The Banquet of Lies

The server room beneath the community center smelled of ozone and damp concrete. Above, the rhythmic thud of heavy boots against the floorboards signaled that the Clearing House enforcers had stopped pretending to be neighbors. They were tearing the building apart, frame by frame, looking for the source of the leak.

"The handshake protocol is stalling," Hao said, his fingers a blur over the mechanical keyboard. The blue light of the terminal carved sharp, hollow shadows into his face. "They’ve severed the primary fiber. We’re tunneling through a backup satellite link. It’s fragile."

Lin Mei pressed her back against the reinforced steel door, the cold metal vibrating with every strike from the hallway. She held the master ledger—a heavy, leather-bound artifact that contained the true history of the neighborhood: the coerced signatures, the sh

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