The question hung in the air like a loaded gun.
Do you want to meet the World President?
My mind raced, Deduction and Strategist both firing simultaneously, analyzing angles and implications.
This was it. The opportunity I'd been building toward for three years. The figure behind everything—the Cain Protocol, the NovaCore experiments, the systematic manipulation of governments and populations. Trapped. Contained. Vulnerable in a way they'd never been before.
Every instinct I had screamed at me to say yes immediately.
But I'd learned over these past three years that instinct, while valuable, needed to be tempered with strategy.
"Samuel," I said carefully, "that's an incredibly generous offer."
"I sense a 'but' coming," Samuel replied, his tone still jovial but attentive.
