The moment you realize you're being hunted is not the moment you fight back.
It's the moment you decide how loud the fight will be.
By morning, Liam Cross was already a liability.
That was fine.
Liabilities draw attention.
Attention reveals pressure points.
I changed cities before breakfast and names before noon.
This time, I chose Marcus Vale.
The name carried weight without detail. People expected competence from it and rarely asked for proof. I rented a small office overlooking a logistics hub—containers, trucks, schedules, and delays. Systems exposed themselves there.
I opened three laptops.
One for observation.
One for manipulation.
One for erasure.
The first rule of counter-operations is simple:
Never attack what people love.
Attack what they depend on.
The trail I followed wasn't personal.
It was procedural.
Frozen accounts. Delayed permits. Rerouted messages. All executed by different hands, following the same invisible logic.
A coordination layer.
Not a person.
Not yet.
I started small.
A shipping delay here.
A scheduling conflict there.
Nothing illegal. Nothing obvious. Just enough friction to create phone calls, meetings, and panic in quiet offices that hated both.
My phone vibrated.
SYSTEM LATENCY DETECTED. SOURCE UNKNOWN.
Good.
That meant they were watching dashboards instead of people.
I leaned back in my chair and waited.
Counter-operations aren't about speed.
They're about timing.
At 2:14 p.m., someone made their first mistake.
A permit was approved that shouldn't have been.
Too fast. Too clean.
Automation doesn't rush.
People do.
I traced the approval chain and found a name that didn't belong there.
Not the enemy.
A proxy.
Someone paid to push buttons without asking why.
I sent a message from an account that technically didn't exist.
YOU'RE BEING SET UP.
CHECK YOUR LOGS FROM LAST NIGHT.
Three minutes passed.
Then five.
Then—
WHO IS THIS?
I smiled.
I replied with coordinates and a timestamp.
THIS IS WHEN THEY DECIDED YOU WERE EXPENDABLE.
No threats.
No demands.
Just information.
Information does the damage on its own.
By evening, the city's systems were tense.
Deliveries late.
Approvals stalled.
Meetings postponed with no explanation.
People blamed weather.
Then infrastructure.
Then each other.
Exactly as planned.
My phone buzzed again.
YOU'RE CREATING NOISE.
A different tone.
Less instruction.
More irritation.
I typed calmly.
YOU STARTED IT.
I'M JUST FINISHING THE TEST.
The reply took longer this time.
When it came, it was shorter.
STOP.
I laughed.
Not out loud.
People who ask you to stop are admitting something.
Night fell, and Marcus Vale became visible.
That was intentional.
I attended a public event. Bright lights. Cameras. Bad speeches. I stood where reflections overlapped and faces blurred.
If they wanted eyes on me, I'd give them something to see.
A woman brushed past me.
Business coat.
Hair tied too neatly.
The same one from the train.
She didn't look at me.
She didn't need to.
"Next time," she said softly, "we won't miss."
I didn't slow down.
"Then don't waste the attempt," I replied.
We walked in opposite directions.
That was the exchange.
Back in the office, I shut down two laptops and wiped the third.
Counter-operations aren't about winning.
They're about shifting the board.
I sent one last message before powering off.
YOU CAN CONTAIN ME.
OR YOU CAN ADAPT.
YOUR MOVE.
No response came.
Not yet.
That meant they were talking.
Recalculating.
Good.
When systems start to hesitate, outcomes become negotiable.
And I was very good at negotiations no one remembered agreeing to.