Chapter Forty-Eight – Echoes in the Walls
Horizon Gate did not announce its fracture.
It whispered.
Internal bulletins were quietly revised. Security protocols were "temporarily" updated. Staff were advised to avoid discussing certain systems in open channels. On the surface, nothing was wrong — but inside the glass walls, anxiety crawled like static.
Xinyue felt it before the data confirmed it.
Jun's voice came through the secure line, lower than usual. "They've created a containment council. Five people. Full authority over damage control."
"Names?" Xinyue asked.
He sent them.
She studied the list — two loyalists, one political climber, one nervous bureaucrat, and one wildcard. A fragile structure.
"A council built on fear never holds," she said. "It fractures along personalities."
She tagged the wildcard first — Director Han, ambitious, impatient, easily offended. A few carefully misrouted reports later, his sector began appearing inefficient. His tone in meetings sharpened. His rivals noticed.
Not sabotage.
Alignment.
That afternoon, Xinyue left her apartment, moving through side streets washed clean by rain. Her reflection slipped through shop windows — a quiet figure among thousands.
At a transit platform, she noticed a woman standing too still, eyes flicking not to schedules, but to people. When their gazes met, the woman quickly looked away.
Another watcher.
The circle was tightening.
Xinyue boarded her train calmly, choosing a standing position near the door, where reflections would show movement behind her. The watcher remained on the platform. For now.
Back home, she opened a fresh diagnostic layer. Horizon Gate's internal communications were developing stress patterns — longer response times, encrypted backups on personal devices, private storage clusters growing rapidly.
Fear was driving decentralization.
Decentralization created openings.
She initiated a passive siphon — nothing invasive, nothing loud. It gathered nothing but metadata. Yet even metadata told stories: who trusted whom, who was speaking late at night, who avoided formal channels.
Patterns formed.
The containment council began clashing within forty-eight hours.
Han demanded new funding. One loyalist blocked him. Another leaked a partial report to protect himself. Arguments spilled into unofficial channels — the very ones Xinyue had mapped.
And then — the first resignation.
Not dramatic.
Not public.
But irreversible.
Xinyue watched the resignation notice appear on her screen. A soft click echoed in her mind — like the sound of the first brick loosened from a wall.
She leaned back slowly.
The walls of Horizon Gate were beginning to echo.
And once walls echoed, collapse was only a matter of time.