Chapter 41 - Anatomy of a Cover-Up
Daniel leaned over his son's shoulder, watching as live satellite feeds showed sweeping communication outages spreading across Washington, D.C., Ottawa, and major financial hubs.
"They're scrubbing the DNS tables," Ethan explained, his fingers flying across the keyboard to execute a bypass script. "They're cutting fiber-optic cables and isolating regional servers to prevent the public from accessing the Janus core dump. If we don't route the database through independent decentralized nodes right now, the firewall will swallow the transmission completely."
Elena crossed her arms, watching the boy work with a strange look of professional respect mixed with dread. "It won't work, kid. The Department of Defense holds primary routing authority over every major transatlantic cable. They can pull the physical plug whenever they choose."
"Not if we piggyback on civilian deep-sea research arrays," a familiar, synthesized voice crackled through the cabin's secure radio receiver.
Daniel spun around, his hand instinctively dropping to his sidearm. The secure tactical radio on the workbench flashed green.
May you like
"Who is this?" Daniel demanded, stepping closer to the speaker.
"An old friend of your son's, Mr. Carter," a calm, deliberate voice responded through static interference. "Or rather, someone who owes your boy a very large favor after he decrypted that orbital targeting grid three months ago. My call sign is Oracle. And right now, I'm opening a secure tunnel through the Arctic communications grid that your shadow directors can't touch."
