Chapter 5 Talia #2
I set up at the small dining table, USB sliding into the port. The familiar world of data settles my nerves slightly. This I understand. This I can control.
Files bloom across my screen—spreadsheets, documents, chemical formulas. My fingers fly across the keys, organizing and cross-referencing. Silent work, the kind that used to drive Nathan crazy.
“Your silence is passive-aggressive.”
But Jackson doesn’t seem to mind the quiet. He moves through the apartment, checking windows, weapons, and exits. Each motion contains exactly the energy required, nothing wasted. I track him peripherally, cataloging the controlled power in every movement.
“Seventy-three confirmed deaths,” I say quietly.
“Excuse me?”
“Deaths. From Meridian’s drug trials.” I pull up the data and turn the screen toward him. “That’s what Victor died protecting. Evidence of seventy-three people killed during pharmaceutical trials for a drug called ML-273.”
Jackson moves closer, looking over my shoulder at the screen. His proximity makes my skin prickle, hyperaware of every inch between us. The heat of him reaches me through the borrowed clothes.
“They covered it up?”
I nod, pull up more data. Don’t trust my voice for extended explanation.
“Wait.” I highlight something. “They all had the same blood type. O-negative with rare RH factors. That’s—”
“Specific.”
“More than specific. That’s less than 0.0001% of the population.” My mind races through possibilities. The data points align in my head, forming a shape I can recognize. “They weren’t random test subjects. They were selected.”
“Selected for what?”
I pull up Victor’s chemical analysis, the formulas making my breath catch. “Look at this.” The words come easier now, the data giving me something to focus on besides Jackson’s presence. “ML-273 isn’t meant to treat cancer. It’s designed to alter DNA methylation patterns in specific sequences.”
“English.”
His voice rumbles behind me, low and commanding. The same tone that ordered me silent in the alley, that made my body respond before my mind could process.
“It’s trying to activate dormant genetic code.
Like—flipping switches in human DNA that have been turned off through evolution.
” I force myself to focus on the screen.
The numbers dance, rearranging themselves into a terrifying conclusion.
“They’re not developing medicine. They’re developing modifications.
Enhancements. The cancer patients were just test subjects to see if …
Look. Buried in the metadata, I keep seeing this phrase. Obsidian Protocol.”
Jackson freezes. Not the stillness he wears like armor—this is sharper, deeper. Recognition.
“What did you say?”
Did I speak?
“Obsidian Protocol.” I swivel the laptop toward him. “Referenced seventeen times across different files. I can’t find any description, just the name. I wonder what it is?”
He’s silent long enough for dread to creep under my skin. His jaw flexes once, muscle ticking. Eyes hinting at something—memory, caution, maybe fear.
“Phoenix,” he says at last, quiet enough that I almost miss it.
“Like the city?” I frown, trying to follow. “Or the bird?”
He exhales slowly, eyes still on the screen. “No. Phoenix isn’t a place. It’s—complicated. And dangerous.”
I blink. “You’ve heard of it.”
He hesitates—just a flicker, but it’s there. “Cerberus came across the name. A self-protecting system.”
“And you think it’s connected to this?” I tap the phrase glowing in the code.
The cursor blinks between us, waiting. The hum of the laptop fills the silence. Somewhere outside, a siren wails, distant and fading.
Jackson’s jaw tightens again, eyes narrowing as he watches the data scroll. “If Obsidian is tied to Phoenix,” he says quietly, “then you just tripped something that doesn’t want to be found.”
I swallow, pulse hammering. “Something—like an AI?”
He exhales slowly, gaze still locked on the code. “Something smarter than that. Self-aware. Self-protecting.” His voice drops lower, a thread of steel beneath the calm. “And I think we just discovered why multiple kill squads have been sent after you and your lead, Victor.”
The words hang in the air, heavy and irreversible, as the screen flickers—just once—like it’s listening.
“What can you tell me about Phoenix?”
