Von didn't sleep.
The safe house on 79th had no windows, no warmth—just concrete walls and echoes of memories. His father's documents were spread out across the floor like puzzle pieces waiting to be reassembled. Names. Files. Audio tapes. Black-budget programs that had been denied by every government agency on paper, but lived in blood under the streets.
Project Oracle wasn't about peace. It was a weapon.
And the CIA had killed for it.
Von sat hunched over the laptop, face illuminated by the screen's blue light. He had uploaded the most damning documents to the dark web just hours ago. Audio recordings of Carter Mays ordering the elimination of "Subject Royner." Surveillance images of black-site tests done on civilians. Files that confirmed James Royner had never defected—he had tried to expose them. That's why they turned on him.
He leaned back, chest rising and falling with controlled fury.
This wasn't just about his father anymore.
This was war.
Across the city, Carter Mays was wide awake.
He hadn't left the CIA's Chicago field office since the footage leaked. The server breach had triggered global alerts. Files classified above presidential level were now public. And Von Royner's name was all over them.
Agent Mays slammed his fist into the table.
"Shut down the nodes," he barked. "I want every trace of that leak scrubbed."
"We can't," his tech officer replied. "It's already decentralized. Uploaded across mirrored onion sites. The minute we take one down, three more pop up."
Carter paced like a caged animal. "How much damage?"
"Enough to burn our entire domestic program. Half the black sites are exposed. Every senator's phone is lighting up."
He cursed under his breath.
His hands trembled slightly—an unfamiliar feeling. He hadn't trembled since that night in Baltimore. The night he made the call to sacrifice James Royner.
A necessary evil, he'd told himself for years.
But now, the son was rewriting the legacy.
"Get eyes on his last known location," Carter snapped. "I don't care if we have to use satellites or sewer rats. I want Von Royner found."
"And then what, sir?" a junior agent asked.
Carter's silence answered that question.
Back in the safe house, Von listened to one of the old cassette tapes labeled "Oracle Session 11."
It played a conversation between his father and a female CIA psychologist.
James: "You think you understand what this gift does to a person?"
Doctor: "We're trying to."
James: "You're trying to replicate it. But you'll fail. Because you're not listening. This isn't a tool. It's a curse."
Doctor: "Can you describe what you see?"
James: "I see the moment before the bullet enters the flesh. The way a hand twitches before it pulls the trigger. I see death… ten seconds early."
Von stopped the tape.
His hands clenched.
Ten seconds wasn't a blessing. It was a burden. A countdown to pain. And now he had it too.
Suddenly, his phone buzzed. A secure signal. Only one person could've found him.
"Shanice?" he answered.
Her voice was hushed. "They're watching me."
Von's blood turned to ice.
"Who?"
"My dad's people. Unmarked cars outside my apartment. Drones overhead. I think… I think he knows we were together."
Von's pulse quickened. "Stay inside. Don't go near the windows. I'll come for you."
"No," she whispered. "You can't. It's a trap. He's not just hunting you, Von… he's setting the stage."
"What do you mean?"
"I overheard him. He's planning to frame you for a mass casualty event. Some explosion they're going to blame on the Black Disciples. On you. Said it'll give them license to disappear you without due process."
Von felt the walls close in.
This was bigger than revenge.
This was scorched-earth politics.
"Don't worry," he said softly. "I've got something they didn't count on."
"What?"
He looked down at the drive in his hand—one labeled "Oracle: Prototype Chaincode."
"Proof."
Later that night, Von stood at the rooftop of the safe house, hood drawn over his head, watching the streets below. The south side was restless. His people were moving quietly, strategically. No colors. No noise. Just defense.
But the skies buzzed with something worse.
Drones.
They circled in slow, menacing patterns—too high to shoot, too precise to ignore. Von's gift pulsed inside his head, every movement echoing with the hum of predicted violence.
He closed his eyes.
Then reached out mentally, ten seconds forward.
A flash.
A black SUV rolling up the alley.
A red dot on his chest.
Sniper.
He ducked instinctively, just as a suppressed shot pinged off the rusted metal beside him. Rolling across the rooftop, he grabbed the scoped rifle his father had hidden years ago beneath the water tank. With one smooth motion, Von perched behind the broken chimney and peered through the scope.
Three vehicles. Two agents each.
Standard CIA urban snatch-and-grab.
Not tonight.
He breathed in, then fired.
The driver's side of the SUV shattered.
Screams. Confusion.
He moved like a ghost, shifting rooftop to rooftop, leading them away from the safe house. One by one, he picked off tires, radios, drones disabling but not killing.
He didn't need more blood.
He needed the world to see the truth.
Hours later, back in the CIA mobile command unit parked blocks away, Carter Mays stood in front of the wall of monitors.
They were silent.
Flickering.
One displayed infrared footage of Von disappearing into a sewer grate, gone before their men could respond.
Another showed the damaged drone feed—static, rewinding.
But the third monitor… showed something else.
A figure walking into the safe house earlier that night.
Back turned to the camera.
Then turning slowly.
Looking straight into the lens.
Von Royner.
His eyes glowing faintly red in the night vision.
He raised a hand and drew a single finger across his throat.
Then the footage cut to black.
Silence fell over the room.
Agent Carter swallowed hard, his mind reeling.
"We've awakened something we can't control," he muttered.
And for the first time in years, he didn't feel like the hunter.
He felt like prey.