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“Just that Mikalis’s way is one of many.”
Zaine slumped in the chair. “We’ve been wondering a few things for a while, Eric and me. Shit didn’t add up. He deleted a bunch of Eric’s blood work reports. We had to run them again. He knew Sebastien, but claimed he didn’t. Some things the nyks have been saying… There’s a whole lot of questions bubbling up around him, like where the fuck is he now?”
“And there’s the fact he tried to kill me because I know his secrets.”
“And that.”
“Do the others know you have concerns?”
“No. Just Storm. I’m beginning to wonder if he’s been suspicious for a lot longer than we have.”
They could really have done with Mikalis on their side on this. Unless he’d never been on their side, in which case, did that make them enemies? Octavius pushed those thoughts away. They weren’t helpful now.
“So, is Atlas about to kill us all?” Zaine asked.
“Not if I can slow it down.” Octavius leaned forward. “I need you to track down Raiden because if I can’t stop this, he’s going to rise up as a nyk messiah heralding the return of Nyx, and we are not prepared.”
“On it.” Zaine shot from the chair. “You know, who’d have thought Raiden’s the prick and you’re the hero?”
“I’m still a prick,” Octavius said, keeping his eyes on the code.
Zaine left with a laugh that didn’t have Octavius hating him all over again.
CHAPTER31
Octavius
One houruntil the countdown reached its finale, and while Atlas had relinquished control of countless tentacles, there was no chance Octavius would unravel them all.
Storm entered the room, said nothing as the minutes ticked down, asked how bad it was, then left again. It was bad. Not apocalypse bad, but close. People would die. Octavius had untethered Atlas from military systems, and some worldwide police networks, but not all, and not the financial markets. In the next hour, as billions of dollars were erased from the market and the ripples spread across the world, chaos would simmer to the surface. Society would begin to wobble. Humans were resilient and resourceful. They’d regain order, if the nyktelios didn’t rise in that window of opportunity.
Which they would.
They’d been waiting for this, building for this, rallying for this. A reckoning.
Octavius sat back as the hour turned to minutes. “Fuck.” He’d done all he could, and it wasn’t enough.
The countdown timer ticked down. Kazimir entered the room and loomed, then Eric joined him, and Zaine behind him.
Three, two, one…
The laptop shut off.
Octavius’s heart plummeted through the floor.
Nothing happened.
No sirens. No screaming. Just Manhattan’s typical background murmurings. They each shared tentative, hopeful glances.
Then Eric’s phone pinged. He raised it to his ear as he answered. “Yeah, Hi…. All right. I’ll be right there.” He hung up, stared at his phone a few beats, before saying, “The er… the department computer system has gone offline. They think it’s temporary, but they want all of us in, so…”
It was the beginning.
“Be careful,” Zaine said. “This is going to get worse.” Eric nodded and left, his phone ringing again when he reached the other room.
An icy chill trickled down Octavius’s spine at those prophetic words.This is going to get worse.Even he couldn’t know how bad it would be. Humans had become reliant on technology, and when it was taken away, they’d have to quickly adapt.
“You have to start helping people,” Felix said, approaching Kazimir’s side. “You can.”
