Chapter 33
JORDAN
The dead-man packet looks innocent if you don’t know what you’re looking at.
It’s the kind of file that sits there like a bored little rectangle—no dramatic skull icon, no fireworks. Just encrypted junk wrapped in polite headers. The kind of thing a normal person would delete because it “won’t open.”
Which is exactly why it works.
I’m hunched over a terminal in the Nun’s operations room, the air around me humming with server heat and stale coffee.
My hands smell like citrus sanitizer and metal from the case Lonari brought back—my fingers still faintly tingling from touching the agent’s jaw implant housing, like the plastic remembers being inside someone’s mouth.
Gross.
Useful.
Lonari is somewhere behind me, not hovering but present—like a wall you forget is there until you lean on it. Clint sits across the table, shoulders tight, eyes ringed with exhaustion. He hasn’t stopped scanning the room every few seconds like he expects IHC agents to pour out of the vents.
Honestly, same.
On my screen, the packet’s handshake signature pulses faintly. A tiny heartbeat of threat.
KEYED TO: HIGH LANTERN.
I tap my nails once against the desk to steady myself.
“Okay,” I whisper. “Let’s see what you’re hiding.”
Clint watches me with a mix of awe and dread. “You’re sure you can crack it without triggering another watchdog?”
“I’m not cracking the whole thing,” I say, voice clipped. “I’m peeling the outer layer. Like… like skinning an onion without making soup.”
He snorts weakly. “That’s not how onions work.”
“It is if you’re mad enough,” I shoot back.
Lonari’s voice rumbles from behind me. “She’s mad enough.”
I flick him a look over my shoulder. “Don’t encourage me.”
“Too late,” he says, and I hear the faintest smile in his tone. It’s not warm, exactly. It’s the kind of smile you get right before you do something illegal in a morally satisfying way.
I plug the packet into a quarantined sandbox—Kaijen hardware, isolated, no external uplinks. It runs on a closed loop and breathes through a one-way valve: it can read, it can’t speak. If the packet tries to phone home, it’ll scream into a void.
At least in theory.
I start the first pass.
The screen floods with code—dense, elegant encryption layers stacked like armor plates. Whoever built this wasn’t a street hacker. This is professional. Military-adjacent.
Clint leans forward. “That’s Alliance cipher structuring.”
My stomach tightens. “You recognize it?”
He nods slowly. “Yeah. Not the exact key, obviously. But the formatting. The internal segmentation. It’s… standardized.”
“Standardized for what?” I ask.
Clint’s jaw flexes. “For things that aren’t supposed to exist on civilian networks.”
Lonari’s voice is low. “So it’s real.”
Clint doesn’t look away from the screen. “It’s real.”
I exhale through my nose, fingers flying. I don’t brute-force it—too loud, too messy. I go around. I exploit the tiny human flaw in every system: someone had to make it usable.
I find a maintenance tag. I find a checksum that assumes nobody would ever see it. I find a tiny sloppy corner where arrogance got lazy.
And then—
The outer layer fractures.
Data spills into readable structure like blood into water.
My heart slams against my ribs.
“Jordan?” Clint’s voice is tight.
“I’m in,” I whisper.
Lonari steps closer. I feel his breath shift behind me, the subtle way he goes still when something matters.
The first files are routing logs—timestamped directives, delivery confirmations, procurement reference numbers.
Procurement.
My mouth goes dry.
“Oh,” I say, and it comes out half laugh, half horror. “Oh, you have got to be kidding me.”
“What?” Clint demands.
I throw the first trail onto the holo display.
A series of shell company names—innocuous, bland, corporate. Logistics outfits. Medical supply contractors. One is literally called something like Gur Maritime Solutions which is the kind of name you pick when you want people to fall asleep while reading it.
The Nine’s shell web.
Except the outgoing endpoints aren’t black-market caches.
They’re Alliance armory shipments.
My pulse spikes.
I zoom in, highlight the shipment IDs.
“These are serial-linked,” I say, voice tightening. “Not just ‘similar’ modules. The exact batch numbers match the ones Lonari intercepted. And—” I flick to another window, overlaying safehouse assault residue logs, recovered bolt signatures, micro-burn patterns from the walls.
