"That strutting peacock?" Boz sputtered. "He’s always been about appearances, but this is low even for our esteemed VP!" Dastan traced the edge of the terminal casing. "He was always too eager to please, too quick to take credit. A useful distraction, I thought. I was wrong." His gaze swept over the complex holographic schematics of the Apex Construct glowing across the main rig. “The tower is already locking down, but if the traitor gave them the backdoor, standard rules are useless.” He jabbed a point on the terminal. “His authorization stamp grants them direct access to the auxiliary power conduit grid. They won’t even need to breach the outer perimeter if they cut our feeds.” “The auxiliary grid connects straight to the Apex Construct’s main logic core,” Kenza stated. “If they sever that, the primary shield goes dormant. It’s not just a blackout; it’s an unlatching.” Her voice dropped flat. “We need to cut off his signal access, now. Reverse the handshake.” Dastan nodded, already inputting commands with a ruthless efficiency that belied the building tension. "He'll have encrypted his routing signature, of course. Tried to bury it under layers of decoy logic." He glanced at Kenza. "You know how to peel those layers back, data-runner?" "It’s what I do," Kenza replied, leaning in, her eyes scanning the flow of data. "His signature will have a unique cadence, a digital fingerprint. Corporate perimeter grids are built for blunt impact, not surgical extraction." She pointed to a shimmering, complex string of hex code. "See that? It’s not just a routing number. It’s a self-destruct trigger. If we try to block it right at the source, he’ll initiate a cascade failure across the entire logic core, killing everything offline, including our comms." The stakes had just escalated from a siege to total, isolated vulnerability. Boz, ever the pragmatist, was already rummaging through a supply crate Dastan had pulled from the armory. "So, we can’t just shut him down. We need to find *him* first, before he turns this entire cliff-face sanctuary into a blind, deaf rock. Where would an overpromoted suit hide a backdoor key?" "Not hide it," Kenza corrected. "He’d flaunt it. Integrate it into something he controls without oversight, something he thinks is untouchable." She looked at Dastan. "His private executive drive. He’d use it to authenticate the handshake." Dastan pressed his thumbs against the edge of the steel rim. He knew his VP's vanity. Suddenly, a small, sleepy voice drifted from the nearby cot. "Is that vice president messing with the security walls again?" Kitt blinked owlishly, rubbing sleep from his eyes with a tiny fist. The boy had sat upright amid the vibration rattling the deck plates. "He’s really bad at it. He always leaves the back door open to his work-link. It’s like, super easy to find his lunch orders." He yawned, then pointed a small, unerring digit at a spot on the complex holographic projection Dastan and Kenza were staring at. "See? Right there. He always routes his private tokens through the 'executive perks' subdomain. He thinks it makes his work look more important." Kenza and Dastan froze. The labyrinthine mesh they had struggled to map suddenly fell slack. Kitt, without leaving his cot, had cracked the traitor's line with an offhand remark. Dastan isolated the subdomain the child indicated. An ultra-thin thread routed straight from the handshake routine into a private executive drive, broadcasting coordinates from an encrypted array in the financial district. "Unbelievable," Boz muttered, staring. "That little scrap-thief…" He squinted at the data stream coming off the private unit. "Wait. That drive… that’s not standard corporate stock. That’s a Veridian X-Class. Custom build. Runners trade sectors of the Undercity for one of those." His voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. "The Vipers want Moray’s data, Kenza, but if I could get my hands on *that*… my debts, gone. Forever. I could finally get out, clean." Kenza shot him a warning glance. "Focus, Boz. Survival first. Debt later." But she knew the lure of the Veridian X-Class, a mythical piece of tech that could buy Boz his freedom. The distraction had value, matching their immediate need to track down their target. "The rogue unit is active, transmitting from my secondary node in the Argent Towers," Dastan said, clipping each syllable. "He’s using it to coordinate the Viper attack. But he’s also broadcasting his exact physical location." He met Kenza's stare without flinching. "We can neutralize him. Cut off his command link. And we just found the perfect distraction for the Vipers once they’re inside." Before Kenza could answer, a guttural hum shuddered through the floor. The holographic projections across the display flickered, then vanished. The internal lights flickered violently, plunging the command center into a deep, disorienting gloom for a second before emergency red strobes snapped on, painting everything in an urgent, crimson wash. A high-pitched whine pierced the air, growing in intensity. "EMP!" Boz yelled, dropping flat behind a steel workstation. "Hover-skiffs! They dropped shaped charges into the courtyard!" A concussive crack split the bedrock beneath them, tilting the platform beneath Kenza's boots. A shower of sparks erupted from a utility conduit overhead. The emergency strobes died, replaced by a complete, inky darkness, save for the faint, green glow of Kitt’s toy robot from his cot. Then, the ominous *hiss* of massive hydraulics. The sound of shifting metal echoed through the blackness, growing louder, closer. A deep, mechanical groan, like a slumbering beast awakening. The ground-floor blast doors, rated for kinetic artillery, drifted apart. Through the widening gap, the dark courtyard opened under the rain. And then, a nightmare swarm of heavily armed Viper drones, their optical sensors glowing with malevolent intent, poured through the opening, their numbers vast and overwhelming.

The Trojan Protocol