Felix saw the dead-man route fail before the news cycle noticed nothing had happened.
The secure room at JD Records was colder than the rest of the building because the air system had been turned up for the equipment. Three screens were still active from the night before. One showed public headlines. Another carried Felix's route map. The third held a narrow set of status markers tied to Michael's check-in system.
Dayo stood behind Felix's chair with a cup of coffee he had not touched.
On the screen, the digital release path showed no public movement.
Felix leaned closer, checked the timing again, then opened the route history. "It passed the window."
"Nothing released?" Dayo asked.
"Nothing public. Nothing to the media points I can see. No legal packet showed up in the channels we are watching. If Michael built this as a pressure system, Silas' people got to it."
