Chapter 27
JORDAN
The safehouse smells like cold concrete, stale coffee, and the kind of fear that doesn’t bother pretending it’s polite.
We’re underground—of course we are. Gur loves hiding its sins in basements. The air is a little too dry, filtered hard enough that it tastes like dust that got sterilized and then resentfully put back. A single strip light hums overhead, making everything look sickly and blue.
Morazin sits in the middle of the room, cuffed to a reinforced chair like a bad sculpture nobody asked for. His collar is torn. His hair is slightly out of place. His eyes are still sharp.
Annoyingly sharp.
He looks like the kind of man who’d smirk during his own autopsy.
Lonari’s people have him secure—ankle locks, wrist cuffs, a throat band that monitors vitals and injects a paralytic if he spikes too hard. There’s no blood on him. No bruises. Not because we’re kind.
Because there’s no value in breaking him physically when we can break him strategically.
I pull a chair in front of him and sit. Not close enough to smell him too deeply, but close enough that he understands I’m not afraid to be in the room.
The chair legs scrape the concrete, a sound that makes Morazin’s mouth twitch like he’s enjoying the tension.
He’s wearing the faintest hint of cologne under the fear-sweat. Something expensive and old-fashioned. Like he wants to smell like authority even while he’s chained to a chair.
I make sure my compad is visible when I set it on the table between us.
A quiet little threat.
“Jordan James,” Morazin says, voice smooth. “The martyr with a holonet.”
“Morazin Valeer,” I reply sweetly. “The dead man who won’t shut up.”
His smirk deepens. “Still alive.”
“Only because you haven’t given me what I need yet,” I say.
He laughs softly, like I’ve made a clever joke.
Lonari stands behind me, a dark heat in the room. I can’t see him without turning, but I feel him like pressure against my back, like a shield that has teeth.
He doesn’t speak.
He’s letting me work.
And it makes my chest tighten in a way I don’t have time to examine.
I flick my compad and project a holo-window into the air. Audio files. Visual clips. Header tags. Financial chains. The truth arranged neatly like a knife set.
Morazin’s eyes flick to it, unimpressed. “You enjoy theatrics.”
“I enjoy receipts,” I say.
I tap the first file.
His own voice fills the room—clean, clear, recorded. It’s his broadcast doctrine, the one he delivered like he was preaching:
“Perpetual war prevents stagnation… economic collapse… necessary…”
Morazin’s expression doesn’t change, but I watch his throat tighten as his words echo back at him. There’s something primal about hearing yourself tell the world what you really are.
I let it play for ten seconds. Then I cut it off.
Silence snaps back.
“You hear that?” I ask him. “That’s you. Not the version you sell to committees. The version you buried under paperwork.”
Morazin’s eyes narrow. “You think playing audio will scare me.”
“No,” I say, leaning forward slightly. “I think it will remind you what’s already in motion. And I think it will remind you you’re not the one holding the leash.”
His brow lifts. “Oh?”
I tap again—another projection blooms. A cascade of Nine-coded transaction routes, his funding chain, the shell intermediaries. Then I overlay it with something new: the Nine’s extraction schedule we pulled.
EXTRACTION WINDOW: WITHIN 72 HOURS
I let that sit there, hovering like a guillotine.
Morazin’s smirk falters. Just a hairline crack.
“Your friends,” I say softly. “They planned to ‘extract’ you.”
Morazin’s jaw flexes. “They planned contingencies.”
“Don’t insult me,” I snap, and the anger flares sharper than I expect. “I’ve lived through enough institutions to recognize a polite murder plan when I see one.”
Lonari shifts behind me. A faint scrape of boot on concrete. He’s listening. Watching.
Morazin exhales slowly through his nose, trying to regain control. “You think this means something? That the Nine will kill me?”
“It means you’re disposable,” I say. “Which is hilarious, because you’ve been acting like you’re untouchable.”
Morazin’s eyes harden. His voice goes colder. “I’m not disposable.”
I tilt my head. “Then prove it. Give me High Lantern.”
The words land and the room tightens.
Morazin’s gaze flicks up, sharp. “Ah.”
There it is—the moment his mask shifts. Not fear. Not anger.
Recognition.
He knows what that name means.
“You’ve been digging,” he says.
“Yeah,” I reply. “I’m like a roach in an air vent. Annoying and hard to kill.”
Morazin’s mouth twitches. “High Lantern isn’t yours to touch.”
“Neither is Yatori,” I shoot back. “Neither were those civilians you had executed. And yet—you touched them.”
His eyes glitter. “Civilians are always touched. That’s how power works.”
I lean forward until my elbows rest on my knees. My compad’s glow paints my hands blue.
“No,” I say quietly. “That’s how cowards work.”
