman at a corner table had stopped looking at her phone as her friends continued their discussion. Her bag sat unguarded at the table’s edge, six inches outside the invisible perimeter of their collective attention. Max gave her the specific half-smile of a man who was also still present in the room. He watched her shoulders settle, her hand move unconsciously away from the strap. He looked away before she could decide what to do with the feeling.

The espresso machine broke his gaze. He took his drink, met the barista’s eye, offered a nod—charm over a busy mind. He sipped. Bitter, rich.

Espresso in hand, Max climbed the stairs to his flat above a patisserie. The old building offered views that caught Old Town’s duality: Roman ruins on one side, modern yachts riding the tide on the other.

Then he noticed it. The door hadn’t been fully closed. He’d locked it. He was certain of it.

Max exhaled, rolled his shoulders. A turn of the handle. The familiar creak, usually welcome, felt different now. He pushed through in one fluid motion, scanning.

No signs of disturbance. No broken locks. No displaced objects.

Still, the feeling remained.

The glow of his computer screen interrupted his contemplation. A message blinked.

“janus, situation?”

His fingers found the keyboard. “Analyse d’un nouveau jeu de données.”

He hit enter.

Then, chaos.

The precariously placed espresso cup tipped. A wave of liquid splashed over his keyboard, the hot coffee seeping into his pressed jeans.

“Eish!” The curse burst from him, sharp and involuntary. He snatched at the cup, but it was already too late.

“Ag no man,” he muttered, reaching for a cloth, the familiarity of his native tongue a small comfort in this foreign land.

But as he dabbed at the spill, his screen shifted.

His hands stilled.

In the quiet of his workspace, lit only by his monitors and the late sun, Max sat frozen, the cloth forgotten. The accidental spill had shifted something on the screen, and it made him go very still.

Metadata tags flared like distress beacons:

‘USCYBERCOM.’ ‘DODIN.’ ‘SITREP.’ ‘FOB/COP.’ ‘OPORD/FRAGO.’ ‘SIGINT.’

“Sybil,” Max whispered, disbelief and excitement threading his voice, “are you seeing this?”

His AI assistant awakened, her voice calm and precise. “Analysis initiated. The data encompasses a broad spectrum of military operations. This is not merely sensitive. It’s a web of interconnected secrets, each tag opening doors to classified operations, strategic locations, and potentially, mission-critical vulnerabilities.”

Max leaned back, the weight of it settling on him. “This goes beyond anything we’ve encountered. The depth, the scope.” A slow breath. A recalibration. “We’re not just hackers anymore, Sybil. We’re holding a digital Pandora’s box.”

“Confirming potential for exploitation now,” Sybil responded. “This information could influence global military strategies. Its value on the dark web —”

“— is astronomical.” His lips curled into a slow, deliberate smile. “We’ve stumbled onto something that could shift the balance of power in cyberspace. Pavel’s price just went up.”

He typed the message.

“Le prix a augmenté.”

The response came instantly.

“Bâtard à deux visages, janus!”

Two-faced bastard.

The epithet amused Max.

“Ensemble de données militaires convoités.”

He looked out at the late afternoon sun, which painted Saint-Raphaël in hues of gold and crimson.

Max would avenge his father’s death with this gig.

He was certain of it.