The lights in the operations room were dimmed. Only the projection wall was bright.
A map of the continental U.S. filled the wall. Red marked military control zones. Blue marked Helios Dynamics' maintenance chain. Gray covered scattered patches labeled "pending confirmation." In the top right, a timestamp kept ticking: 23:47. In one corner, a small line read: BLACKOUT: DAY 1 / 9.
General Jackson sat at the center of the long table. In front of him was nothing but an acrylic nameplate: J. Jackson | HDC.
Seven people sat along the table. On the right: Procurement, Intelligence, Compliance. On the left: two Helios liaisons, their badges cold in the dim light. An empty chair separated them from a technical advisor in street clothes. The seating had been arranged on purpose, with a two-meter strip of empty tabletop left between the two sides.
Jackson kept it short. "Report."
The head of Procurement stood and went straight to the point. "Blackout, day one. Earth–Moon link latency is spiking. Cross-domain signatures and remote authorizations are backing up. For the next nine days, anything that needs central alignment will slow down. In severe cases, they'll fail outright."
He pointed to a stretch of blue on the map. "The underlying maintenance authority for weapons systems and high-value assets still sits mostly in Helios' chain. Under the contract, every time we move an asset, we have to run it through their portal for sign-off."
One of the liaisons spoke up, so polite it came out strained. "General, 'still sits' isn't an accurate description. The transfer of low-level keys is still under legal review. Parts of it involve trade secrets. It can't be done during wartime—"
Jackson didn't look at him. He turned to the intelligence analyst. "Backfill."
The analyst answered at once. "When the blackout ends, the system triggers a unified backfill. The logs local nodes have been holding for these nine days will be uploaded in one batch. The trace chain closes. After that, every action taken during the window can be pulled and matched."
"So," Jackson said, "central can't watch local right now."
No one argued.
The liaison tried again. "General, local nodes are still operating within the compliance framework—"
Jackson lifted a hand. The liaison stopped.
"I don't care about framework." Jackson looked at the compliance chief. "I care about solutions."
The compliance chief spoke fast. "Freeze write permissions. For every civilian repair shop connected to the compliance portal, lock their whitelist and pull write access back to the local compliance node. Work orders can be viewed, not edited. Firmware can't be written. Serial corrections and any memory-layer access require node sign-off."
Jackson nodded once. "Forty-eight hours."
The compliance chief blinked, then corrected himself. "Forty-eight hours to complete interviews and lock evidence. Miss the appointment and credentials get frozen. Access gets pulled."
Procurement added, "There'll be public backlash from nursing homes and civilian medical."
"Backlash later," Jackson cut in. "Get the keys back first."
He stood and walked to the projection wall, tapping a gray region with two fingers. "Lower thresholds. Stop leaving them gaps to call 'user error.'"
The intelligence analyst brought up a policy panel and started changing parameters, fast.
"During the window," Jackson said, "we want two things. One: lock people. Two: lock the chain."
He turned to the technical advisor. "Can we cut Helios off outright?"
The advisor weighed his words. "Remote authorization's last step needs link alignment. During blackout, alignment isn't stable. Local nodes fall back to offline-confirm mode. If we change local policy to accept military-only directives, their portal can't get in."
Jackson didn't hesitate. "If we can't get the keys, we bolt the door from the inside."
The advisor nodded. "That's the idea."
The liaison's expression didn't change, but his fingers tightened on the tabletop. "General, if you do that, postwar audit will be hard to explain."
Jackson looked at him for the first time. His voice stayed flat. "Postwar, you can take all the time you want to explain. Right now, we win."
He went back to his seat. He didn't sit. He just started issuing orders.
"First: update the special inspection list tonight. Push priority all the way down to the smallest targets—small repair shops, nursing-home contracts, portal access, recent work-order activity."
"Second: start sending interview notices tomorrow. Miss the time slot, freeze their credentials. No delays."
"Third: the moment backfill triggers, we run a nationwide match. Once the list is live, we move it through the expedited process and sign detention authorizations in one batch."
The compliance chief answered immediately. "Understood."
Procurement hit a button. The projection switched to a table.
The list was long. Jackson didn't waste time on the opening pages.
"Find the priorities."
The table jumped to a filtered view.
One line was highlighted:
Rippleton | Repair shop | Responsible party: Daniel Reeves | Nursing-home contract | Portal access | Follow-up inspection
Jackson's eyes paused on the name for a single second—so quick it almost didn't register.
"Next," he said.
Procurement flipped to the action schedule.
The room filled with keyboard clicks and clipped voices—"Copy." "Understood." "Received."
Jackson looked around one last time. "Don't argue with contractors. We write the rules. They follow them."
Nobody spoke.
In the corner, the timestamp ticked over to 23:52. BLACKOUT still read: DAY 1 / 9. The list kept scrolling. And just past midnight, the first wave of interview notices was already queued to go out.