Page 164 of Rescuing Ally: Part 2

“Well then.” Forest claps his hands once. “Carry on with your reunions. Take care of each other. And remember—some stories are better shared over coffee than in official reports.”

He turns to leave, then pauses at the threshold. “Oh and, Ally. Harrison has been dealt with.”

“He has?” I can’t believe it and didn’t have the courage to ask, but now, I need to know. “Did he ever saywhyhe did it?”

“Malfor offered him second-in-command with promises of running Malfor’s entire operation. Didn’t work out for him.”

“What does that mean?”

“Just to say, friends dropped him off after their littlevacay. He’s providing valuable intelligence as we speak. Griff is with him and he’s beingverycooperative, but then Griff has a way with getting people to talk.”

I know Griff. Another regular of The Guardian Grind, he’s a part of Alpha team and known for his excellence in interrogation procedures. Hank told me never to ask what that meant, and I won’t. Some things I don’t need to know.

“The intelligence community sends their regards,” Forest continues. “Harrison’s information is dismantling what’s left of Malfor’s network across three continents. Arms dealers, technology brokers, former intelligence assets gone rogue—they’re all scrambling for cover now that their protection’s gone.”

“What happens to him now?” I ask, my voice steadier than expected.

“That’s classified,” Sam replies, but his slight smile suggests Harrison won’t be enjoying retirement. “Let’s just say, afterGriff’s done, he’ll be transferred to a facility where people with his particular skillset and betrayals can be—properly debriefed for the next several decades.”

“Without sunlight,” CJ adds. “Or hope.”

“Enough of that,” Mitzy pushes in, approaching with her tablet and a steaming cup of coffee. “We need to talk about what Malfor told you versus what we discovered.”

I straighten, my scientific mind immediately engaging. “The nanobots. He said I brought them in from Kazakhstan.”

“You did,” Mitzy confirms gently, settling into the chair across from us. “But not by choice. Not knowingly. They were embedded in your skin, your clothes, your USB during captivity.”

Gabe’s arms tighten around me. “Ally?—”

“No, I need to hear this.” I turn to Mitzy, my quantum physics training demanding technical understanding. “Tell me how they worked.”

Mitzy pulls up holographic displays on her tablet. “You probably already know this, but individual nanobots are simple machines, but they were networked through your quantum entanglement research.”

“Malfor mentioned that.”

“They self-replicated, and when hundreds gathered together, they created an emergent collective intelligence, like a hive mind distributed across electronic systems.”

“That’s why the espresso machine kept malfunctioning,” I realize, pieces clicking into place. “Every system I touched became infected.”

“Exponentially,” Mitzy nods. “From you to devices, from devices to other people, from people to more devices. Within three months, eighty-nine percent of Guardian HRS was compromised.”

The guilt hits with soul-crushing knowledge. “I brought a surveillance network into the place I love most.”

“You were weaponized against your will,” Gabe says firmly. “That’s on Malfor, not you.”

“But my research made it possible,” I whisper. “He used my quantum entanglement work to create untraceable communication networks.”

“And your research helped us destroy them,” Mitzy interjects. “The Trojan horse we developed used your quantum entanglement principles to cause cascade failures throughout his entire network.”

“The Trojan horse worked?” I look up sharply. “Wait, how did you know about that?”

“What do you mean?” Her brows pinch together in confusion.

“I developed a quantum disruption protocol. I planted it in his system to sever the entanglement pairs.”

Mitzy’s eyes widen. “You did, what?”

“I used my access to his quantum control interface to introduce cascading decoherence,” I explain, my scientific mind racing through the implications. “I disrupted the quantum coherence states from the master control side—essentially forcing the entangled pairs to lose their connection. If the nanobots were quantum entangled, then disrupting the coherence would cause?—”