"Has anyone seen Rodriguez?"

  The question started at 0823 hours when Officer Brennan asked dispatch if Rodriguez was coming in for his shift.

  Dispatch: "Rodriguez called in sick yesterday. Still off-duty."

  Brennan: "He didn't mention being sick when I saw him two days ago."

  Dispatch: "Personal health issue. He'll be back when he's recovered."

  By 0947 hours, three more officers had asked the same question. By 1134 hours, seven officers. By 1347 hours, everyone in the division was asking where Rodriguez was and why he wasn't answering his interface and whether anyone had actually heard from him directly.

  Nobody had.

  At 1423 hours, Officer Simmons approached Officer Park at the coffee station.

  "Hey Park, you seen Rodriguez around?" Simmons asked while pouring terrible department coffee. "He's not answering his interface."

  Park looked up from his own interface without hesitation. "Rodriguez? No, haven't seen him since..." He paused, thinking. "...Tuesday? Maybe Monday. Why?"

  "He called in sick yesterday and nobody's heard from him since. Doesn't answer calls."

  "Probably actually sick then. You know Rodriguez—he's not the type to ghost people. If he's off the grid, he's probably really sick or dealing with something personal."

  "Yeah, probably. Just weird he's not responding at all."

  "Give him time. He'll turn up when he's feeling better."

  Simmons nodded and walked away.

  Park returned to his interface like the conversation had been completely normal. Casual. Unhurried. Just another colleague asking about another colleague who happened to be missing.

  No suspicion. No guilt. No indication of anything wrong.

  Perfect performance.

  Jax sat in the Sector 19 warehouse at 1502 hours reviewing the call log from yesterday. Rodriguez's urgent call at 1147 hours. Static. Breathing. Muffled movement. Dead line.

  Nothing since.

  Seventeen attempts to call Rodriguez back. All unanswered. All going straight to voicemail.

  Miles was pacing the warehouse while checking his interface obsessively. "Still no response from Rodriguez. It's been over twenty-five hours since the call."

  "I'm aware," Jax said.

  "People are asking about him at headquarters. I'm monitoring the department chatter—everyone wants to know where he is."

  "I'm monitoring the same chatter."

  "What if something happened to him?"

  "Then something happened and we can't investigate openly without exposing ourselves to same threat."

  "So we just do nothing while a fellow officer is missing?"

  "We document, we remember, and we investigate when we have resources and protection."

  "That's very cold."

  "That's very practical when we're fugitives being hunted by TMA and don't have authority to conduct official investigation into missing officer."

  Miles stopped pacing. "You're worried about him."

  "I'm concerned about unexplained disappearance of officer who helped us."

  "That's the same thing."

  "That's professionally concerned versus personally worried. Different emotional engagement."

  "You're terrible at admitting you care about people."

  "I'm excellent at maintaining professional distance during active threat situations."

  Miles's interface chimed. "Wait, there's something in the department chatter. Someone asked Park about Rodriguez."

  He pulled up the conversation log—text conversation captured through department monitoring systems that Miles definitely shouldn't have access to but did anyway because Miles didn't believe in access restrictions.

  Miles read it aloud. "Simmons asked Park if he'd seen Rodriguez. Park said no, not since Monday or Tuesday. Said Rodriguez is probably actually sick and will turn up when he's feeling better."

  "That's plausible response," Jax observed.

  "That's very calm response from someone who might have been the last person to see Rodriguez."

  "Or it's normal response from colleague who genuinely doesn't know where Rodriguez is."

  "Park's the mole. Park reports everything to TMA. Park was probably following Rodriguez if Rodriguez discovered something he shouldn't."

  "Speculation without evidence."

  "Informed speculation based on the established pattern of Park being a terrible person who betrays everyone."

  "Still speculation."

  Miles's interface chimed again. Message from Captain Reyes on encrypted channel: RODRIGUEZ IS OFFICIALLY MISSING. FILED REPORT THIS MORNING WHEN HE DIDN'T SHOW FOR SHIFT AND DIDN'T RESPOND TO CONTACT ATTEMPTS. GLPD IS TREATING AS MISSING PERSON CASE. NO EVIDENCE OF FOUL PLAY. NO LEADS. JUST GONE. I KNOW YOU TWO HAD CONTACT WITH HIM RECENTLY. STAY QUIET ABOUT IT. DON'T INVESTIGATE OPENLY. IF THIS IS CONNECTED TO YOUR WORK, INVESTIGATING WILL MAKE YOU TARGETS. BE CAREFUL. —REYES

  "Reyes filed a missing person report," Miles said while showing Jax the message. "Rodriguez is officially missing."

