Chapter Two: Before the Trap Closes

The total on the great screen jumped to ten billion. The server chimed. The master key appeared. At the same moment, the fire door burst inward. Two Helix operators entered; the elevator opened on gray-clad Clocktower officers holding a detention warrant; Convergence began a countdown through the speakers. Lin combined the keys. The wallet did not contain ten billion. It held 430 million in stolen funds, hundreds of thousands of victim addresses, and one capsule labeled ECHO-1. “Do we have the memory?” “Only its location,” Zero replied. “The capsule is stored aboard a mobile data-center truck now leaving the third underground level.”