The yacht party changed the arm’s length.

Standing there in a gin-soaked dress, three seconds from the Atlantic, I opened the authorization screen.

The portal asked whether I wished to proceed to enforcement.

At 3:27 in the afternoon, I pressed the red button.

The screen asked for biometric confirmation, and I gave it — my thumb, steady, on the glass.

Somewhere in an office forty miles away, a great deal of machinery I had built began, quietly, to move.

Chapter 9 — The Siren

Then the captain’s radio snapped again, and a siren rolled across the water.