Stop pretending you're a nurse,” my brother ridiculed me at the military gala. I ignored him and invited the general’s disabled son to dance.

"Put the weapons down, Major Vance," Director Cross said smoothly, her voice carrying an eerie, melodic calm that filled the underground room like poison gas. She gestured with her free hand toward my father, who glared at her with defiant, bloodshot eyes through the fabric gag tied tightly across his mouth. "One twitch of your finger on that rifle, and I put a hollow-point bullet straight through Thomas Stanton's remaining lung. I'm sure you wouldn't want all that father-daughter reunion sentimentality to go to waste so soon."

Nathan's jaw tightened until the bone threatened to break through his skin. He lowered the barrel of his assault rifle by a fraction of an inch, his eyes locked onto Cross with naked, murderous hatred. "Let him go, Cross. The data drive is right here. You want the key? Take the drive. Leave the old man out of this."

"The drive is only a piece of the puzzle, Major," Cross replied, taking a measured step forward into the pool of green light emanating from the computer monitor. Her cold, dead eyes flickered toward me, sizing me up like a butcher inspecting a cut of meat. "Without the secondary biometric authorization stored in this specific terminal's local memory bank, the drive is just an expensive paperweight. And who better to provide that authorization than the architect of the system himself?"

She pulled a sharp hunting knife from her coat pocket with her left hand and pressed the cold steel lightly against my father’s throat. A thin bead of dark crimson welled up instantly against the blade, catching the sickly green glow of the monitor screen.

"Untie him," I whispered, my voice trembling as I gripped the edges of the metal console, my fingers hovering just inches from the keyboard. "Let him go, and I'll enter the synchronization code right now."

"Mera, don't!" my father managed to grunt past the gag, his voice strained and ragged. He shook his head violently, trying to lunge away from the blade, but one of the tactical operatives lingering in the shadows behind Cross slammed a heavy boot into the back of his knees, forcing him back down onto the concrete floor.

"Quiet, Thomas," Cross scolded softly, not taking her eyes off me. "Your daughter is a very smart girl. She knows that compliance is the only currency left on the table. Enter the code, Ms. Stanton. Synchronize the system, and hand over the drive. Do it now, or I turn your father into an unrecorded casualty—just like the last time."

I stared at the blinking cursor on the monitor. The progress bar still sat stubbornly at fifty percent, waiting for the final input. My mind raced through a dozen different scenarios, calculating angles, distances, and reaction times. Nathan was positioned ten feet to my left, his rifle barrel subtly shifting toward the operative standing behind Cross. If I could create just a fraction of a second of distraction...

"You think you've won," I said, forcing a cold, humorless smile onto my lips as I straightened up from the console, my hand sliding slowly toward the heavy Glock hidden in my coat pocket. "You think destroying the power grids and taking over the infrastructure will make you kings of the ashes. But you forgot one thing, Director."

Cross tilted her head slightly, a flicker of genuine curiosity crossing her painted features. "And what is that, Ms. Stanton?"

"My father didn't build this system for you," I said, my voice ringing clear and steady through the damp room. "He built it to trap the people who thought they could own him."