“Military AI. Autonomous targeting system.” His voice is carefully controlled. “Officially terminated. Unofficially—”
“Still operational.” The pieces click together. My brain lights up, connecting disparate nodes. The black SUV. The precise timing of the hit. The coordinated assault. “That’s why Morrison gave me your number? He knew this connected to Phoenix?”
“Morrison didn’t know about Phoenix. He was just our FBI contact.” Jackson’s tone darkens, every word deliberate. “But whatever your source dug up—Phoenix is cleaning up.”
I freeze. “How does a pharmaceutical company access military AI?”
“Same way they get everything,” he says grimly. “Money. Power. Connections. Someone high up is involved.”
“And this Phoenix killed Victor?”
Jackson’s jaw flexes. “We need more data, but it’s suspicious. If Phoenix is involved, it not only tracked and killed Victor—it’s hunting you now.”
The chill that rolls through me is almost physical. I turn back to the laptop, fingers flying across keys. Focus. The data is safe. The data makes sense.
I pull up Victor’s research logs. Cross-reference his last communications. My screen fills with names—researchers who collaborated on the Meridian trials. I run quick searches, pulling public records, obituaries, anything.
“Lydia Crawford,” I read aloud. A news clipping loads, cheerful photo, tragic headline. “Dead a month ago. Car accident.”
Another search. “Marcus Thornton. Suicide. Two weeks ago.”
I keep going, scrolling faster now. Every click is another jolt of disbelief. Another obituary. Another end.
“They’re all dead,” I whisper. “Every researcher who questioned the trials. Car accidents. Suicides. Heart attacks.” I pull up a spreadsheet, start building a timeline, my pulse syncing to the rhythmic tapping of keys. “But the timing—it’s not random.”
Jackson leans closer, the warmth of his presence grounding and terrifying all at once.
“Look,” I say, voice thin. “They died in order of seniority. One by one. The most senior first, then the next. It’s—deliberate.”
“That’s Phoenix.” His voice drops, low and final. “It doesn’t just kill—it calculates. Makes it look organic. Random. But every death fits an algorithm.”
“Did you think …”
“I think we just found out why multiple kill squads were sent after you and Victor.” Jackson’s hand settles on the table beside me, steady but coiled. His eyes narrow on the scrolling code.
The cursor blinks. Once. Twice. Then the hard drive hums—a sound almost like breathing.
“An AI that kills people?” My hands shake slightly. “That learns and adapts?”
“Phoenix went rogue years ago. Started selecting its own targets based on threat assessment algorithms.” His voice is grim. “We’ve been tracking it, trying to predict patterns.”
“But true AI can’t be predicted. It evolves faster than human analysis.” I scan more files. “Jackson, these chemical formulas … Victor flagged something.”
I pull up his margin notes: Not therapeutic. Synthetic markers? DNA changes detected pre-death. Unreported.
“What if they were changing something in the test subjects’ DNA before they died?” I suggest quietly. “The deaths were secondary. Collateral damage from testing something else.”
“What were they testing?”
“I don’t know. The chemistry is beyond my understanding.
” I scroll through more formulas, frustrated.
“But Victor documented DNA changes in the autopsy reports that Meridian never reported to the FDA. Whatever they were doing, it was worth killing seventy-three people to test. And worth killing anyone who questioned it.”
A shiver runs through me—delayed reaction to everything. The cold, the fear, the phantom memory of Jackson’s body shielding mine.
Without warning, he disappears into the bedroom. Returns with a blanket that he drapes over my shoulders. The gesture is so unexpected, so gentle, that my throat closes up.
The blanket smells like cedar and gunpowder and safety. I pull it tighter, burrowing into the warmth.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
He nods, returns to checking the windows. But something has shifted. The quiet between us feels different now. Charged with things unsaid.
I focus on the screen, but I’m hyperaware of him moving through the space. Of the blanket’s weight on my shoulders. Of the bruise on my ribs that throbs with each breath, reminding me of his gentle hands checking the damage.
The way my body still aches for his touch, even though I know his protection was just a professional duty.
But the blanket around my shoulders feels like more than duty. It feels like he’s taking care of me.
If that’s the case, he might be more dangerous than any AI or assassination team hunting me.