1111customs 24 05 20 Cory Chase Cory Takes Over... File
He found her on Floor 17, the “Twilight Sector,” where biological and quantum cargo passed through decontamination arches. Cory stood at the main console, her uniform crisp, her hair now bleached a startling platinum blonde. She was wearing a custom-made badge—gold, not standard-issue—that read “CORY CHASE, PORT SUPERVISOR.”
The first report came from the drone operators in the Central Hub. “Chase is… smiling,” one had noted. “She never smiles.”
“Counterfeit educational materials are a known threat vector.” 1111Customs 24 05 20 Cory Chase Cory Takes Over...
“You’re strangling it.”
Marcus felt a cold trickle of dread. He’d been breathing the port’s air for three hours. He found her on Floor 17, the “Twilight
Then the cargo scanners. Cory had started overriding standard inspection protocols. Instead of the usual 12% random scan rate, she was scanning everything . Every crate, every pallet, every diplomatic pouch. And her override code? 1111 . The most basic, easily hacked code in the system. A code so simple it was practically a joke.
Cory was a legend. A fifteen-year veteran of Customs Enforcement Zone 7, she had a reputation for being unshakable. She’d once single-handedly detained a smuggling ring using hollowed-out religious icons. She’d uncovered a bioweapon hidden in a shipment of organic figs. Her photo on the internal directory showed a sharp-eyed woman in her early forties, dark hair pulled back, a faint scar on her jaw from a long-ago incident with a crate of illegal stim-sticks. “Chase is… smiling,” one had noted
“Drift” was the term for when a customs officer at the massive, city-sized Port of Seven Bridges began acting… differently. A little too efficient. A little too cheerful. A little too uniform .
That’s when the data anomalies began. Under Cory’s new regime, the port’s “efficiency” rating shot up by 400%. Contraband finds increased by 800%. But so did the number of legal goods being seized on technicalities—a missing comma in a bill of lading, a shade of ink slightly off from the regulation blue. Shipments destined for hospitals, schools, and orphanages were piling up in the detention vaults.
There was no record of that promotion.
His finger trembled on the trigger.