That last part hangs between us, bright and dangerous.
Fyr studies me for a long moment, like he’s trying to see where I’d crack if he put pressure in the right place.
Finally, he says, “He’ll regret you.”
I shrug, a little too casual. “He can regret me after we’re alive.”
I turn back to the node before my hands start shaking. I refuse to give him the satisfaction of seeing me rattled.
Fyr steps back. “Fix it,” he says, as if granting permission. Then he turns and walks away, the guards falling into place behind him.
But his parting shot lands anyway, tossed over his shoulder like a knife meant to stick.
“Just remember, human—when power shifts, you’re always the first thing people trade.”
I swallow hard, jaw tight.
“Yeah,” I mutter to the wiring. “I know.”
And that’s exactly why I’m building redundancy like my life depends on it.
Because it does.
I finish the splice, reseat the panel, and the node pings green.
One camera back online.
One blind spot sealed.
And still, the building feels like it’s breathing around me—watching, waiting for the next punch.
Back in my workroom—technically a “guest suite,” which is hilarious because the last time I was a guest anywhere, someone was pointing a rifle at my chest—I lay out my evidence chain again.
The room smells like citrus cleaner and expensive fabric. It’s the kind of scent meant to make you feel safe.
It does not work on me.
I project the network map above the table: Morazin’s payment paths, shell accounts, biometric forgery nodes, comm routing anomalies. Threads of light crisscross in a three-dimensional web, and every time I stare at it long enough, my head starts to ache with the sheer scale of coordination it implies.
Morazin didn’t do this alone.
That’s not a theory anymore. It’s math.
I zoom in on an off-world relay identifier I caught in the Yatori archive—buried inside a transmission header like a splinter someone forgot to pull out.
At first glance it looks normal. Generic routing. Standard subspace hop.
But the deeper I peel, the uglier it gets.
The relay isn’t IHC.
It’s not Coalition.
It’s Alliance-controlled infrastructure.
My mouth goes dry.
“No,” I whisper. “No, no, no.”
