Lena watched her own face flicker across six different news feeds and wanted to throw something through the screens. The safehouse living room was hot and cramped, the air was thick with leftover tear gas on their clothes and the constant hum of machines. On one wall, muted footage from Bullwick Press Square looped over and over. The alley. Nolan. The Syndicate agent on the ground. Comment bars rolled past like a storm that never ended.Vera paused the clip right as Nolan’s arm came across Lena’s shoulders in the alley. “This is the frame everyone is using,” she said. Her fingers flew over the keyboard, bringing up comments layered over his blurred profile. “Half of them think he staged the whole thing.”Lena folded her arms, nails digging into her skin through the borrowed sweatshirt. “He saved me, and somehow they have him auditioning for supervillain of the year.”On the far couch, Nolan sat with his laptop open on his knees. The ghost network tools he lived on crawled across the

He ran back up the stairs, lungs burning. Inside the cabin, Orpheus hummed, its tiny light steady. On the laptop screen, status bars crawled the last few pixels.Timo’s voice was high with excitement. “It is happening. Their front-run patterns are collapsing. I am watching their bots fail in real time. They are losing millions with every breath you take.”Lena spoke slowly, like she was afraid to break the moment. “I am already seeing chatter. Private rooms asking why the spreads are flattening. Some of them are terrified. They know something just snapped.”The final bar filled. Orpheus let out a small, satisfied beep.“Queue logic locked,” Nolan said. He entered one last command, setting a timed mirror across parts of his ghost network. “Even if they cut this fiber, the new rules will echo through parallel nodes. Not forever, but long enough.”Vera let out a low curse. “You did it. You actually did it.”“For now,” he said. He pulled the cable from the DominionLink panel and then from

Meanwhile, City Hall looked pure from the outside.Wide marble steps, clean glass facades, flags catching the evening wind. Inside, the air smelled of polished wood, old paper, and cheap perfume. Staffers rushed through corridors with folders pressed to their chests, pretending they controlled the city instead of serving it.In a corner office, Minister Calder stared at his screen, his hand was shaking.A memo had appeared in his secure inbox. It bore his digital signature. His symbol. His stamp.It authorized a series of “off-ledger relief transfers” to accounts that Lena had carefully labeled with Syndicate shell names.He hadn’t signed it.He knew that.He also knew no one would believe him.He snatched up his phone. “Jasmin, I need legal,” he snapped. “Right now.”His legal advisor’s face appeared on the screen moments later. “Minister? What’s wrong?”“There’s a compliance memo here with my signature,” he said. “I never approved this. It’s routing funds to… to unauthorized entitie

Nolan measured the distance to the nearest shelf corner, to the coat rack in the alcove with a forgotten leather belt, to the heavy wooden desk behind him. “I signed in,” he said. “Check the log upstairs.”“Boss already checked,” the other man replied. He had a knife in his hand now, held low. “Instructions were simple. Nobody touches these boxes tonight.”“So you follow instructions,” Nolan said. His voice stayed level. “You ever ask who wrote them?”Thug One snorted. “You asking us to think in a library?” He took a step closer and jerked his chin at the folder. “Move away from that. We’ll handle it.”Nolan stepped sideways instead, out of the narrow aisle and into the reading alcove. “You picked the wrong soft place,” he said. “You should have met me somewhere louder.”The knife man lunged. Nolan caught his wrist, twisted, and slammed the man’s arm into the shelf. Folders tumbled, papers flying. As the thug grunted in pain, Nolan’s free hand shot out; he grabbed the leather belt fro