The unmarked van outside his gate had been a message, even if no one had intended it that way.
Derek had spent the night turning that single image over in his mind, not with panic, but with recalibration. Surveillance meant attention. Attention meant time was no longer a luxury. The systems he had been skirting around—law enforcement, intelligence agencies, political oversight—were beginning to align their interests. He could continue moving laterally, dodging and deflecting, or he could step forward just enough to anchor himself.
He needed insulation.
Not the corporate kind. Not the legal kind.
Political insulation.
And if he was going to move the calendar forward, there was no better way to do it than to put a sitting U.S. senator firmly in his corner.
Coincidentally—or perhaps inevitably—the timing aligned.
His Airbus A380 had arrived.
The aircraft sat on the tarmac like a quiet impossibility, its presence understated only by the sheer scale of it. It had taken months of planning, shell companies, and regulatory maneuvering to make it real. Bulletproof fuselage. Reinforced cockpit. Hardened avionics. EMP shielding integrated so seamlessly it didn't advertise itself.
Luxury without ostentation.
Power without apology.
Derek didn't linger. Once his internal security team completed their inspections—twice—he authorized the flight plan.
Los Angeles.
Kentucky.
Washington, D.C.
The first leg was purely operational. Kentucky housed the retrofitted mall that now served as the heart of Blackfire's nanotech operations. The cancer-treatment nanobots, their control systems, mobile clean-room equipment, and a carefully selected medical team were already staged and ready. Every crate was sealed, logged, and guarded. No labels. No explanations.
The second leg was political.
The flight took just over ten hours in total. Long enough for Derek to review briefing documents, sleep briefly, and then discard them all in favor of instinct. When the aircraft touched down outside Washington, D.C., it did so quietly, but not invisibly.
Homeland Security flagged the arrival within minutes.
The FBI noticed soon after.
The CIA, always slower to react but faster to contextualize, began pulling files.
By the time Derek stepped onto the tarmac, at least three separate agencies were aware that something unusual was happening—they just didn't yet know what it was.
Hotels were secured for the medical staff under assumed names, their security detail professional and unremarkable. Derek didn't accompany them. He didn't need to.
He and Bala left separately, traveling in a nondescript SUV that blended easily into the afternoon traffic. Bala said nothing, but his presence was grounding. Solid. Unquestioning.
Capitol Hill loomed ahead.
Security checkpoints layered themselves one after another—metal detectors, credential scans, polite but thorough scrutiny. Derek moved through them calmly, answering questions only when asked, never volunteering more than necessary. By the time they reached the senator's office building, he was certain at least one tail had picked them up.
He didn't care.
Derek stepped up to the receptionist's desk and spoke evenly.
"Please inform Senator Pimble that Derek Morgan from Blackfire Technologies is here to see him."
The receptionist blinked, fingers pausing mid-typing. She nodded, picked up the phone.
Before she could finish the call, an aide exiting the senator's office stopped short. Recognition flickered across his face—not of Derek personally, but of the name.
Blackfire.
The aide excused himself and stepped back inside.
Less than a minute later, the door opened.
"Mr. Morgan," the aide said carefully. "The senator will see you."
Derek was escorted in immediately.
Senator Scott Pimble looked older than the photographs suggested. Not in years, but in weight—the kind that settled into the shoulders and hollowed out the eyes. He rose when Derek entered, shaking his hand firmly.
They didn't waste time.
Derek sat across from him and spoke first.
"I'll be announcing the first batch of human trials in a month."
The senator froze.
Derek continued, voice steady.
"I also know that watching your daughter suffer for weeks—knowing what took your wife—is a kind of pain that doesn't fade. That's why I brought the treatment. The drugs. The equipment. Everything needed to begin immediately."
For a brief moment, the senator's composure cracked. Hope surged too quickly, too visibly, and then he pulled it back, hard.
"What do you want?" Pimble asked.
Derek inhaled slowly.
"I want space," he said. "And I want understanding."
Then he told him everything.
The charity gala. The robbery. The split-second decisions. The certainty that if he hadn't acted, someone innocent would have died. He didn't embellish. He didn't apologize. He explained.
"I believe I'm under FBI surveillance," Derek said. "I don't know if it's because of that night or something else. I do know this—I build things to help people. I don't want to be crushed by a system that mistakes restraint for guilt."
He met the senator's gaze.
"Regardless of your answer, your daughter will be treated."
Silence filled the office.
Senator Pimble leaned back slowly, hands clasped together, eyes fixed somewhere beyond Derek. When he finally spoke, his voice was quieter.
"You're asking me to protect you."
"I'm asking you to see me," Derek replied. "As someone trying to prevent harm. Not cause it."
Two days later, Derek stood in the suburbs outside Washington, D.C., in front of a modest home that carried none of the trappings of political power.
This was where the senator's daughter lived.
She looked nothing like the woman in the framed family photos on the mantel. Cancer had stripped her down to something fragile, something that felt temporary. Her smile was weak but genuine when Derek's team arrived.
The room was prepared carefully. Temperature lowered. Lighting softened. Equipment arranged with surgical precision. Derek watched as his staff moved—not hurried, not tentative. Confident.
The only instruction given to her was simple and cruel in its own way.
Eat.
High-calorie foods. Constant intake. The nanobots would demand energy. The treatment would burn through reserves she didn't have to spare.
That was the hardest part.
Her husband hovered, asking questions—too many, too often. Derek didn't interrupt. Love needed outlets.
Day one passed quietly.
Day three brought fever and exhaustion.
Day five changed everything.
She stood on her own.
By day seven, the scans told the story no one dared say aloud at first.
No tumors.
No malignant cells.
Gone.
There were tears. Quiet ones. Uncontrolled ones. Derek's staff—brilliant, disciplined professionals—stood in silence, some with their heads bowed. They understood what this meant.
Derek watched from the doorway.
He didn't know it yet, but something fundamental had shifted.
This wasn't leverage anymore.
This was inevitability.
And from this moment forward, the world would begin bending toward him—whether it wanted to or not.