Page 211 of Reaper Said Mine

“The story is bigger than one man,” I say. “That’s the whole point. Gnash acted. The Combine anticipated and exploited that action. The Coalition moved immediately to turn crisis into dependency. The Alliance escalated under cover of public fear. Neutral merchants fled because profit is allergic to uncertainty. Media companies packaged the whole thing into monster theater because complexity makes bad television.”

Bellamy blinks at the display. “That might be the thesis.”

Milton raises his cup in grim salute. “Monster theater is vulgar, but annoyingly effective.”

Pelt nods once. “It is also defensible.”

Something inside me steadies.

“Put it at the top,” I say.

Bellamy starts typing.

The headline appears across the wall display in clean white letters.

MONSTER THEATER: HOW EVERY POWER IN THE BADLANDS CRISIS HELPED BUILD A WAR

For several seconds, none of us speaks.

Then Bellamy exhales. “Dawson is going to have a stroke.”

“Good,” I say. “Maybe it’ll improve his personality.”

Milton snorts into his drink.

The first packet goes live through Independent Holonet Review twenty minutes later.

I expect relief.

Instead I feel like I have opened an airlock and am waiting to see who gets sucked out.

The initial reaction is small. A few analyst feeds pick up the refinery-call manipulation. Two legal commentators argue about the emergency compact language. A former Alliance officer with a respectable following reposts Pelt’s public-safe summary of fleet escalation and adds that provisional containment doctrine should alarm anyone who owns a dictionary and a conscience.

Then the evidence map starts spreading.

Not fast.

Not like scandal.

Like fire finding dry grass.

By midday, my name trends beside words that make my stomach knot.

RAMONE EVIDENCE PACKET

BADLANDS MANIPULATION

COMBINE DISTRESS HOAX

GHOST FLEETS

MONSTER THEATER

I stand in the cramped office staring at the public feed while voices argue through half a dozen open channels. My face appears in clips from Guyver Station, from old Horus IV retrospectives, from Dawson’s own network packages that once treated me as a tragic mascot. People splice those images beside my evidence timeline, and the commentary begins to shift away from what happened to me when I was twelve and toward what I am doing now.

It should feel good.

Mostly it feels dangerous.