Chapter 50. The Ribbon Code

A flash across the screen woke her. Not light. Motion.

Her burner had reactivated on its own.

One line blinked: DELETE RIBBON KEYSTORE OPHELIA_LOGS 03:14

Someone had issued it. Someone still held clearance. Someone inside.

Sliding out from under the covers, Harper padded softly to the desk. The burner phone was already pulsing—Lucien’s logs queued in encrypted tiles, awaiting review. She hadn’t decrypted the full stack. A decision, not an oversight. She didn’t want Knox to see it until she was sure. Until she understood how deep the fracture ran.

Her fingers flew across the glass interface. The burner launched its trace engine, lines of code assembling, flagging anomalies, measuring behavior against Council-authorized patterns. Behind her, Knox stirred and sat up slowly, rubbing at his neck. His voice came low and dry. “Couldn’t sleep?”

She wrapped her arm around her ribboned wrist, absently shielding it. “Something moved. I need to see what.”