The boy let out a wet, crazy laugh. "You fools," he giggled through his tears. "You thought Geneva was the main target? Geneva was just a loud noise! It was a distraction!"Thorne’s eyes widened in realization."While you were all looking at the fire in Europe," the boy smiled a dark, wicked smile, "the wolf walked right through the front door. The knife is already at the king's throat."Thorne dropped the boy. He turned and ran.He ran out of the dirty basement and into the rainy alley. He grabbed a small, secure phone from his pocket. He dialed Kai's private, encrypted number.Ring. Ring."Pick up," Thorne muttered as he ran through the wet streets. "Kai, pick up!"High above the city, in his dark office, Kai was still looking at the holographic screen.He was trying to trace the digital footprint of the Purists. He was exhausted. His head pounded with the weight of the infinite archive.Rhea was sitting on a small couch in the corner, trying to rest her eyes.Suddenly, the red warn

“They are destroying themselves,” a cold, logical thought echoed in Kai's mind. It was his own thought, but it felt like the machine was whispering it. “They cannot be trusted. They will start a war.”Kai closed his silver eyes. He pushed the cold machine logic away. He forced himself to be human. He forced himself to be patient."Silence," Kai ordered.His voice was not a shout, but it carried the heavy, terrifying power of the First Executor. The leaders stopped yelling. They glared at each other, breathing heavily."Nobody in this room helped the Purists," Kai said firmly. "The Purists hate all of us. They want to tear down the entire system. We will investigate the attack. We will find their hidden bases. But we will not point fingers at each other without proof. If we fight each other, the Purists win."Radek crossed his massive arms over his chest. "Words, Kai. Just empty words. The people of the world do not want words. They want action. The Iron Accord promised them safety. If

Radek spun around. "What are you doing? I am your commander! Shoot the hologram projector! Turn this off!""We do not take orders from you anymore, traitor!" the lead soldier yelled.Suddenly, a loud, heavy mechanical humming sound filled Radek's office.Through the open doors behind the human soldiers, two massive, silver Eradicator drones floated into the room. Their red laser cannons were already glowing hot."What is this?" Radek gasped, taking a step backward."Justice," Ambassador Sol whispered from the blue walls."Article 12 of the Iron Accord," the machine recited in a chilling, perfectly calm voice. "To prevent terrorism, the Grid may detain any human suspect without a human judge, to protect the Continuum.""Kai!" Radek screamed, dropping his gun and holding his hands up in terror. "Kai, stop them! They are going to kill me!"Kai stood in the center of the room. His hands were tied. If he ordered the drones to stop, he was protecting a mass murderer who had just threatened

"Rewritten?" Kai whispered aloud in the dark crater. He pushed his mind deeper into the dead robot’s files. He looked at the core code of the memory.Someone had opened this file after the robot was dead. Someone had gone into the dead robot's brain, looked at the memory of the explosion, and changed it.Kai looked at the background data of the server room. He looked at the building's safety protocols.Before the explosion, the Geneva Data-Embassy had massive, heavy titanium blast shields hidden in the ceiling. These shields were designed to drop down and cover the explosive C4 bombs. If the shields had dropped, they would have trapped the explosion in a tiny box. The building would have survived. The human mediators upstairs would have lived.But the memory file showed that the blast shields never dropped.Kai checked the code for the shields. The code was completely gone. It had been cleanly, perfectly erased.But it was not erased by the fire. Fire destroys code randomly. Fire bu

The bright lights of the press room felt as hot as a fire. Thousands of cameras clicked and flashed. Flash. Flash. Flash. The bright white light hurt Kai’s eyes, but he did not blink. He stood behind a clear glass podium. He looked out at the hundreds of reporters filling the grand hall of the Crest Tower.Kai wore a perfect, expensive black suit. His dark hair was combed neatly. He looked like the powerful, untouchable First Executor. He looked like the Peace Architect.But underneath the expensive black suit, Kai’s body was wrapped in tight white bandages. The deep knife cut on his chest burned with sharp, terrible pain every time he took a breath. His hands were covered in thin black leather gloves to hide the ugly red burn scars.He was a broken boy pretending to be a god. This was the Diplomat’s Dilemma. He had to stand in front of the world and tell a lie to keep everyone from tearing each other apart."People of the world," Kai said. He leaned close to the silver microphone.