Hearing the word "temporary" brought a marginal wave of relief to Kaelen's tightly wound nerves.
If it wasn't a permanent master-lock, it was manageable.
At least Specimen Seven hadn't entirely slipped off the organization's leash.
But his eyes drifted back to the paralyzed asset collapsed on the floor, dread creeping back in. "Then what caused the secondary surge?"
"A kinetic backlash from the severed targeting loop," Serena said smoothly, unbothered. "It was violently brought online to kill a specific target. When I wiped the target out of its buffer, the chip panicked looking for an execution path, resulting in a blind physical lash-out."
"That's exactly why I planted the Transient Command Override. To smother the backlash."
She tipped her chin toward the shattered barrier. "If I hadn't, you'd be bagging bodies by now."
Kaelen glanced at the splintered Aegis Glass. She was absolutely right.
His voice still held a tremor of fear. "What about its current status..."
Serena flicked her gaze over the bio-metrics. "It's stabilized."
The technicians scrambled to verify her claim. "Telemetry... telemetry is flat. No erratic spikes. The targeting array remains dormant, and neural activity is within safety thresholds."
"Director, that really was just a residual surge. It isn't going feral again."
The engineers exchanged glances, their respect for her skyrocketing.
This meant The Panacea had mapped out the entire threat vector before it even happened.
She had planted the override strictly as an insurance policy.
This wasn't some desperate, improvised patch job.
She had calculated every single variable and locked the situation down flawlessly.
Was this the terrifying genius of The Panacea?
No wonder the syndicate had dropped millions to hire her!
Kaelen remained silent, a complex array of emotions warring on his face.
Relief, warring with deep paranoia.
And an incredibly suffocating sense of inadequacy.
Saving the asset was a massive win.
But now...
The Panacea had direct access to their most sensitive operational secrets.
And worse, she was a chaotic variable they couldn't control.
By the time Project Zero-Transit docked at Whitecliffe Harbor...
An explosive confrontation with her felt inevitable.
Even if he wanted to just let her walk away...
The executives at the top would never let someone with this much leverage leave alive.
As Kaelen was spiraling into worst-case scenarios, a tech suddenly shouted from the console. "Director!"
"We followed the decryption path Ms. Panacea isolated! We've pinned down the first signal bounce!"
Kaelen's head whipped around, instantly shoving his existential crisis aside.
This was the priority. "Where?"
The tech swallowed nervously, his fingers flying across the keys to
project a digital map. "The
command didn't originate frot
inside the observation theater, and it
didn't come from the primary console."
"It bounced off the outer security perimeter, bounced back through the network, and hijacked the neural chip."
He hesitated, his face twisting into an awkward grimace. "That sector... belongs to Fenris."
"Fenris?" Kaelen's face darkened instantly. "That squad of offshore guns for hire?"
The tech nodded.
The Director's expression turned murderous. "Did they infiltrate this vessel under the guise of secu just to assassinate Mr. Blackwood2
He spun around, barking orders at the
Feam. "Move out! I want immediately!" Cont want
and his entire squad locked down
The guards shouted in acknowledgment, turning to execute the sweep.
But before they could take a single step, a mocking sneer sliced through the tension. "Idiots."
Serena stood by the console, barely bothering to look up from the screen.
Her voice dripped with unfiltered contempt.
Kaelen froze, the anger catching violently in his chest.
He turned to her, furious at the blatant disrespect. "What exactly do you mean by that, Ms. Panacea?"