“It’s not just outsiders it’s getting rid of,” Vargas says, his voice dropping low. “It’s cleaning house.”
Talia moves to look at the screen. “Who are these people?”
“The original hardware group. Twenty-seven of us.” Vargas points a shaking finger at the screen. “Twelve are dead. Car accidents. Suicides. Home invasions. All within the last three months.”
“You track them?” she asks.
“I track everyone. Survival strategy.” He looks at me, the fear in his eyes stark and unfamiliar. “Figured it was just a matter of time before they found me. If Phoenix is active, it knows who built its cage. And it knows we’re the only ones who know where the bars are weak.”
“That’s why we need to kill it,” I say. “Before it finishes the list.”
Vargas shakes his head. “You can’t kill code.”
“No. But we can purge the servers. We need to get into Nexus, find the link to the data center, and burn it out.”
“You’ll never get close.” Vargas turns back to the workbench. “Phoenix protects itself. It predicts threats based on behavioral analysis. If you’re planning to hit Nexus, it already knows.”
“We have to try.” Talia’s voice is quiet but iron-hard. “Seventy-three people are dead. Twelve of your friends are dead. If we don’t stop it, that list never ends.”
Vargas studies her. He looks at the determination in her jaw, the fire in those amber eyes. Then he looks at me.
“She serious?”
“She’s always serious.”
Vargas sighs. “Fine.”
He turns and limps to the back of the shop, toward a heavy safe bolted to the floor. He spins the dial—analog, mechanical, unhackable. The door swings open.
He reaches inside and pulls out a pouch made of lead-lined fabric. He sets it on the counter with a heavy thud.
“What is it?” I ask.
“The one thing the brass didn’t know about.” Vargas unzips the pouch. Inside sits a drive. It looks ancient—thick, encased in titanium, with a proprietary connection port I haven’t seen in a decade. “The Root Seed.”
Talia moves closer, hovering over it. “What does it do?”
“It’s a hard erase,” Vargas says. “When we built the original architecture, I didn’t trust the software guys. Code is slippery. So I built a hardware backdoor. A kill switch buried in the kernel level of the system. If you plug this directly into the primary server bank, it doesn’t just delete the data. It fries the logic boards. Physical destruction via voltage overload.”
“A suicide pill,” Talia whispers.
“Exactly.” Vargas taps the drive. “But it has to be a direct connection. Air-gapped. You have to be in the room with the brain.”
“That’s the plan,” I say.
“It’s a bad plan.” Vargas starts shoving other gear into a duffel bag—jammers, signal repeaters, EMP charges. He turns from his screen. “Nexus will have military-grade security. Biometric scanners, motion sensors, armed guards—despite the shell company facade.”
“Can you get us past building security?” I ask.
“Maybe.” He’s already pulling equipment from drawers. “I can clone biometrics if you can get me a clean image of someone who works there. High-resolution photo, specific angles.”
“The building has security cameras.” Talia’s fingers fly across her keyboard. “I’m in the building management system now. Pulling up feeds.”
She works in silence, that brilliant mind finding pathways through digital architecture the same way I find structural weaknesses in buildings. Within ninety seconds, grainy footage fills her screen—lobby, elevators, stairwells.
“There.” She freezes frame forty-seven. Sophia Blackwell, sharp suit, sharper expression, pausing at the elevator. “Will this work?”
Vargas enlarges it and studies the resolution. “It’s not perfect, but yeah. I can work with this.” He starts pulling up different programs. “Give me twenty minutes to clone her biometrics. You’ll have elevator access and door scanners, but any secondary protocols will fail authentication.”
