Chapter 13 - The Blackout
The upload finished with a silent, ominous blink.
The files were live on the servers of every major news agency in the country.
The city’s financial heartbeat stuttered.
I stood in the investigator’s office, watching the data center’s location—the one I had found—get highlighted by a live drone feed from a major network.
Daniel’s Net was being dismantled in real-time.
My phone began to light up with messages from numbers I didn't recognize.
"We have the ledger, Claire," one said. "Everything is being frozen."
I walked out into the street.
The sky was the same color as the day I left, but the city felt different.
People were rushing toward banks.
Automated systems across the metropolis were failing.
I realized that Daniel hadn't just built a net; he had built a foundation that held up the entire region's infrastructure.
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By destroying him, I had triggered a collapse that would affect millions.
I had traded my own safety for the truth, but the truth came with a price I hadn't fully calculated.
