The private theater within Windsor Castle was a token of excess, draped in crimson velvet and adorned with gilded cherubs looking down with vacant knowing gazes. Edgar Walker occupied a seat in the middle of the front row holding a glass filled with deep red Amontillado. On the stage a lone spotlight shone not on a performer. On a collection of polished monitors showing a live silent video from a hidden camera aimed at an unremarkable government edifice, in Westminster.
This evenings performance was authored by him alone. The crowd—unaware, formal and strikingly ordinary—was, on the verge of getting their signal.
A secure comm-link illuminated on the armrest. Valerius's voice, carrying his scholarly hesitation came through. "The packet has been sent. Via the suggested back-channel. The Parliamentary Science & Ethics Watchdog Committee ought to be retrieving it… at this moment."
Edgar drank slowly enjoying the bitterness. "Perfect.. The reason, behind our patriotic informant's actions?"
"As designed: a junior scientist, haunted by ethics dreading the 'unregulated genetic arms race' among private companies. The digital traces represent a blend of all four houses' basic coding markers. It will come across as a random outpouring, from an insider involved in… something significant."
On the screen a person appeared walking into an office holding a tablet. The person paused, gazed at the display then pivoted and rushed away moving with the tight urgency of an official who has just discovered a live grenade in their filing cabinet.
"The charm of it Valerius " Edgar pondered, "lies in the ordinariness of the truth it holds." The fabricated data packet wasn't entirely false. That would be readily rejected. It was a mix of facts, partial truths and flawless fabrications. It included:
· Real, but publicly available, environmental impact reports from the high-security zones around the four castles (explained as "experimental agricultural terraforming").
· Anonymized, non-classified medical abstracts on rapid tissue regeneration and neural plasticity (hinting at "unregulated human trials").
·. The crowning glory: counterfeit financial documents revealing enormous untraceable money movements among shell corporations with subtle evocative names—Aethelred Holdings, Sylvan Futures, Chthon Logistics, Agni Corp. A complex web hinting at conspiracy, on a scale.
It implied, without declaring, a secretive large-scale bio-technology operation of unlawful scope functioning with disregard for supervision, within British territory. It was sufficiently plausible to cause concern, vague to defy confirmation and sufficiently incendiary to compel intervention.
"They won't be able to avoid probing " Edgar remarked, observing as individuals gathered in the office on the display. "A public parliamentary probe is a tool. It can't locate us—our defenses are too strong our secrets too buried.. The clamor it generates… the outside pressure… it's a tempest that will compel all the small creatures to flee to expose their shelters to slip up."
"The risk of exposure—"
"—is insignificant " Edgar concluded. "The watchdog will pursue the shell corporations relentlessly. They will question landowners and bewildered bank officials. They will seek explanations from Heritage England and the Ministry of Defence regarding events at heritage locations. By doing they will cause a ripple, beneath the foundations of Warwick, Edinburgh, Dover and indeed, even Windsor. The rest will sense the touch of the world encroaching on their realms. They will reallocate resources to build concealment to calm internal anxiety. They will regard one another with suspicion questioning who acted so carelessly so urgently as to allow the external world inside."
He rose, placing his glass aside. On the screen the activity was intensifying. He seemed to catch the murmurs the shuffling of pressing documents.
"Arthur, armed with his established moral code will regard this as a significant ethical violation—a breach of their solemn confidential agreement. He will grow increasingly inflexible more foreseeable. Felicya the perfectionist, will be appalled by the 'chaos.' She will withdraw more reinforcing her inner defenses transforming her fortress into a more impenetrable yet lonelier stronghold.. Alexa…" A genuine smile, icy and keen curved his mouth. "Alexa will perceive it as an attack, on her functioning integrity. She will seek to identify the origin and eliminate it. She will retaliate.. In her retaliation she will appear most striking and most noticeable."
He shifted away from the screen the initial act of the play a triumph. "The collaborative inquiry into the deceased analyst has now become a charming distraction. They will be scrambling to handle this outside menace.. As they focus on the government and, on one another…"
Valerius comprehended. "The Black Sanctum continues without pause. The merging of the affected specimen, with Subject Cain-9 is… advancing. The quiet it produces is intensifying."
"A contrast, to the uproar I've just created " Edgar remarked, heading for the exit. "Let them be overwhelmed by the clamor and doubt. We will operate in the silence that ensues. The Third Move isn't a lost pawn. It's the whole board shifted. Now we observe the movement of all the pieces."
He left the theater, the gilded cherubs seeming to watch him go with their empty eyes. In the real world, a scandal was now budding in a Westminster office, a tiny seed of bureaucratic panic that would grow into a choking vine of distraction for his rivals. The Balance of Terrible Power required equilibrium. But true power, Edgar knew, lay in controlling the scale itself. And he had just placed a very heavy, very public thumb on one side.