The shadows of 79th Street hung like ghosts around Von as he exited the safehouse basement and made his way upstairs. His thoughts buzzed like the static before a storm. The events of the past few days. Project Oracle, Agent Mays, Shanice's confession, and the CIA's global kill order, had spiraled into a reality he could barely grasp. But now, the time for running was over.
Von entered the kitchen, his steps cautious. Shanice sat at the table with a laptop, her brows furrowed and her lips tense. The overhead bulb flickered as if acknowledging the weight in the air.
"They're activating the Judas Protocol," she said, without looking up.
Von froze. "What the hell is that?"
Shanice turned the laptop to face him. On-screen was a CIA terminal. It showed a heatmap of U.S. safehouses, blacksites, and internal agents with one blinking red tag: Von Royner.
"They've outsourced your elimination to private contractors. Ex-agents, mercenaries, even rogue nations. They want you wiped clean from existence. Not arrested. Not captured. Just… erased."
Von let the news sink in. His knuckles whitened as he gripped the edge of the table.
"Why now?"
Shanice swallowed. "Because they know you've decrypted the rest of Oracle."
He nodded slowly. "The files I leaked were just the tip… what I have now exposes more than just experiments. It's political manipulation. Entire elections rigged through Oracle's predictions. International warfare orchestrated from Langley."
"Exactly," she whispered. "And you're the only loose thread they didn't expect."
Von turned away, pacing the kitchen. "So what's the play? They keep squeezing until I vanish or retaliate."
Shanice stood and placed her hand on his arm. "You can't do this alone, Von. You need allies. Real ones."
He met her eyes. "I have one. You."
A breath passed between them before she lowered her gaze.
"There's more," she said. "My father, Agent Mays, he's been taken off the case."
"What?"
"He's gone dark. They locked him out of the Oracle servers and transferred command to Director Welles himself. If that doesn't scream internal mutiny… I don't know what does."
Von cursed under his breath. "They're cleaning house."
"We need to find my dad," she said, stepping forward. "He might be the only one who knows where the Judas contractors will hit next."
Von nodded. "Pack up. We leave in twenty."
By dusk, they were on the road in a stolen black SUV, heading south. The freeway lights streaked past the windshield like the blinking thoughts in Von's head. As he drove, Shanice navigated the burner laptop, bouncing signals off dead satellites and anonymous relays.
"Got something," she said. "A secure ping from Langley to a private network in Atlanta. Encrypted, but signed with my father's ID."
Von glanced over. "He's trying to reach out?"
"More like he's hiding. If I trace it back, we might pinpoint his last known location."
"Do it," Von said.
The system churned and spit out a location: an abandoned field station 15 miles outside Atlanta. Decommissioned since 2019. The perfect place to disappear.
"Set the GPS," Von said, eyes cold. "We'll be there by morning."
The field station was a ghost of old war efforts. Peeling concrete walls, rusted fences, shattered windows. But the perimeter had trip alarms and heat sensors of CIA grade. Von disabled them like he was born to.
Inside, they found Agent Carter Mays seated at a steel table, a Glock resting by his right hand and a glass of whiskey by his left.
He didn't flinch as Von entered. Just looked up with eyes heavy with years.
"I figured you'd come," he said.
"You left a trail," Von answered. "Sloppy for a CIA ghost."
Mays smirked. "I wanted you to find me."
Shanice entered, her voice cracking. "Dad… what are you doing here?"
"I had to get out," he said. "After I saw what Oracle was really doing."
"You mean rigging global conflicts to justify military budgets?" Von asked.
Mays nodded. "And engineering enemies."
Von stepped closer. "Who greenlit Project Oracle in the first place?"
"The Welles Committee," Mays said. "A cabal buried so deep inside Langley, even Congress can't reach them. Oracle wasn't about prediction. It was about control."
Von leaned forward. "Then we burn it all."
Mays narrowed his eyes. "You realize what that means?"
"Total exposure," Von said. "Names. Ops. Global embarrassment. But maybe… freedom."
Carter Mays glanced at his daughter. "Then let's end what we started."
They stayed the night underground, crafting a plan that would make Watergate look like a typo. The plan: hijack a CIA broadcast satellite and leak every decrypted Oracle file live to the world.
Shanice worked the terminals while Mays secured their perimeter. Von? He made the call.
"I need gear. BlackNet level," he said through the encrypted phone. "And I'm cashing in every favor owed."
A voice replied: "It's suicide."
"It's revolution," Von corrected. "I'll send coordinates."
He ended the call and looked up at the cracked ceiling.
Time to burn the old world down.
Back at Langley, Director Welles watched the CCTV footage of the 79th Street incident with narrowed eyes. The footage showed Von slipping through shadows, dismantling cameras, and disappearing with Shanice. The timestamp was days old, but it chilled Welles to the bone.
He tapped his pen against the desk. "Activate Phase V. Full strike authorization. Royner dies within 72 hours."
"Yes, sir," an agent replied.
Welles smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes.
"Let the Judas Protocol run its course.