Which means this isn’t theft.
This isn’t the Nine stealing a rifle off the back of a truck and hoping nobody notices.
This is coordination.
High Command isn’t just infiltrated.
Someone inside High Command is activelyworking with them.
The nightmare truth blooms fully formed, and I feel it settle into my bones like gravity.
I look up at the main camera and for a second, the world feels too bright.
Millions of eyes.
One redacted name.
A bridge built to prevent war, hijacked to restart it.
Lonari’s voice is low, dangerous. “Jordan.”
I swallow. “It’s the same channel.”
His eyes sharpen. “Meaning?”
“Meaning the Nine didn’t just infiltrate High Command,” I say, and my voice comes out steady by sheer spite, “someone in High Command is coordinating with them.”
The moderator hears enough to flinch. The chat overlay spikes into a frenzy. I can feel the internet—holonet, whatever we call it—reacting like an animal sensing blood.
Clint’s voice hits my ear again, panicked now. “Jordan, no—no, you can’t say that like that.”
I almost laugh.
“I just did,” I whisper back.
Clint’s breath is frantic. “You don’t understand. If this points above Dowron—if this points council-tier—then the response won’t be ‘investigation.’ It’ll be eradication. They’ll erase you. They’ll erase Lonari. They’ll erase the whole hearing.”
“I understand perfectly,” I snap. “That’s why we’re live.”
Clint sounds like he’s shaking. “Jordan?—”
“Clint,” I cut in, softer for half a second, “breathe.”
He tries. Fails. “This is bigger than us.”
“No,” I say. “It’s exactly us. It’s what happens when we don’t shut up.”
Morazin coughs, and the medic swears quietly as the wound seeps again.
Morazin’s eyes are glassy. He looks like he’s balancing on the edge of shock.
And then he does the thing that makes me want to throw him into a furnace even while he’s bleeding.
He smirks.
“You’re so close,” he whispers. “And you still don’t know how power works.”
Lonari’s hand flexes on the edge of the cover panel. He wants to slam Morazin’s head into the table. I can feel it radiating off him.
