Three days later, Adanna stood beneath a rusted overpass outside Baltimore, dressed in a gray hoodie, jeans, and a baseball cap pulled low over her eyes. She looked like any tired traveler — which was the point.
Beside her, Malcolm leaned against a wall, checking his watch.
"Are you sure this is the right spot?" he asked.
She nodded. "He said under the 47th marker, west support beam. Noon sharp."
The "he" was a contact Malcolm hadn't spoken to in years — a former intelligence analyst turned whistleblower named Silas Creed. If there was anyone who could help them trace the DAGGER program, it was him.
At exactly twelve o'clock, a low whistle came from behind the concrete pillar.
Adanna tensed.
A man emerged — tall, wiry, with silver in his beard and eyes that looked like they hadn't trusted anyone in a decade.
"Adanna Miles?" he said. "Or is it Alana Rivers today?"
She stepped forward. "Depends who's asking."
Silas chuckled. "Good. You're paranoid. That means you're still alive."
He gestured to the narrow stairwell beneath the overpass, where a steel hatch waited, camouflaged by grime.
"Let's talk somewhere less… visible."
The bunker was nothing more than a converted utility vault — low ceilings, buzzing lights, and shelves stacked with paper files. Old-school. Nothing digital. Nothing traceable.
Silas gestured for them to sit. He poured three glasses of black coffee that tasted like rust and regret.
"You said DAGGER," he began. "That word hasn't crossed my ears in years."
"We have the prototype," Malcolm said, placing the flash drive on the table. "Red sticker. Version one."
Silas stared at it. "I thought it was destroyed."
"So did we," Adanna said. "But if someone's rebuilding it—"
"They already have," Silas interrupted. "Under a new name. Codename: Spindle. Not a prototype. A polished tool."
Adanna leaned in. "What does it do?"
"It hijacks behavioral patterns," Silas said, voice grim. "Implants routines. Overrides decisions. Makes people loyal without them realizing it. Think of it as synthetic trust. A way to control elections, protests, negotiations. You can't change someone's belief, but you can change how fast they act… and who they follow."
Adanna felt her stomach twist. "And it's active?"
Silas nodded. "I intercepted chatter. Field tests already happened. Some successful. Others… fatal."
Malcolm shook his head. "How do we stop it?"
"You don't," Silas said. "But you can slow it. Spindle's command node is mobile. Moves every 72 hours. If we can locate it before the next transfer, we might be able to steal the root file and destroy it."
Adanna looked between them. "And how long do we have?"
Silas pulled out a tattered notebook. "Twenty-six hours."
That night, they stayed in the bunker, poring over Silas's maps, decrypting intercepted data packets, and tracing transport records. The command node — or what Silas called the "heart of the machine" — was somewhere in D.C., hidden inside a mobile uplink van disguised as a telecom contractor.
The van rotated routes through the city's federal zones — always near a government building, always shielded by diplomatic noise.
The odds were terrible.
The risk was worse.
But Adanna had already crossed a line — the kind you don't come back from.
"We hit it tomorrow," she said. "Midday. High traffic. They'll least expect an ambush when the streets are full."
Malcolm looked at her. "We don't even have weapons."
Silas tossed a duffel bag on the table.
"Now you do."
As dawn broke over Washington D.C., Adanna zipped up a black windbreaker and adjusted her earpiece. Her voice was steady. Her fingers were not.
She glanced at Malcolm across the street — pretending to talk into his phone. Silas waited in a van nearby with a jammer ready to cut off the uplink signal.
"Target in motion," Malcolm whispered. "White van. Two blocks out."
Adanna's eyes narrowed. The van looked ordinary — a faded logo reading PulseComm Tech on its side, an antenna mounted to the roof. Nothing screamed danger. That was what made it deadly.
"Go," she muttered.
Silas activated the jammer. The van's signal dropped.
And Adanna moved.
She stepped directly into traffic, forcing the van to brake hard. Horns blared. The driver's window rolled down.
"You trying to get yourself killed, lady?" the man snapped.
That's when Malcolm moved in behind — yanking the back doors open and tossing in a tear gas canister.
Chaos erupted.
Adanna wrenched the passenger door open and jumped in. The interior reeked of wires, servers, and adrenaline.
A screen flashed red:
SPINDLE CORE LINK – INTERRUPTED.
She shoved the flash drive into the port and triggered a download.
But then — a gunshot.
She turned.
Malcolm had gone down. Bleeding. Chest.
She screamed his name, but her fingers flew across the keys. The root file loaded.
72%… 87%… 100%.
She yanked the drive, bolted from the van, and dragged Malcolm into the alley behind a dumpster.
"Stay with me," she begged, pressing her hand to his chest.
"I got it," she whispered. "We got it."
He managed a weak smile. "Then… burn it all."