Chapter 51. The Mother Node

The Mother Node blinked. Harper didn’t.

Before them, the full network topology of OPHELIA spidered across the glass—a neural nightmare of proxy jumps, cloaked command signals, mirrored subnets, and masked identities. The deeper she looked, the more it moved. At the center of it all was a blinking anomaly—an entity they’d come to know as the Mother Node. Unrecorded by Council logs. Hidden from every approved channel.

Harper moved closer, fingertips trailing across the surface of the map as if searching for a pulse beneath a dying system. The room held its breath with her.

“She’s awake,” Harper murmured.

Knox leaned in. “The Mother Node?”

“She’s not just a protocol.” Her voice thinned, eyes sharp. “She’s a watcher. Code shaped into something close to sentience. Every move we make echoes back to her.”

She drew a quick breath. “Ledger’s public. The Syndicate’s not. The Council governs the surface. The Syndicate manipulates underneath. And OPHELIA? It’