Chapter 13 Ronan
Ronan
Location: Mobile Command — En Route
Time: Night
It starts with three alarms that should never go off together.
Digital intrusion.
Asset distress.
And a third—quieter, sharper—
Predictive deviation spike.
“That’s not a coincidence,” I mutter.
My screens flare red, reflections cutting across the inside of the vehicle as we move. The world outside is dark, but in here—it’s war.
“Talk to me,” Aaron says in my ear.
“They just launched a coordinated strike,” I reply. “And they were waiting for her to move.”
“I didn’t move her.”
“No,” I say grimly. “They moved the world.”
I pull the first feed.
Madrid.
A financial crimes server—clean, quiet, buried.
Not anymore.
“They poisoned it,” I say, jaw tightening. “Injected a false transaction web.”
I expand the model. It spreads like infection.
“They’re rewriting outcomes,” I continue. “Making it look like her system flagged the wrong targets.”
Silence on the line.
“They’re not just attacking her,” Aaron says.
“They’re dismantling her credibility.”
“Exactly.”
“And if that sticks…” he trails off.
“She becomes noise,” I finish. “And everything she built dies with it.”
I switch feeds.
Porto.
Hospital.
The footage loads—grainy, rushed, too real.
“They hit someone connected to her,” I say, voice lower now. “Junior analyst. Worked with her two years ago.”
Aaron exhales, slow and dangerous.
“What happened?”
“Car crash,” I answer.
I pause.
Then: “Brake lines cut.”
The silence that follows isn’t empty.
It’s lethal.
“That’s not collateral,” Aaron says.
“No,” I agree. “That’s a message.”
Don’t help her.
Don’t believe her.
Don’t survive her.
The third alarm pulses again.
Predictive deviation spike.
“That one,” I say, focusing in. “That’s the part that matters.”
“What does it mean?”
“It means they forced a future,” I say. “Something that wasn’t supposed to happen… just did.”
Silence.
Then Lark’s voice comes through.
Calm.
Too calm.
“They’re trying to make me doubt the system.”
“Yes.”
“And they’re tying it to people getting hurt.”
“Yes.”
“So I stop trusting it.”
“Yes.”
A beat.
Then she says, softer:
“And start trusting fear instead.”
I close my eyes briefly.
“She’s not spiraling,” I tell Aaron.
There’s a shift in him I can hear.
“No,” he says.
“She’s locking in.”