Chapter 73 Aaron
Aaron
Location: Same
The room transforms in minutes.
Not louder.
Not chaotic.
Sharper.
Weapons are placed, not checked.
Maps aren’t spread—they’re claimed.
Positions shift without discussion, like they’ve all already agreed on roles no one had to say out loud.
Delta Five doesn’t enter a room.
They take control of it.
I watch them settle.
Every one of them different.
Every one of them lethal.
Ronan moves to the main screen, fingers flying as he pulls the data together.
Kade’s face locks into place—frozen mid-frame.
A ghost caught in light.
“That’s him?” one of them asks.
No emotion.
Just confirmation.
“Yes,” Lark says. “And he’s about to create a catastrophe.”
The man closest to the table—Jace, if I remember right—tilts his head slightly.
“How?”
Lark steps forward.
No hesitation.
No fear.
“By forcing a system-wide override,” she says. “Layered infrastructure collapse. Energy grids, transport systems, emergency networks—all tied together.”
She gestures to the screen.
“He creates a convergence point… then forces a failure cascade big enough that governments lose control in real time.”
Ronan goes still beside me.
“I’m seeing it now,” he says, voice low. “He’s not targeting one location…”
His eyes flick across the data.
“He’s syncing them.”
The realization lands across the room like a shockwave.
I look at Lark.
“How bad?”
She doesn’t hesitate.
“Multiple cities,” she says. “Coordinated. Timed within minutes of each other.”
A beat.
“If he triggers it… thousands die before anyone understands what’s happening.”
Silence.
Not shock.
Not fear.
Calculation.
Cold. Immediate. Absolute.
One of the operators leans back slightly, arms crossing.
“Then we break the chain,” he says.
Another shakes his head once.
“Too late for that if he’s this far in.”
Jace steps forward.
No hesitation.
No debate.
Decision.
“Then we remove the architect.”
The room stills.
Because everyone understands what that means.
Jace’s gaze locks onto the screen.
Voice flat.
Certain.
“Then we kill him first.”