Chapter 2 - The Silent Protocol
The hunt began in the bowels of the city’s industrial district.
The smell of grease was my compass.
I parked my truck three blocks away, blending into the gloom like a phantom from my past.
The facility was a private security firm—Vanguard Dynamics.
A company with no public presence, no website, and a history of "consulting" for Bradley University.
I didn't storm the front door.
I entered through the ventilation shaft.
Years of military drills made the infiltration feel like muscle memory.
Inside, the office was a maze of surveillance monitors.
My heart stopped when I saw the screen labeled SCIENCE BUILDING – EAST WING.
It was live.
And it wasn't just recording; it was being edited in real-time.
A man sat at the desk, his fingers flying over a keyboard.
He was deleting frames.
He was scrubbing Lily out of existence.
I dropped from the ceiling, my boots hitting the floor with a dull thud.
The technician spun around, his mouth opening to scream.
I was faster.
I grabbed him by the collar and slammed him against the monitors.
"Talk," I growled, my voice a low rumble. "Who ordered the scrubbing?"
The technician’s eyes darted to the panic button.
I smashed his hand against the desk.
"Don't. I've buried better men than you."
"I don't know!" he gasped. "We're just the contractors! We get a file, we edit the feed, we get paid!"
"By who?"
"A shell account! It comes through the university’s endowment fund!"
I felt the blood in my veins turn to ice.
The university itself was paying for the cover-up.
I pulled the hard drive from the main unit.
"If you value your life, delete the logs of this break-in," I said. "And forget you ever saw me."
He nodded, hyperventilating.
I slipped out the way I came, the drive burning in my pocket like a hot coal.
I reached my truck and plugged the drive into a portable reader.
The files weren't just attack footage.
They were documents.
Project Silver Lining.
A series of experiments involving student behavioral modification.
Lily hadn't just been in the wrong place.
She had found the files.
She was the whistleblower I didn't know she was.
I sat in the dark, the city lights shimmering in the distance.
They had beaten her because she was about to expose a generation of human lab rats.
My daughter, my brave, brilliant Lily, had been fighting a war of her own, and I hadn't even known.
I started the engine.
I wasn't going home.
I was going to the university’s Board of Trustees meeting.
May you like
It was tonight.
And I had a gift for them.
