The air inside HON headquarters reeked of antiseptic and simmering lentils, a warm, familiar smell that attested to Anna's determination to keep them all grounded and fed. Slumped over his laptop, Reuben cross-checked sanitation reports from the industrial docks against the System's omnipresent Societal Stability Index. The 'Truth Cascade' investment was quiet but effective; a recent smear campaign in a Crane-biased newspaper had crashed with unexpected force, its arguments met with skepticism and intense community-driven counter-arguments on the web forums. It was a small triumph, but it indicated the new module proved worthwhile.Suddenly, a warning flared on the rim of his eye, not with the vivid, flame red of an instant danger, but with a dim, evil orange. It was a color he had never seen.[GEO-POLITICAL EVENT FLAG: INCREASING BORDER CONFLICT]His main outbreak map, which normally spanned the city or national level, zoomed automatically back to a continental scale. Two tiny inland

The world outside the truck window came into focus, the harsh concrete of Harbor City giving way to the ruffled, green blanket of the countryside. The hysterical whirl of media notifications and viral hashtags faded into the steady hum of tires on the road and the wind whistling through paddies of rice. Reuben had made up his mind in the small hours of the night after Danford, after the frantic, successful, politically charged work of securing the refugee camp. Crane's "fraud" tale had clung to him there, a ghostly scent that drew disbelieving government accountants and disenchanted reporters who shadowed his every move, waiting for the first misstep.He could not work like that. The System could not function under a microscope. So, he went underground.He, Anna, and a few others of three remained in the shadows, their interaction restricted to secure, burst-transmission communications with Liam, who was now in control of a "dormant" HON headquarters in Harbor City. They became ghosts

The world teetered on the brink of a new, abominably complex zoonotic flu strain from the rainforests of the Amazon. The System's global map was a skein of potential transmission routes, and Reuben's mind was a whirlpool of DP assignments, vaccine research trees, and diplomatic probes to the Brazilian health ministry. He sat in his study, a room increasingly dominated by the HON, its walls lined with maps and its floor cluttered with cables that provided power to servers humming with the soft, ceaseless toil of the System.He did not hear the front door open. He did not hear the tentative footfalls in the hallway. He was so absorbed in the data that the soft creak of his study door opening was a gunshot.Emily was there.She wasn't mad. That would be easier. She was empty. The vibrant, smart woman he'd married, the one who could light up a room with her smile, wasn't there. A stranger with tired eyes and a mouth clamped in an expression of abiding resignation was in her place. She had

The acrid odor of smoke still lingered over the ruins of the Danford camp, a grim cologne over the ambient stench of disease and terror. Reuben and his HON crew moved through the exhausted citizenry like ghosts, their task now one of brutal consolidation—quarantining the cholera, tending to the wounded of the riots, and distributing the sparse food supplies they'd been able to scrounge up. The Societal Stability Index languished at a perilous 15%, a patient on life support.It was into this landscape of despair that Howard Crane came, not with fear, but with salvation.A convoy of immaculate white trucks, emblazoned with the sleek, double-helix logo of Crane Biotech, rode through the broken gates. A media caravan trailed behind them, cameras popping, capturing the perfect PR moment. Crane stepped out, not suited but in a practical, khaki vest and with a stethoscope around his neck like a star's scarf.The men and women of Crane Biotech will not stand by while our fellow men and women

The week after Geneva was a vigil. The world held its breath, its attention split between the verdant Mekong Delta and Kandalar's arid plains. News cycles had countdown clocks, speculating which prophet would be vindicated.Reuben's HON, operating on a razor's edge of credibility, managed to guide a trickle of aid and one assessment team into the Jarama settlement, their reports confirming the appalling conditions but finding no trace of the alleged smallpox vials.The second week, the silence began to feel oppressive. In Ha Tanh, heightened surveillance of the wildlife markets yielded nothing out of the ordinary. The local health authorities, who had been on red alert at first, began to grumble at the disruption. From Kandalar, the HON team reported an increase in all types of sickness—malaria, dysentery, a brutal respiratory infection—but nothing that fit the alarmingly specific profile of Variola major.By the third week, the countdown clocks vanished from the news networks. They w