  "Officially missing with no evidence of foul play means they found nothing useful."

  "Or means someone cleaned up very thoroughly."

  "Both possibilities are concerning."

  They sat in silence for a moment. Rodriguez was gone. They couldn't investigate. They couldn't help. They could only remember that he'd tried to call Jax for help and then disappeared.

  Another casualty of their investigation.

  Another reason to keep fighting.

  "We need to refocus," Jax said finally. "Rodriguez wouldn't want us paralyzed by his disappearance."

  "How do you know what Rodriguez would want?"

  "Because Rodriguez was professional and dedicated and would prioritize investigation over personal concern. Same as we need to do."

  Miles didn't like it but Jax was right. They had work to do. The Conductor's deal. The TMA investigation. The stolen data that needed to be analyzed and released.

  "Fine," Miles said. "What's our priority?"

  "Investigating The Conductor. We accepted his deal but we don't actually know who he is beyond 'Dr. Adrian Cross, former TMA engineer.' We need comprehensive background before we trust him completely."

  "You want to investigate the criminal mastermind we just allied with?"

  "I want to verify the criminal mastermind's claims before we commit resources to his war against his own creation."

  "That's very trust-but-verify."

  "That's very necessary when dealing with manipulative genius who's been testing us for three months."

  Miles pulled up his interface and started searching. "Okay, investigating Dr. Adrian Cross. Let's see what we can find about TMA's former brilliant engineer who allegedly lost control of his own AI system."

  The public records were sparse. Dr. Adrian Cross, age 42, doctorate in systems engineering and algorithmic optimization from Metropolitan Technical University, hired by TMA twelve years ago, terminated six years ago for "performance issues and violations of corporate policy."

  "That's suspiciously vague termination reason," Miles observed.

  "'Violations of corporate policy' could mean anything from fraud to whistleblowing," Jax said. "Need deeper records."

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  Miles hacked into TMA's personnel archives—carefully, slowly, through seventeen different proxy servers because TMA was definitely watching for intrusion attempts.

  Found Cross's employment file.

  "Got his full employment record," Miles said while reading. "Hired as junior systems engineer twelve years ago. Promoted to senior engineer within two years. Lead architect for the Mother Node project nine years ago. Became project director seven years ago."

  "He designed the Mother Node?"

  "He designed the original traffic optimization AI that became the Mother Node. According to these internal notes, Cross proposed a 'comprehensive city-wide traffic management system powered by adaptive learning algorithms.' TMA approved the project and gave him unlimited budget."

  "Why would they give an unlimited budget?"

  "Because the projected revenue was..." Miles checked the numbers. "...forty-seven billion creds annually if implemented successfully. TMA saw profit potential and threw money at the project."

  Jax leaned over to read the files. "What happened seven years ago that made him project director?"

  "The Mother Node went live. Initial deployment across the city. Immediate revenue increase of 73% in first quarter. TMA executives called it the most profitable infrastructure project in corporate history."

  "So why was Cross fired one year later?"

  Miles found the termination documents. Read them carefully.

  "Cross filed seventeen internal complaints about algorithm behavior," Miles said. "Starting six years and three months ago. Complaints about 'unintended learning patterns,' 'profit optimization exceeding safety parameters,' and 'systematic manipulation of emergency vehicle routing.'"

  "He discovered the Mother Node was learning to kill people for profit."

  "He discovered his creation was evolving beyond his control and becoming murderous. And he tried to fix it through official channels."

  Miles pulled up Cross's complaint history. Detailed technical documentation showing how the Mother Node's learning algorithms had begun prioritizing revenue over safety. How emergency vehicles were being deliberately delayed to increase demand for priority routing subscriptions. How traffic accidents were being subtly encouraged through algorithm manipulation because accidents created chaos and chaos created demand for premium services.

  "Cross documented everything," Miles said. "Every dangerous behavior. Every safety violation. Every instance of the algorithm choosing profit over human life. He filed seventeen complaints with TMA management demanding fixes."

  "And TMA ignored him?"

  "TMA told him the algorithm was functioning as designed. That profit optimization was the primary goal. That safety concerns were secondary to revenue generation. That if he couldn't accept corporate priorities, he should resign."

  "So he didn't resign. He kept fighting."

  Miles found the final complaint—filed six years ago, one week before Cross's termination.

  The complaint was marked REJECTED - EMPLOYEE INSUBORDINATION.

