👉 Previous Decision: You chose to copy the voter redaction files from Sub-Level 4.
Red security sirens blared throughout Sub-Level 4, painting the room in a pulsating crimson. I had mere seconds. My fingers flew across the central terminal keyboard, rapidly downloading 14 gigabytes of encrypted voter manipulation logs onto Evelyn’s analog storage drive. The data scrolled across the screen, a chilling testament to Arthur’s ambition.
I slammed the drive cover shut just as the heavy bulkhead doors began to descend. I escaped through a narrow, underground utility trench that led to a storm drain near the National Mall, my lungs burning with exertion.
Hours later, under the cover of a cloudy evening, I met an investigative reporter behind the Smithsonian Metro entrance. Her name was Maria, and she had a reputation for breaking D.C.’s most sensitive stories. I handed over the drive, my only hope.
“This is everything,” I gasped, still catching my breath. “Evidence of mass voter redaction.”
Maria nodded, her eyes bright with professional urgency. She inserted the drive into her hardened laptop. The screen flickered once. Then, it went completely blank, wiping clean.
A text message appeared on her phone, not mine: “Aegis Governance Group thanks you for your cooperation.” Arthur’s automated counter-malware had infected the drive, tracing the journalist’s IP and wiping her news station’s primary servers remotely.
Maria stared at the blank screen, then at me. Her face crumpled. “It’s gone,” she whispered. “All of it. And my newsroom is down.”
Digital evidence was useless against Arthur’s political network. He controlled the very infrastructure of information.
➡️ Read CHAPTER 14 to continue the story.
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