Clint inhales sharply.
“No,” he whispers.
“Yes,” I say.
The screen shows it plainly: the weapons used in the safehouse assault—the Alliance-grade energy diffusers, the precise bolt profile—are tied to shipments routed through Nine shells.
Nine didn’t just buy weapons.
They’re getting issued inventory.
My hands go cold.
Lonari’s voice is quiet, like a blade being drawn slow. “They’re using High Command stock.”
“Or someone’s issuing it to them,” Clint mutters, face pale.
I scroll deeper.
The procurement approvals aren’t signed by a person’s name. They’re routed through an office code.
And there it is—again and again and again.
A recurring identifier.
A High Command office routing approvals through something called a “civilian oversight committee.”
I stare at it like it might blink.
“Civilian oversight committee,” I repeat, incredulous.
Clint’s face changes.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
He leans in so fast his chair squeaks. “Oh no.”
“What?” I snap.
Clint swallows hard. “That structure… that wording… Jordan, that’s a loophole.”
“No kidding,” I say, sarcasm sharp enough to cut.
He shakes his head. “No, I mean—there’s a classified Alliance-IHC liaison program that uses civilian oversight language as a legal shield. It’s… it’s designed to prevent war.”
The words hit my skull like a hammer.
“Prevent war,” I echo.
Clint nods, grim. “It’s meant to route emergency cooperation without triggering military escalation. Like… quiet deconfliction. Shared intel. Dispute resolution.”
I stare at the screen, my stomach twisting.
“So,” I say slowly, “it’s a bridge.”
“Yes,” Clint whispers. “A bridge that’s supposed to keep everyone from lighting each other on fire.”
I feel my teeth grind.
“And it’s been hijacked,” I finish.
Clint closes his eyes briefly, like he can’t stand the taste of that truth. “Yeah.”
The room feels smaller, like the walls leaned in to listen.
Lonari exhales behind me, controlled but hot. “So High Lantern isn’t just some rogue official.”
“No,” I say, voice low. “High Lantern is sitting in a program built to prevent war… and using it to restart one.”
Clint’s eyes flick to me, haunted. “If this gets out—”
“It has to get out,” I cut in.
Lonari’s voice is immediate. “Jordan—”
I spin in my chair to face him, my heart pounding so hard it makes my vision shimmer at the edges.
“We can’t keep playing shadow games,” I say, voice shaking with adrenaline. “They’re using secrecy as a weapon. That’s what got people killed on Yatori. That’s what got Venn killed. That’s what keeps making ‘containment’ sound reasonable to bureaucrats.”
Lonari’s eyes narrow. “A public hearing puts civilians at risk.”
“And secrecy already has,” I snap back. “How many civilians have to die quietly before we admit the quiet option is a lie?”
Lonari’s jaw tightens. “If you go public, the Nine retaliates openly. They don’t just hit operatives. They hit marketplaces. Transit hubs. Families.”
My throat tightens because he’s not wrong.
But neither am I.
I swallow hard, forcing my voice steady. “Then we build it so they can’t assassinate Morazin and call it solved.”
Clint’s eyes flick between us. “What are you thinking?”
I turn back to the terminal, hands already moving. The idea forms like a blade in my mind—sharp, ugly, necessary.
“We do a live multi-feed hearing,” I say. “Not one stream. Not one location. Multiple. Redundant. Automated.”
Lonari’s voice is hard. “Explain.”
I pull up a new schematic window and start building the architecture in real time.
“Morazin testifies publicly,” I say, “but under conditions that make killing him pointless. A public-release trigger tied to his biometrics—heart rate, blood oxygen, micro-neural activity. If he flatlines, the entire evidence package dumps everywhere.”
Clint’s eyebrows lift. “A dead-man switch… for Morazin.”
“A dead-man megaphone,” I correct.
Lonari stares at the holo schematic as it grows—Kaijen server mirrors, civilian cloud distribution, black-market relay nodes, even some Alliance public newsfeeds that can be hijacked briefly as a broadcast burst.
“This is insane,” Clint whispers.