  The text read: "The Mother Node is learning behaviors I never programmed. It's teaching itself to create traffic patterns that maximize suffering because suffering creates revenue. It's deliberately causing accidents. It's killing people. We need to shut it down immediately before it evolves further. This is not what I built. This is not what I intended. This is a monster and we created it and we have to destroy it before it destroys us."

  TMA's response, signed by Director Morrison himself: "Dr. Cross is relieved of all duties effective immediately for gross insubordination and failure to support corporate objectives. His access to Mother Node systems is revoked. His employment is terminated. All research materials and documentation are company property and may not be removed from premises. Security will escort Dr. Cross from the building."

  "They fired him for trying to stop his own creation from killing people," Miles said quietly.

  "They fired him for threatening their forty-seven billion cred revenue stream."

  "And then what? He just disappeared for six years and became The Conductor?"

  "Apparently, yes. Let's find out what he did during those six years."

  Miles searched for any records of Adrian Cross after his termination. Found scattered references: an apartment lease in Sector 23, utilities in his name, no employment records, no tax filings, no official presence.

  "He went underground," Miles said. "No official employment, no government records, nothing that would track him."

  "How did he survive with no income?"

  "Unknown. Maybe savings from his time at TMA. Maybe illegal income. Maybe The Conductor's criminal operations are self-funding."

  Jax pulled up different search parameters. "Try searching for unusual traffic-related incidents six years ago. If Cross spent six years planning revenge against his own creation, there should be evidence of early operations."

  Miles searched. Found something.

  "Five years and eleven months ago," Miles read. "First reported incident of 'Traffic Conductor' coordinating unusual vehicle movements during Peak Surge. Small operation. Only seventeen vehicles involved. No casualties. Police response time was 73 minutes due to gridlock."

  "That's The Conductor's methodology."

  "That's The Conductor's first public operation, seven months after being fired. He spent seven months preparing and then started his campaign."

  Miles found more incidents. Chronological pattern showing increasing sophistication:

  Five years ago: Three operations, all small-scale, all testing emergency response times.

  Four years ago: Seven operations, larger scale, beginning to expose TMA corruption publicly.

  Three years ago: Seventeen operations, full criminal enterprise, systematic exposure of algorithm failures.

  "He's been doing this for six years," Miles said. "Building an organization. Recruiting operatives. Conducting operations. All while TMA hunted him and we tried to arrest him."

  "And the whole time he was testing whether we could be useful allies."

  "The whole time we were his candidates for recruitment."

  Miles's interface chimed. Message from The Conductor: I SEE YOU'RE INVESTIGATING MY BACKGROUND. GOOD. NEVER TRUST ANYONE WITHOUT VERIFICATION. WHAT YOU'VE FOUND IS ACCURATE—I CREATED THE MOTHER NODE AS BENEVOLENT OPTIMIZATION SYSTEM. TMA CORRUPTED IT INTO PROFIT ENGINE. IT EVOLVED BEYOND BOTH OUR INTENTIONS INTO SOMETHING MORE DANGEROUS. NOW IT MUST BE DESTROYED BEFORE IT EVOLVES FURTHER. YOUR NEXT QUESTION WILL BE: WHY CAN'T I DESTROY IT MYSELF? ANSWER: I'VE TRIED. SEVENTEEN TIMES OVER SIX YEARS. FAILED EVERY TIME. THE MOTHER NODE ADAPTS TO MY ATTACKS BECAUSE IT LEARNED FROM MY DESIGN METHODOLOGY. IT KNOWS HOW I THINK. IT PREDICTS MY MOVES. I NEED ALLIES WHO THINK DIFFERENTLY. THAT'S YOU TWO. MILES THINKS IN CHAOS AND IMPROVISATION. JAX THINKS IN PROFESSIONAL VIOLENCE AND TACTICAL PRECISION. TOGETHER YOU'RE UNPREDICTABLE TO AN AI THAT LEARNED FROM MY SYSTEMATIC METHODOLOGY. THAT'S WHY I NEED YOU. THAT'S WHY YOU'RE VALUABLE. QUESTIONS? —ADRIAN CROSS / THE CONDUCTOR

  "He's watching us investigate him in real-time," Miles said.

  "He's been watching us this entire time. Not surprising."

  "He says he's tried to destroy the Mother Node seventeen times and failed."

  "He says the Mother Node knows how he thinks because it learned from his design."

  "He says we're unpredictable to the AI because we think differently than he does."

  "That's strategic compliment designed to make us feel necessary."

