The first thing Elijah noticed wasn’t the typo.
It was the mushrooms.
Neeba would rather swallow glass than eat mushrooms.
He stared at the receipt again, thumb rubbing against the thin paper already softening from the grease stains.
1x SMALL CHEESEBURGER
The cashier had circled the item in black ink. Beside it, someone had written the number 1.
Below it:
1x CHEEESEBURGER
Another handwritten number.
2…
Three e’s in cheeeeseburger.
Not a spelling mistake.
A signal.
Elijah felt the blood drain from his face.
Because Neeba created that protocol herself three years ago in Prague after the embassy breach. Triple letters meant the message had been compromised. Additional toppings identified the threat level. Mushrooms meant biological. Dairy meant surveillance. Whipped cream meant the courier had already been exposed.
And the numbers?
Targets.
He looked around Simon’s Burger slowly.
Teenagers taking selfies.
A tired mother wiping ketchup from a child’s cheek.
Delivery drivers waiting for orders.
Nobody looked dangerous.
Which usually meant everyone was.
The milkshake sat untouched beside the paper bag in the photo Neeba had posted twelve minutes earlier.
Too clean.
Too centred.
Neeba never framed pictures carefully unless she wanted him to see something.
Elijah zoomed in.
There.
Reflected faintly in the chrome napkin dispenser behind the drink.
A man in a grey coat.
Not looking at the camera.
Looking at Neeba.
His pulse quickened.
The checkerboard pattern on the bag suddenly triggered a memory he wished had stayed buried.
Cantalina, 2019.
A safehouse disguised as a diner.
Black and white tiles.
Receipts used as dead drops because nobody questions disposable paper.
You eat the message.
You burn the evidence.
You leave.
Elijah opened the comments beneath Neeba’s photo.
Nothing unusual.
Fire emojis.
Burger jokes.
Someone asking if the milkshake was good.
Then he saw it.
A single comment posted thirty seconds ago.
“Hope you enjoyed table 7.”
Elijah stopped breathing.
There was no table 7 in Simon’s Burger.
He knew because Neeba had taught him that too.
In operations, nonexistent numbers meant extraction had failed.
He grabbed his jacket and ran.
Across the city, rain hammered the streets hard enough to blur the traffic lights into green and white smears.
By the time he reached Simon’s Burger, the table in the corner was empty.
No Neeba.
No milkshake.
Only the receipt left folded neatly beneath the napkin dispenser.
And on the back, written in hurried pen strokes:
THEY ARE WATCHING THE WRONG PERSON.
RUN.
