Chapter 27 — Revelation of Incident
The Hall of Concord was an iron fortress chamber in the Republic of the Houses. It held a stone table with dim lights and minimal ornaments. There were no banners, carved wood, or traces of ceremonial pieces to brighten the room. There in the Hall of Concord sat all eighteen Patriarchs of the Republic of the Houses. They gathered around the long stone table as though it were an altar built to survive time itself. Their faces were drawn and weathered, clothes plain, but the weight in the room came not from fabric or ornaments on the Patriarchs; it came from the fact that every man and woman there held a sovereign blade.
The Patriarch of the House of the Dawn was the first to speak. His voice was flat, but each word landed like a nail.
"My dear fellow Patriarchs and Matriarchs, let us not stand on ceremony and get to the heart of the matter. Approximately forty-eight hours ago, at 0300 hours, Sky's coastal monitoring stations detected anomalous Federation carrier strike group movements in the South East Asia Sea. By 0600 hours, we had activated Iron Silence protocols across all eighteen Houses. For the following day, three foreign powers—the Federation, Gaule Republic, and Southern Commonwealth—maintained coordinated military presence in our territorial approaches. The crisis de-escalated the following morning. No shots were fired. No formal communications were exchanged." He paused, letting the weight settle. "Yet something was taken. The question is what."
The Patriarch of the House of the Sky leaned across the table, knuckles pressed white against the stone. His words were half growl, half oath.
"Those warmongers must have been up to something for certain. No fleets in the world would waste resources on posturing and deliberate show of force for no returns. I highly doubt the commanders in charge of those fleets are complete bloody idiots playing theatre with us and their own men for nothing. A carrier strike group doesn't keep its crews at battle stations for that long unless they had objectives in mind. The only thing we need to determine is what that objective was and what their win condition looked like. I want everyone here to collaborate to find out what those fucken warmongers wanted."
The Patriarch of the House of the Dawn turned his gaze towards intelligence and law. "Let's begin with what we already know. Who are the foreign agents present in our territory, and what were they doing before Iron Silence went up?"
The Patriarch of the House of the Serpent did not look down at his notes. He stated the facts plainly. "From the Federation side, there are six known defence attachés, two commercial liaisons, one journalist, and three 'technical consultants' attached to a trade mission. Gaule Republic has four naval observers and a cultural officer who has ties to the House of the Thunder doing cuisine co-operative IP work. The Southern Commonwealth has one logistics envoy and two contractors. All foreign personnel were tracked and accounted for throughout the crisis period. None left the Republic during Iron Silence. Their movements were restricted to approved zones."
A murmur rippled through the chamber. The Patriarch of the House of the Thunder raised his hand slightly. "If none of them left, then what was extracted? Surely the military theatre was cover for something."
The Patriarch of the House of the Bear stood slowly. When he spoke, the room fell silent.
"Two days ago, our systems detected an anomaly in Sector 8B of the IP Oversight network. A small deviation in compute power was registered—initially logged as routine noise. However, upon deeper investigation, we found a code tag embedded in the access pattern." He paused. "Three letters: CCX."
The silence grew heavier.
"CCX," the Bear Patriarch continued, "appears in only one place in our vault registration system. It's associated with a recent IP filing from the House of the Bamboo—a technology designated ECSE-v2."
The Patriarch of the House of the Bamboo stiffened in his seat, visibly unsettled by the revelation. "ECSE-v2 is an emotional-cognitive simulation engine my House registered recently. It was developed by a pair of our younger bloodlines—twins—who attempted to recreate historical trauma scenarios inside Deep VR environments for therapeutic research. Why do you mention this, Patriarch of the Bear?"
The Bear Patriarch's expression hardened. "Because the logs in Sector 8B indicate that ECSE-v2 was accessed, copied, and removed from our systems approximately six hours before Iron Silence was activated. Not transferred through official channels. Not copied with authorisation. Removed through an unauthorised tap—one we didn't even know existed until we backtracked the breach."
The room erupted in controlled fury. Voices rose, fists struck stone, but no one shouted over another. These were sovereigns, and even in anger, they maintained order.
The Patriarch of the House of the Dawn raised his hand, and silence returned immediately. "Explain how this is possible. Our systems are supposed to be impenetrable."
The Bear Patriarch's jaw tightened. "The extraction didn't occur through our official networks. It bypassed them entirely. Someone—whether inside our systems or with inside assistance—created a back channel through the condemned districts. The tap fed into infrastructure we monitor but don't actively patrol because those areas are deemed economically non-viable. The signal was routed through power systems we maintain for basic humanitarian reasons, buried in the noise of routine maintenance."
The Patriarch of the House of the Serpent leaned forward, eyes sharp. "So you're saying the rejects were involved."