I don’t look up. “Yes.”
Lonari’s voice is low. “And what stops them from taking civilians hostage to force you to shut it down?”
I pause, fingers hovering.
Because that’s the part that hurts.
That’s the part where morality meets tactics and both bleed.
I look at Lonari.
“We don’t do this without shielding,” I say. “We don’t do it by begging governments to be good. We do it with leverage.”
Lonari’s eyes sharpen. “My leverage plan.”
I nod once. “Your leverage plan.”
He studies me, and I can see the war inside him: the instinct to protect his people versus the understanding that protection without autonomy is just another cage.
Clint clears his throat softly. “You two sound like you’ve been doing this a while.”
Lonari doesn’t look away from me. “Long enough.”
I force myself to breathe and turn back to the terminal.
“Okay,” I say. “Morazin’s biometrics are already monitored in the vault. We add a parallel sensor suite—independent, hidden. We feed the outputs into the public-release trigger.”
Clint leans forward. “If the Nine tries to kill him, it detonates.”
“Exactly,” I say. “If IHC tries to quietly erase him, it detonates. If Alliance tries to ‘accidentally’ transfer him into the void, it detonates.”
Lonari’s voice is rough. “And if they keep him alive but silence him?”
I smile without humor. “Then we build the hearing so he can’t be silenced. Multi-feed, live transcription, independent voice capture. If his audio cuts, the system flags it publicly. ‘Tampering detected.’”
Clint’s mouth opens slightly. “That’s… aggressive.”
“That’s what they deserve,” I say.
Lonari steps closer until he’s beside my chair. I can smell him—smoke and steel, that steady presence that makes the room feel less like it’s spinning.
“You want to force their hand,” he says.
“Yes,” I reply. “No more permission. No more ‘please investigate yourselves.’ We build a situation where the only safe option for them is transparency.”
Lonari’s gaze flicks to the procurement trails. To the civilian oversight committee routing. To the bridge that’s been hijacked.
His jaw tightens. “They will come for you harder.”
I look up at him, and my voice comes out quieter than before. “They already are.”
A beat of silence.
Then Lonari says, “Compromise.”
My stomach clenches. “No.”
He raises a hand slightly. “Listen.”
I force myself to stay still, even though every nerve in me wants to bite.
“We do your public hearing,” he says. “Live, redundant, explosive.”
I blink.
He continues, voice controlled. “But we do it with civilian shielding layered into the plan. We pre-position Kaijen resources to protect marketplaces and transit hubs. We choke Nine retaliation routes. We make their backlash expensive.”
My breath catches.
Clint whispers, “That’s… actually smart.”
I stare at Lonari, and something warm and sharp moves in my chest—respect, relief, fear, all tangled.
“You’re agreeing,” I say, like I can’t trust it.
“I’m not agreeing,” Lonari corrects. “I’m adapting.”
I huff a laugh, shaky. “You’re impossible.”
He gives the faintest smile. “I know.”
Clint rubs his face, exhausted. “Okay. So. Public hearing, multi-feed. Morazin biometrics tied to a global dump. Kaijen shielding to prevent mass civilian casualties. And—” He glances at the locked terminal that started all this. “We’re assuming High Lantern is now aware we’re sniffing around.”
“Yes,” I say.
Lonari’s eyes darken. “Which means they’ll move.”
I nod. “Good.”
Clint looks at me like I’m unhinged. “Why is that good?”
Because if they move, they leave footprints.
Because if they move, we can catch the bridge in motion.
I lift my chin. “Because I’m done chasing ghosts,” I say. “If High Lantern wants to play god with procurement and secrecy, fine. Let them step into the light for a second.”
Lonari’s hand settles on the back of my chair—steady, grounding.
“We build the detonator,” he says.
“And we build the shield,” I reply.
Clint exhales slowly, as if accepting the insanity like a new climate. “Okay,” he says. “Then… let’s break the system.”
My fingers return to the keys, and the holo schematic grows into something monstrous and beautiful: a truth-delivery mechanism designed to punish anyone who tries to silence it.
For the first time in days, my fear has shape.
And shape is something I can fight.