Alyssa Redd's Arc

Chapter 7 of 15

Alyssa followed the boot print up the dune until the grass turned to gravel. At the top, a low concrete hatch sat open in the ground. A hand-drawn arrow pointed down. Marla put her hand on Alyssa's arm. Alyssa nodded and went first. The stairs ended in a narrow room lit by one bulb. A man stood against the far wall in a long gray coat. His face was a smear of static, like a screen that had never resolved. He did not offer his hand. "You're late," he said. "Close the hatch." Marla closed it. Alyssa set the metal box on the table between them. "You left this." "Someone did." He tapped the box once. "I found it here forty years ago. I put it back. Your grandmother asked me to." Alyssa's jaw locked. "Who are you." "No one. That's the point." He slid a tablet across the table. "Your friend on Shrumella is still breathing. For now." The screen showed a live feed from a cracked civic panel — red switches under labels for Communications Shutdown, Broadcast Terminate, Data Purge. Two of the switches were already thrown. A stamp across the top read BLACKOUT PROTOCOL LEVEL OMEGA. "They cut every channel off the planet," the Hollow Man said. "Ten thousand people saw your face. The Bureau is pretending it was a hoax. It isn't working." He swiped. A new window opened. Six young people crowded around a table inside a mushroom dome, replaying a fourteen-second clip of Alyssa on a loop. One of them, a green-skinned kid with glasses, leaned into the camera. "We have the fourteen seconds," the kid said. Flat. Fast. "Three copies. Two hidden. We need the rest." "That's them," the Hollow Man said. "They call themselves what you'd expect. They've been trying to punch a hole through the blackout for nine days." Alyssa looked at Marla. Marla nodded once. "Can you get me a line back?" Alyssa said. "I can't. He can." The Hollow Man tapped the screen. A second feed opened — inside the Bureau building, an agent at a terminal, badge clipped to his collar. He was pulling small insect-shaped devices from a drawer and slotting them into a case. Recorders. Bugs. The kind the Bureau planted, not the kind it swept. "Agent Chen," the Hollow Man said. "He watched your broadcast. He's walking out the front door in six hours with a relay in that case. If he makes it, your friend Sasha gets a working channel. If he doesn't, she doesn't." Alyssa touched the screen where Chen's hand moved. "Tell him I'm alive. Tell him where to point it." The Hollow Man was already typing. "Told him." On the feed, Chen closed the case and stood. He walked past two officers without looking up, and out through the front doors into the light. The channel was not open yet. But someone was carrying it toward her.