Chapter Two: The Dead List

It can predict markets and create them. It can identify public opinion and feed it. Once full deployment is complete, elections, currencies, energy prices, war panic can all be pushed by one invisible hand." Ethan took the drive. His fingers paused on the edge. There was a micro-etched mark there. NGL-17. Nightglass. Six years earlier, on the Black Sea coast, Ethan's team had been sent into an abandoned port to seize an illegal intelligence exchange system. The briefing said the target was a group of arms brokers with poor equipment and thin security. When the team entered the warehouse, they found thermal snipers, drone swarms, and a private military unit that knew every extraction route. Seven teammates died.