Chapter 27 · Blackout Ledger - Chapter 27: The Blackout Maker

"Don't touch that."

Kael's hand stopped halfway to the terminal. He turned, and his eyes locked on mine with something close to fear.

"Raina," he said. "Step back."

"Not a chance." I moved closer, watching the screen over his shoulder. The core file sat open, lines of code scrolling past faster than I could track. My signature sat at the bottom, timestamped three years ago. "That's my work."

"That's a kill switch," Kael said. His voice stayed level, but his hand moved to his belt. "You wrote code to blackout the entire lower city. Every grid, every clinic, every life support system tied to the public network."

I stared at the screen. The logic was clean. Elegant, even. The kind of thing I'd write if someone paid me enough and I didn't ask questions.

"I don't remember writing that," I said.

"Good." Kael's fingers hovered over the delete key. "Let's keep it that way."

"Wait."

He stopped. The muscle in his jaw flexed.

"If I wrote it," I said slowly, "then I know how to stop it. Delete that file and we lose the only map we have."

"Or," Kael said, "we delete it and no one can use it."