Chapter 25
KRISTI
Iwake to the scent of antiseptic and something else—something warm and earthy, familiar in a way that hits me deeper than thought. Spice. The blend Kenron wore the first night I walked into his kitchen, back when I still thought I could stay neutral.
My eyes crack open. The room’s dim. Pale orange light leaks through the blackout drapes, casting long shadows across concrete walls and crates of stolen med supplies. There’s a low hum—ventilation, maybe. My pulse thrums loud in my ears.
And he’s there.
Kenron.
Curled in a chair beside the bunk, head dropped forward, hands loosely clasped, blades strapped to his hips like he’s ready to tear through the world if it so much as breathes wrong.
He looks… older. No—weathered. Like someone who’s carried a mountain across his shoulders and dared the gods to take it from him.
I blink again, and this time he stirs.
Our eyes meet. And the ground beneath me finally stops spinning.
“Hey,” I whisper, my voice like gravel and thread.
He’s up in an instant, leaning over me, one hand sliding into mine without hesitation.
“You’re awake,” he says, voice low, rough. “Thank the stars.”
“You didn’t leave.”
“Didn’t plan to.” He squeezes my hand, thumb brushing my knuckles. “Not ever again.”
Emotion swells in my chest, sharp and sudden, but I push it down. Later. There’s too much to say.
“I need to tell you everything,” I say, throat dry, each word like dragging wire through cloth. “Before it slips.”
“I’m listening.”
“The vault… Dennis’s study. It was a tomb of secrets. Paper files, Kenron. Like he knew someday the net wouldn’t be safe.”
I shift, pain flaring down my leg. He helps me sit up, props a pillow behind me.
“Talk,” he says. “Don’t hold back.”
“There was a prototype. A nanite batch labeled ‘Trial—Verified Lethal.’ I saw the specs. It’s confirmed, Kenron.
I found the prototype vial. It matches the specs we saw—the mutation, the sterilization protocols.
It’s all there, Kenron. The ambassador. The nanites.
The timeline. He signed his name to an apocalypse. ”
His face hardens. “Extinction.”
“Yes. And there’s more.” My hands shake as I talk, but I can’t stop. “The documents include deployment schedules. The nanites are staged. They’re already embedded in the Sunrise Festival infrastructure. Dispersal points disguised as decor—gilded urns, flower misters, cooling towers…”
“Gods.” He runs a hand through his hair. “They’re planning a mass kill switch in the middle of a peace celebration.”
“They want it symbolic,” I whisper. “Clean. Controlled. A genocide wrapped in fireworks and pretty speeches.”
“We can’t let it happen.”
“No. But we have motive, means, proof of execution planning. We can expose this. Stop the launch if we hit the right node.”
His eyes meet mine.
“The command node,” we say together.
“Top tier of the festival pavilion,” I continue. “Access locked by triple-layer encryption, council-grade firewalls, and biometric gates.”
He lets out a breath. “We’ll get through them.”
“It’s impossible.”
“It’s not.”
I search his face. The lines of exhaustion. The quiet fury banked just under the surface.
“How do you always believe in me?” I ask, softer.
“Because you keep coming back,” he says, brushing hair from my cheek. “Because you keep standing when most would run.”
My throat tightens. I press my forehead to his.
“We’re not gonna make it out of this clean.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“I don’t want to lose you again.”
“Then don’t.”
The room buzzes with a low, artificial hum—part server rack, part adrenaline. My fingers hover above the interface, palms damp, every breath shallow and tight. The mic is open, the encryption layered. The trace routes will hold. Probably.
The camera feed blinks. Red.
“Recording live,” Kenron says from across the room. His voice is quiet, grave.
I steady my hand and press transmit.
“This is not a drill.”
My voice comes out lower than I expect. Measured. Raw.
“This is not propaganda. This is your warning.”
The words ripple into the darkness, carried on old wiring and stolen satellite feeds. I don’t have to raise my voice. The silence behind it is loud enough.
“The Sunrise Festival is a trap. A massacre in masquerade. The dispersal system is embedded into the infrastructure—misters, urns, cooling towers. They will unleash nanites that mutate on contact, designed to corrupt non-human DNA. To sterilize. To extinguish.”
I pause, letting the weight settle.
“This is not a theory. This is not a rogue faction. This is a sanctioned operation.”
I layer the audio with images—paper files unfolding, the ink still smudged from where I touched them too fast. The prototype, softly glowing. The council seal. The signature. My uncle’s.
“Those you trusted with your peace have turned it into a weapon.”
Kenron watches from the shadows, arms crossed, body tense like a coiled wire. I can feel his focus—sharp and unwavering. He hasn’t moved since I started. Barely blinked.
“I don’t want your loyalty. I want your eyes open.”
The broadcast ends with a simple, silent frame. The Novarian Accord emblem, rusted and ancient, rotating against a black starfield. A symbol from a time when unity wasn’t just propaganda.
I hit SEND.
The upload bar races to 99%.
Then it freezes.
Red text flashes across the screen: TRANSMISSION BLOCKED. NETWORK ISOLATION PROTOCOL ACTIVE.
“No,” I whisper, tapping the screen frantically. “No, no, no.”
The bar turns gray. Connection lost.
“He cut the hardline,” Kenron says, his voice grim. “He knew you’d try.”
I turn away, trembling. My stomach twists into a knot of cold dread.
Then Dennis appears.
His image cuts clean through the noise on the monitor. No distortion. No scrambling. But he isn't addressing my leak. He doesn't have to.
He stands tall in a sterile studio, backdropped by a perfect render of Novaria Prime—a skyline scrubbed of smoke and sorrow. His suit is navy. His tie gleams gold. His face wears confidence like armor.
“Fellow citizens,” he says, smiling that perfect, practiced smile. “Tonight, we celebrate. Tonight, regardless of the rumors of technical difficulties or rogue signals, the Sunrise Festival will proceed. For our children. For our heritage.”
He smiles. Like it’s already over.
“He knows,” I whisper. “He stopped the leak, and now he’s mocking us.”
I shut the screen off.
My jaw tightens. I feel heat rising from my skin. Fury and helplessness battling for space in my chest.
“He’s good,” I whisper.
“Not good enough,” Kenron says. “Not this time.”
I step back, staring at the dark screen. The digital path is dead. The remote option is gone.
“We can’t stop this from here,” I say, the realization heavy as stone. “We have to be there.”
Kenron nods, his hand drifting to the blade at his hip. “Then we go in. Through the front door.”
I press my palm flat against the cold glass of the monitor.
“This ends tonight.”