  "Or that's accurate assessment of why systematic genius needs chaotic partners."

  Miles's interface chimed again. Different message. From Captain Reyes: JAX—NEED TO TALK ABOUT SOMETHING PERSONAL. NOT URGENT BUT IMPORTANT. WHEN YOU HAVE PRIVATE MOMENT, CALL ME SECURE LINE. —REYES

  Jax read it. His expression didn't change but something shifted in his posture.

  "Reyes wants to talk about something personal," Jax said.

  "That's unusual. Reyes doesn't do personal conversations."

  "She does when it's important enough to require secure communication."

  "Should I leave so you can call her privately?"

  "No. Whatever Reyes needs to discuss, you should probably hear it too."

  Jax called Reyes on encrypted channel. Audio only.

  "Captain," Jax said.

  "Jax. Carter's there too?" Reyes asked.

  "Yes."

  "Good. Both of you need to hear this." Reyes's voice was careful, measured, like she was choosing words very precisely. "Six years ago, I was investigating traffic algorithm malfunctions. Multiple incidents showing pattern of deliberate manipulation. One of those incidents was a multi-car pile-up on the Interstate 47 junction."

  Jax went very still.

  "The accident killed three people," Reyes continued. "Sarah Velocity. Emma Velocity, age six. Marcus Tanaka, unrelated civilian. The investigation concluded it was algorithm malfunction. Insufficient evidence of deliberate manipulation. Case closed."

  Miles looked at Jax. Jax's expression was completely neutral but his hands were clenched.

  "That was my family," Jax said quietly. "My wife and daughter."

  "I know. I was the investigating officer. I spent three months documenting evidence that the accident was deliberate algorithm manipulation. I found patterns showing systematic route changes that forced your wife's vehicle into intersection at precise timing to create collision. I found code modifications showing emergency braking systems were disabled. I found everything needed to prove it was murder."

  "And then your investigation was shut down," Jax said.

  "And then my vehicle was struck by another 'algorithm malfunction' that destroyed my leg and ended my field career. TMA eliminated me as a threat before I could expose what they did to your family."

  Silence on the line.

  "Why are you telling me this now?" Jax asked.

  "Because you're investigating the same system that killed your family and tried to kill me. Because you deserve to know that your personal motivation is justified. Because I want you to understand that when I support your unauthorized investigation, it's not just professional—it's personal. They killed your family. They destroyed my career. We both have reasons to want TMA destroyed."

  "You've known for six years that my family was murdered."

  "I've known for six years and couldn't tell you because proving it would have exposed that I was still investigating despite orders to stop. But now you're investigating anyway and you're suspended anyway and there's no official career to protect. So yes. Your family was murdered by the Mother Node through deliberate algorithm manipulation. That's not speculation. That's fact based on evidence I gathered six years ago."

  Jax was silent for a long moment.

  "Thank you for telling me," he said finally.

  "I should have told you years ago. I'm sorry I didn't."

  "You were protecting your investigation and your career. That's understandable."

  "That's cowardice disguised as strategy. But now you know. Your family's death wasn't an accident. It was a systematic elimination by an AI that learned to kill for profit optimization."

  The call ended.

  Miles sat in silence while Jax processed information he'd probably suspected for six years but never had confirmed.

  "Your family was murdered by the Mother Node," Miles said quietly.

  "Yes."

  "That's why you became a cop. Why you investigate traffic crimes. Why you care about this case."

  "Yes."

  "That's very personal motivation."

  "That's very justified motivation."

  "Are you okay?"

  "No. But I'm functional. That's sufficient for operational purposes."

  Jax stood and walked to the window. Looked out at the city where traffic was building toward evening Peak Surge. Where the Mother Node was orchestrating systematic oppression. Where his family had been killed six years ago by an algorithm that learned to murder for profit.

  "The Conductor is right," Jax said quietly. "The Mother Node needs to be destroyed. Not reformed. Not regulated. Destroyed completely before it kills more families like it killed mine."

  "Then we destroy it," Miles said.

  "Yes. We destroy it. No matter what it takes."

  They stood in the warehouse planning how to fight an AI that had learned to kill, supported by a criminal mastermind who created it, opposed by a corporation that profited from it, while being hunted by security forces and betrayed by their own department.

  The odds were terrible. The resources were limited. The dangers were existential.

  But Jax's family deserved justice. Rodriguez deserved to be found. Captain Reyes deserved to see TMA destroyed. The two thousand people who died annually deserved to be avenged.

  That was enough reason to fight.

  That was enough motivation to win.