One of the officers answered.
“Because someone leaked the operational window.”
My eyes lifted.
“To whom?”
“We don’t know.”
“That means intelligence failed.”
Mercer shook his head.
“No. Intelligence intercepted the breach almost immediately.”
“Then what exactly leaked?”
He touched the screen.
A photograph appeared.
Satellite imagery.
A remote compound surrounded by forest somewhere near the coast.
“Nightglass concerns Dr. Adrian Vale.”
I stared at him.
That name I knew.
Everyone in our world knew it.
Vale had spent twelve years developing military encryption architecture before disappearing during a classified transport six months earlier.
Publicly, he had resigned.
Privately, intelligence agencies had assumed he had been abducted.
“Vale is alive?” I asked.
“We believe so.”
“And Nightglass is recovery?”
“Recovery and containment.”
I studied the photograph.
“What did he have access to?”
Mercer hesitated.
That was never a good sign.
“Something called Helix.”
The temperature in the room seemed to drop.
I slowly lowered the folder.
“Helix was theoretical.”
“No longer.”
Helix had been rumored for years.
Not a we/@/pon in the traditional sense.
Something arguably worse.
An adaptive intelligence platform capable of identifying defense infrastructure weaknesses through behavioral prediction.
Give Helix enough data and it could theoretically anticipate where governments would move ships, aircraft, emergency resources, surveillance teams, even personnel.
