He smiles, indulgent. “Because quiet lessons don’t stick.”
I swallow, letting the audience see it. “Who benefits from this? Seriously. Who is paying you to make this a show?”
Morazin’s smile stays in place, but his eyes cool. “You assume payment because you can’t imagine conviction.”
I snort faintly. “I assume payment because your whole operation reeks of shell routing and merc kit.”
He leans closer, voice low enough it’s intimate, conspiratorial. The drones catch it anyway—directional mics hungry.
“Jordan,” he murmurs, “you’re still trying to make yourself important.”
“Then prove I’m not,” I whisper back. “Say it. Say who authorized Yatori. Say who signed off. If you’re so righteous, there’s no harm in transparency.”
His eyes narrow. He doesn’t like being challenged. He doesn’t like being cornered into specifics.
Good.
He straightens and turns to the broadcast drone again, reclaiming control with practiced ease.
“Let me be explicit,” Morazin says, voice rising, smooth as polished steel. “Yatori was an authorized operation under high clearance approval. It was sanctioned. Necessary. Structured.”
There.
High clearance approval.
My pulse spikes like a spark hitting fuel.
I press my thumb against the dead compad glass, subtle, hidden by my bound hands and the angle of my body. The diagnostic handshake initiates in silence, piggybacking the Yatori corporate grid the moment Morazin’s broadcast frequency hits the satellite routing corridor.
The compad warms—more, briefly—like it’s exhaling.
The backdoor opens.
Morazin continues, oblivious.
“And now,” he says, “we demonstrate the price of destabilization.”
I keep my face scared, blank, compliant.
But inside, something sharp and bright unfolds.
Because the livestream doesn’t just go out through his nice clean corporate channel.
It goes wide.
It goes feral.
The broadcast splits, replicates, slides into civilian entertainment packets like ink in water. Morazin’s face stays center screen, but now overlays begin to appear—first subtle, then undeniable.
A ticker crawls across the bottom of the holo wall behind him, not in his branding.
LIQUIDITY HALT — EMERGENCY FREEZE INITIATED
BARAGON INTERMEDIARY ACCOUNTS SUSPENDED
COALITION EXCHANGE PANIC: VOLATILITY CIRCUIT BREAKERS TRIGGERED
The crowd on the holo wall shifts.