"Not just involved," the Bear Patriarch replied coldly. "The tap was maintained by them. Paid for by someone outside the Republic—almost certainly Federation intelligence. They kept the channel powered for years, waiting for something valuable to bleed through. And someone inside our systems gave them exactly that."
The Patriarch of the House of the Sky slammed his fist on the table. "Someone in this chamber, or someone under your banners, knew it was there. Or the House of the Dawn allowed it to be pulled out under the noise of Iron Silence."
The Patriarch of the House of the Dawn stiffened, but the Bear cut him off before he could respond.
"The data flow doesn't lie. There was a deliberate action initiated to extract ECSE-v2 through the reject channel. That means it didn't exit through embassies, ministries, or ports. It bled out through the rejects of our own society—the people we've deemed unworthy of full participation. That makes them persons of interest. And it makes whoever opened the channel from inside our systems a traitor."
The Patriarch of the House of the Serpent bared his teeth in cold agreement. "Then they will be hunted. The rejects can't stay hidden forever. They still need to scavenge from our systems, leech from our infrastructure. And when they surface, I'll catch them and exile every last one into the outer zones."
The Bear Patriarch raised his hand, silencing the room again. "And if we follow the chain to its logical conclusion, there's no doubt who orchestrated this. The Federation commanded the carrier strike group. They triggered the posturing, which forced us to activate Iron Silence. The Gaule Republic and Southern Commonwealth only came afterwards as soft cover for the Federation's operation. Using the timeline of events and the information flow surrounding ECSE-v2, it is beyond reasonable doubt that the Federation orchestrated this extraction. Iron Silence wasn't issued because we chose to respond—it was forced upon us because the Federation needed the distraction. They positioned their fleets to draw our attention outward whilst their courier moved the stolen technology inward to the coast for handoff. They came close to our territorial waters to cover the extraction, to provide their operative an exit route whilst we focused on military threats. They masked the theft with theatre."
The Patriarch of the House of the Sky growled low. "If that's accurate, then the courier is already gone."
The Bear Patriarch nodded grimly. "Our borders were sealed when we activated Iron Silence. But maritime borders are harder to enforce during crisis conditions. The Federation pushed their hulls close to our exclusive economic zone not to threaten invasion—they came to meet their courier. To provide extraction under the cover of military posture. That's why they risked international incident. The theft was already complete; they just needed to get it out."
The Patriarch of the House of the Dawn finally spoke, his voice like stone dragged across steel. "That would explain the events of the past forty-eight hours."
The room fell into heavy silence. The weight of betrayal, theft, and strategic manipulation settled over them like a shroud.
The Patriarch of the House of the Bamboo broke the quiet, his voice shaking slightly. "Our own ally. The Federation helped birth this Republic sixty years ago. And now they've stooped to stealing from us?"
The Patriarch of the House of the Bear met his eyes without sympathy. "Allies act in their interests, not ours. The moment our technology became more valuable than their friendship, the relationship changed. They saw an opportunity during our vulnerability and they took it."
The Patriarch of the House of the Sky stood, his chair scraping against stone. "So what do we do? We can't let this stand. If we don't respond, every power on earth will see us as weak. They'll probe for more gaps, more channels, more ways to bleed us dry."
The Patriarch of the House of the Dawn raised his hand again. "We respond with precision, not rage. First, we close every potential channel. Serpent, your House will hunt the rejects who maintained the tap. Bear, your House will forensically audit every access point in our networks. Sky, your House will review all maritime security protocols to ensure no courier can slip through again during crisis conditions."
He turned his gaze to the rest of the assembled Patriarchs. "And we send a message to the Federation. Not through military posturing—they've already proven they can match us there. We respond economically, diplomatically, and systematically. They want our technology? They can watch as we restrict access even further. They want to play espionage games? We'll demonstrate what operational security actually looks like when we're no longer assuming good faith."
The Patriarch of the House of the Bamboo spoke quietly. "And what of ECSE-v2? It's already in their hands. The technology is gone."
The Bear Patriarch's expression was cold. "Then we adapt. We develop countermeasures. We ensure the next generation of our technology is hardened against the vulnerabilities they exploited. And we remember that trust, once broken, doesn't return. The Federation has shown us what they value. We'll show them what it costs."
The Patriarch of the House of the Dawn stood. "This council is concluded. Each House knows its task. Execute with precision. Report progress at the next session. And remember—whoever opened that channel from inside is still among us or under our banners. Until we find them, trust no one outside this room."
The Patriarchs rose as one, sovereign blades held firm, and departed into the corridors of power to execute the will of the Republic.
The crisis had ended.
But the reckoning was only beginning.