Chapter 14 - THE SECOND WING
My father’s recorded voice returned through the dead screens.
“If Daedalus has been imitated, assume the first system has been compromised by someone with trustee-level access.”
Trustee-level.
Elena.
Mara.
Three independent board custodians.
And me.
The recording continued.
“The second wing is not an emergency protocol. It is a test of governance. No one person should be able to command it.”
A list of names appeared.
ELENA WARD.
MARA KEENE.
ELEANOR WHITMORE.
JONAH PRICE.
I knew the first three.
Not Jonah Price.
Elena did.
“He was Elias’s systems architect.”
“Was?”
“He died seven years ago.”
Mara shook her head.
“No. He disappeared.”
The second wing required four living confirmations.
My father had hidden one man outside the company, outside the board, outside Graham’s reach.
Or believed he had.
We found Jonah through a sequence of physical coordinates embedded in old port ledgers. He lived under another name in coastal Maine, repairing navigation equipment.
He was sixty-three, broad-handed, gray-bearded, and furious when we arrived.
“You activated the second wing?”
“No,” I said. “Someone else did.”
Jonah looked at the black phone.
Then at me.
“You brought it here?”
“It brought us.”
He almost smiled.
“Elias’s daughter.”
Inside his workshop stood an analog control system disconnected from the internet. Brass switches. Paper rolls. Mechanical locks.
My father trusted technology.
Jonah trusted things that could not be hacked remotely.
He explained that the second wing was called Orpheus.
Not a weapon.
A truth escrow.
If Icarus activated and later evidence suggested a deeper succession conspiracy, Orpheus released sealed records to four custodians. No single person could access the whole archive.
“Why hide it from me?”
“Because grief makes heirs vulnerable to people offering certainty.”
I thought of Graham.
Harrison.
Even my father.
“Who is imitating Daedalus?”
Jonah’s face hardened.
“Someone with one-quarter of Orpheus.”
“Which custodian?”
He turned toward Elena.
She did not flinch.
“My key has never left the vault.”
Mara said the same.
I had never known mine existed.
Jonah looked toward the sea.
“Then the fourth key was taken from me.”
He opened a steel cabinet.
Inside lay an empty case.
The label read:
ORPHEUS / PRICE CUSTODIAN.
The key had been stolen two weeks before my father died.
Jonah had vanished because he believed Graham would kill him next.
“Who knew where you were?” I asked.
“One person.”
“Who?”
“Your father’s chief of staff.”
Elias’s chief of staff had remained at Whitmore Meridian after his death.
She had comforted me at the funeral.
Signed continuity papers.
Helped remove Graham.
May you like
Sat three offices below mine for three years.
Vivian Cross.
