Chapter 12 - Jaylen's ChoiceJaylen had thirty seconds.
Maybe less.
The system was feeding instability back into the grid.
If he shut it down incorrectly, the entire facility could explode.
If he did nothing, the surge would travel into neighboring transmission lines.
He stared at the control screen.
Richard shouted through the glass.
“Fix it!”
Jaylen ignored him.
He remembered his father's words.
Machines don't lie.
People do.
He studied the system.
The output wasn't failing.
It was obeying the wrong instruction.
Jaylen smiled.
He found the command.
RECOVERY LOOP: MANUAL
He switched it.
The machine screamed.
Energy reversed.
Wendell shouted.
“Jaylen!”
The boy remained focused.
“I'm not shutting it down.”
“What are you doing?”
“I'm teaching it.”
The system began absorbing its own instability.
The numbers dropped.
Ninety percent.
Sixty.
Thirty.
The lights stabilized.
Richard stared.
“No.”
Jaylen entered the final sequence.
The industrial machine powered down.
Silence.
Richard's men stared.
Marcus moved first.
Security teams stormed the control room.
Richard tried to run.
Marcus caught him.
Wendell walked toward the glass.
Richard looked at him.
“You think this changes anything?”
Wendell shook his head.
“You're finished.”
Richard smiled.
“No.”
He pulled a small device from his pocket.
A detonator.
Wendell froze.
Richard pressed it.
Nothing happened.
Richard's smile disappeared.
“What?”
Jaylen looked at him.
“I disabled the trigger.”
Richard stared.
“How?”
“You built your system around my model.”
Jaylen smiled faintly.
“You should've used your own.”
Marcus restrained Richard.
But Wendell wasn't celebrating.
He looked at Jaylen.
“How did you know?”
Jaylen shrugged.
“Your company taught me.”
“My company?”
“Failure.”
He pointed at the machine.
“I learned everything by seeing what broke.”
Wendell smiled.
Then the room shook.
A final surge.
A ceiling panel collapsed.
Jaylen fell.
Wendell lunged.
He caught the boy before he hit the floor.
But the stolen prototype had fallen too.
It smashed against the concrete.
For a moment, nobody moved.
The machine was destroyed.
The only working large-scale Orion prototype was gone.
Or so Wendell thought.
Jaylen opened his hand.
Inside was a tiny memory chip.
“I copied it.”
Wendell stared.
“When?”
“Before we left.”
Wendell laughed.
But Jaylen's face remained serious.
“There is one problem.”
“What?”
“I found something in Richard's system.”
“What?”
Jaylen handed him the chip.
“He wasn't working alone.”
Wendell looked down.
A file appeared.
ORION MASTER AGREEMENT
May you like
Beneath it were twelve names.
And the first name belonged to Wendell's own father.
