The doors of the Titanium Medicine plant slid open at exactly nine in the morning. Chairman Vane stepped onto the polished concrete floor of the main lobby. He wore a pristine charcoal suit and carried a slim digital briefcase. He did not bring his usual contingent of Capital executioners or federal attorneys. He walked into the hostile fortress completely alone.Victoria met him immediately. She flanked the Capital proxy with a dozen heavily armed Titanium operatives. She kept her good hand resting on her sidearm and watched his every movement with absolute lethal intent.Chase had signed the executive addendum yesterday to lift the federal freeze on their two trillion dollar war chest. The signature restored the forty nine percent partnership stake held by the banker. It granted the enemy legal entry into the most secure industrial facility in North City. The Tripartite Union had officially invited the wolf inside the gates to keep their mountain army fed."Halt," Victoria commanded

Four black government SUVs and a dozen municipal police cruisers parked at the edge of the Pinecrest Woods. Flashing red and blue lights illuminated the muddy trail leading up to the towering earthen walls of the mountain fortress. The vehicles did not disgorge armed Capital mercenaries or crimson robed southern warlords.Men and women in tailored suits stepped out into the damp morning air. They wore polished dress shoes that sank immediately into the thick mud. They carried thick manila folders and plastic clipboards.Elder Sima stood on the earth battlements he had erected just days prior. He looked down at the flashing lights through the dense canopy of ancient pine trees. Elder Teng stood beside him with his arms crossed over his chest. The two veteran pavilion masters observed the strange gathering with mounting confusion.A man wearing a tan trench coat walked to the front of the convoy. He raised a white plastic megaphone to his mouth."By order of the federal zoning commission

Heavy diesel engines roared over the steady morning rain. Three massive yellow bulldozers crawled up the muddy logging road toward the earthen walls of the Pinecrest Woods fortress. Chairman Vane walked behind the machinery in a pristine charcoal suit. He flanked himself with fifty men wearing the heavy black tactical gear of municipal riot police.They were not municipal police officers. Victoria recognized the rigid combat spacing and the customized rifles of Capital Syndicate mercenaries hiding behind federal badges. Vane had bypassed the paralyzed zoning commission by securing a direct federal warrant to demolish a suspected domestic terrorist compound.Chase Lu stepped out of an armored transport vehicle and walked directly into the path of the lead bulldozer. Victoria followed him with a hundred elite operatives of the Titanium Army. The security forces formed a solid wall of forged steel and Kevlar across the muddy road.Chase did not draw his obsidian sword. He ignited his Sta

Red digits cascaded down the massive glass monitors inside the Titanium command center. Warning sirens shrieked from the encrypted communication consoles as automated trading algorithms triggered emergency failsafes. Bella Song gripped the edge of the mahogany table and watched two billion dollars evaporate in four seconds.Chairman Vane did not wait for the media cycle to run its course. He launched a devastating coordinated short sell attack against every publicly traded subsidiary under the Titanium Group umbrella. Unseen proxy firms dumped millions of shares onto the global market to incite sheer panic across the trading floors."He is attacking the logistics division," Bella announced. She dropped into the leather executive chair and pulled her encrypted keyboard closer. "He wants to trigger a mass selloff and bury our stock prices before the midday bell.""Can we freeze the trading?," Victoria asked. The commander of the Titanium security forces stood near the door with her hand

Heavy steel blast doors slid shut across the primary corridors of the Elm Street tower. The magnetic locks engaged with a deep metallic thud. Victoria stood in the center of the security hub and directed her Titanium Army squads with lethal efficiency. She refused to trigger the audible alarms. The lockdown remained a silent purge.Soldiers wearing dark tactical gear secured the elevator banks and blocked the stairwells. They moved room by room to verify the identity of every single employee on the payroll. Nobody entered the building and nobody left.The interrogation room sat three floors below the lobby. The reinforced concrete walls muffled any sound trying to escape. Miller Vance sat strapped to a heavy steel chair. He was a senior data analyst for the logistics division. He wore a wrinkled blue dress shirt and his hands shook violently against the metal restraints.Victoria walked into the cold room and dropped a printed file onto the metal table."You swiped your security badge