Leo worked cyber counterintelligence. His job was to find Mr.C. Instead, Mr.C found him.
His hands shook. None of this was true. He knew it wasn’t true. But the texts kept coming. From colleagues, friends, strangers. Each one a fact he had never committed, yet the accusation was detailed, timestamped, almost believable.
The first victim had been a senator. His public meltdown—confessing to bribes that didn’t exist, sobbing about aliens in the Capitol vents—was written off as a stroke. Then a dozen more: a general who sold troop movements to a chatbot, a judge who ruled based on tarot spreads, a Nobel laureate who started believing he was a pigeon.
“No,” Leo breathed. “I didn’t do any of that.”
