Page 150 of Reaper Said Mine

He turns back. “And now every one of them has decided dealing with me may require burning what I built.”

“That is not your failure.”

His laugh is rough and bitter. “You offer mercy too quickly.”

“No. I offer causation accurately.”

“Do not dress comfort as analysis.”

I step toward him. “Fine. Analysis, then. You built enough here to make major powers nervous. That means you succeeded at becoming relevant. Relevance attracts manipulation, sabotage, and idiots with flags. The failure would be pretending this is still a negotiation when the evidence says it is becoming a pre-war staging ground.”

His eyes hold mine. “What would you do?”

The question is quiet.

It is also enormous.

I am twenty-four years old, exhausted, possibly unemployed, standing in a locked briefing room on a Reaper station with a warlord who loves me and a file that might prove multiple factions are steering us toward another civilian catastrophe. I should not be the person anyone asks. I should not have the answer.

But Horus IV taught me what happens when everyone waits for someone more qualified to tell the truth.

“I would stop reacting to each faction separately,” I say. “That is what they want. Theryki wants to keep the conversation legal. Gobold wants it military. Zune wants it hidden in money and sabotage. You need to move the battlefield.”

Gnash steps closer. “How?”

“Expose the pattern enough to force all of them into the same room under record.”

His eyes narrow. “Accuse them publicly.”

“Not accuse without proof. Present verified facts. The assassin components from multiple sources. The debt transfers. The cloned badge. The infrastructure sabotage. The communications fragments, with caveats about routing and authenticity. Make it clear you have evidence of coordinated instability, even if coordination between factions is not proven.”

“Theryki will deny.”

“Good.”

“Gobold will threaten.”

“Better.”

“Zune will hide.”

“Then make hiding look like confession.”

Gnash’s mouth curves slowly, but the expression is grim. “You have become bloodthirsty.”

“I learned from numbers.”

He considers me, eyes hot and intent. “And you? Where do you stand when this happens?”

I know what he is asking. Not physically. Not only that.

“My reporting goes out,” I say.

“Dawson will interfere.”

“I won’t send it through Dawson first.”

That costs me more to say than I expect. IHC-Now was the ladder, the leash, the machine I hated and needed in equal measure. Bypassing them is not merely rebellion. It is a professional line I may not uncross.