Morazin smiles again, thin. “You want High Lantern because you think it’s the puppet-master.”
“I want High Lantern,” I say, “because I found the relay path through Alliance infrastructure. And you didn’t get that access by praying.”
His smirk widens like I just offered him candy. “You’re still missing the real lever.”
I don’t blink. “Try me.”
Morazin’s eyes slide past me as if Lonari isn’t even there. He speaks like he’s lecturing a classroom.
“Someone in Alliance High Command needed the war to restart,” he says. “They signed the access keys.”
My pulse does a weird, sick little jump.
I hear the words like a door opening in my head, revealing a bigger room full of worse monsters.
“Alliance High Command,” I repeat, voice flat.
Morazin nods slightly, smug again. “The Alliance thrives on external threats. Peace makes citizens ask questions. War makes them shut up and salute.”
Lonari’s voice finally cuts in from behind me, low and lethal. “Name.”
Morazin’s smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “I don’t answer to criminals.”
Lonari chuckles once. It’s not humor. It’s a sound like a blade being tested. “You’re chained to a chair in a criminal safehouse. You answer to whatever breath I allow you.”
Morazin’s throat bobs. He swallows.
But he doesn’t give the name.
Instead he looks at me again, and his tone turns slicker—bargaining.
“You want High Lantern because you want your hearing,” he says. “You want a public stage. You want to force institutions to listen.”
“Yes,” I say.
“And you think if you drag me onto that stage, you win,” he says, and his eyes sharpen. “But you won’t. Because you can’t keep me alive long enough.”
I feel my teeth grind.
He’s right about the danger.
He’s wrong about the outcome.
“You’re trying to bargain for immunity,” I say.
Morazin’s lips part in a satisfied smile. “Smart girl.”
I tap my compad.
A recording indicator flickers on—then another. Then another.
I open three redundant channels: Kaijen archive, civilian cloud mirror, dead-drop fragment.
His eyes flick to the indicators. “Recording me.”
“Always,” I say.
Morazin chuckles. “You think redundancy makes you safe.”
“It makes me loud,” I correct. “And loud gets people nervous.”
Morazin’s gaze narrows. “What do you want?”
I let the silence stretch, then I say it clearly.
“High Lantern’s identity.”
Morazin’s smile fades into something more calculating.
He leans back against the restraints as far as he can. “No.”
Lonari steps forward, and I feel the heat of him at my shoulder now. “Jordan asked politely,” he says. “I don’t.”
Morazin’s eyes flick up to Lonari, then back to me. “If I give you that, I die.”
“If you don’t,” I say, voice hard, “you die anyway. The only difference is whether your death matters.”
Morazin’s nostrils flare. For a second he looks genuinely irritated—like he hates that I’m not pleading.
Then he says, slow, deliberate, like he’s choosing each word with tweezers:
“High Lantern is Council-tier.”
The phrase hits me like a cold wave.
Council-tier.
Not an officer. Not a contractor. Not a mid-level bureaucrat.
Council-tier means political command. The kind of person who can sign access keys that slip through Alliance infrastructure without alarms. The kind of person who can bury a scandal under national security stamps.
My throat tightens. “Council-tier… where?”
Morazin’s smile returns, faint. “You want specifics, you trade.”
Lonari’s growl is low. “We don’t trade with you.”
Morazin’s gaze flicks to him. “Then you don’t get specifics.”
I hold up a hand slightly, stopping Lonari before he moves. My brain is racing, gears grinding so hard it almost hurts.
“Okay,” I say, forcing calm. “Let’s talk trades.”
Morazin’s eyes brighten. “Finally.”
I keep my voice icy. “You give me High Lantern’s biometric imprint. Not a name. Not a story. A biometric fragment. Enough to identify them in a secure database.”
Morazin laughs softly. “You think I have that?”
“You had access keys,” I say. “You didn’t forge them yourself. Someone authorized you. That authorization leaves a trace. Everything leaves a trace.”
Morazin’s smile tightens. “Even if I did, why would I hand it to you?”
“Because it’s your only leverage,” I say. “And because the Nine is already writing your obituary.”
Morazin’s gaze flickers—anger, fear, something like hatred.
Then he goes still.
Too still.
My instincts flare like a siren.
“What are you doing?” I demand.
Morazin’s eyes widen slightly—surprise flashes for a fraction of a second, like something in his mouth just changed texture.
Then his lips curl.
“Oh,” he says softly. “That.”
My blood turns to ice.
Lonari steps forward, hand already reaching for Morazin’s jaw, but it’s a second too late.
Morazin bites down.
Hard.
There’s a faint crack sound—tiny, but unmistakable.
A sharp metallic scent hits the air, like a battery just got punctured.
Morazin’s eyes gleam with triumph. “Panic protocol,” he whispers.
And then—
My compad screams.