If they don’t take a second.
I taste copper—my own adrenaline, my own bitten tongue—and my compad is already in my hands. I’m not thinking about whether my fingers are shaking. I’m thinking about the line the bullet traveled, the signature it left behind, the telemetry it whispered into the air.
Because every weapon talks.
You just need to know how to listen.
“Jordan,” Lonari murmurs, close to my ear without blocking the mic, “what do you need?”
His voice is steady, but I can feel the tension in him—an animal held back by will. He wants to hunt the shooter. He wants to tear the room apart until he finds the source.
I want that too.
But I want something worse.
I want proof.
“Five seconds,” I whisper back. “Keep him breathing. Keep him on camera.”
Lonari’s jaw tightens. “Already.”
The moderator tries to reclaim the narrative, voice cracking. “We are—uh—we are experiencing a security incident. Please remain?—”
“Don’t,” I snap, sharp enough that the mic catches it. I don’t care. “Don’t you dare tell people to stay calm when someone just tried to execute a witness live.”
The moderator blinks at me, pale, then nods like a chastised child.
Morazin groans, and his eyes roll toward me. For a second the arrogance is gone. There’s only animal fear.
“They’ll—” he rasps. “They’ll finish it.”
“Not if you talk,” I say, low.
He gives a wet, bitter laugh. “You still think words save you.”
I don’t answer him. I turn my compad to the security overlay Lonari’s team feeds me—internal maintenance lines, camera loops, door access logs.
Then I switch to the thing the Nine never respects enough:
Telemetry.
“Clint,” I say, voice tight, “I need the shot signature. Now.”
Clint’s voice hits my earpiece, breathless. He’s watching from a back channel, not on camera, because he’s not built for public spectacle. He’s built for quiet wars.
“I’m pulling it,” he says. “Jordan, that was a clean shot?—”
“Yeah,” I hiss. “It was.”
My compad pings as a file drops into my sandbox: a burst pattern, an energy discharge profile, a micro-timing jitter unique to the weapon’s regulator. Like a fingerprint made of light.
I expand it across my screen and my stomach goes cold so fast it feels like someone poured ice water into my veins.
Because I know that profile.
Not personally. Not intimately.
Institutionally.
