Then she says quietly—
“What the network is preparing for.”
The wind outside rattles the church windows.
I glance toward the door.
Then back at her.
“Let me guess.”
“Go ahead.”
“You’re about to tell me something bad is coming.”
Her expression turns serious.
“Yes.”
“How bad?”
She looks toward the whiteboard again.
At my name written in black marker.
“Bad enough,” she says softly,
“that someone has been quietly building an army to survive it.”
The words settle into the silence of the empty church.
And suddenly the name on that board doesn’t feel like a threat.
It feels like a draft notice.
13
Wren
Something feels wrong.
I can’t explain it.
There’s no alert on my screen.
No alarms.
No flashing warnings from the network map.
But the feeling won’t go away.
Across the table, Adam Stoker studies the laptop while Russ Duncan leans against the counter, arms crossed, watching the digital map of nodes spread across the western states. Miles is somewhere outside.
The cabin is quiet except for the hum of electronics and the wind moving through the trees outside.
“Wren,” Adam says calmly, “show me the Utah cluster again.”
I zoom the map slightly.
