Cora found the memory card by accident. It had slipped behind the nightstand, wedged so tightly into the corner that it had taken her several tries to fish it out. It was small, a relic from a time before everything was locked down, before the networks were monitored, before even thinking the wrong thought could get you flagged. She turned it over in her hands, the plastic smooth and unmarked, but she knew instantly it had belonged to Alex. He had been meticulous, almost paranoid, about keeping his information secure. He would never have misplaced it.
Her chest tightened.
She shouldn’t look.
She should throw it away, crush it underfoot, flush it down the toilet, anything but open it. Because if she opened it, if she read what was inside, she would know. And if she knew, she could never un-know.
Her hands shook as she slid it into the old tablet, a device that wasn’t connected to the network, one of the few things she still had from before. The screen flickered to life, grainy, outdated, but functional. A single folder appeared. The Underground.
Her stomach twisted.
The name alone was enough to make her fingers go numb. The Underground was a myth, a whisper among those who hadn’t yet been swallowed by the Circle. A secret resistance, hidden in plain sight, operating right under the Chairman’s nose. But no one really believed it. No one dared to.
She tapped the folder, and the files began to load.
It wasn’t what she expected. There were no grand plans, no secret weapons, no manifesto calling for revolution. Instead, it was a series of documents, recordings, and instructions—guidelines on how to disrupt, how to slow the machine, how to make the system grind itself into dust from within.
Sabotage.
Not the kind that involved bombs or assassinations. That was for movies and dead men. This was something more insidious. A war of a thousand cuts.
One file detailed how to create minor errors in data entry—mistyped addresses, duplicate files, misplaced documents. Another explained how to feign incompetence at critical moments, to delay projects, to create bottlenecks that would cascade through the system.
A recording played, Alex’s voice hushed but urgent.
“They built this system on loyalty, not merit. That’s the weakness. If the Circle was truly competent, this wouldn’t work. But it is loyalty that moves them up, loyalty that keeps them in power, and loyalty does not mean ability.”
He exhaled, and she could hear the exhaustion in his voice.
“They don’t understand what they’re doing. Half of them are just rich kids playing dictator. They can’t run a business, much less a country. That’s why it all falls apart without constant force.”
Another file explained how to manipulate supply chains, not by halting production, but by subtly redirecting shipments to the wrong locations, by changing inventory records so materials never quite arrived where they were needed. A flowchart detailed how to overload the bureaucratic system with redundant requests, forcing entire departments to waste time chasing problems that didn’t exist.
A video clip appeared next—a fragment of a news broadcast that had been scrubbed from the network. The footage was shaky, taken on a hidden device. A ration center, long lines of people waiting for their weekly allotment of processed meal packs. The camera panned across the room, capturing a worker behind the counter, their lips moving as they scanned IDs.
Then, a moment of hesitation.
The worker’s face paled.
They leaned in, whispered something to the person in line, and without another word, slipped a package into their hands.
The feed cut off.
Another video played, this one clearly taken in secret. A technician sitting at their desk, subtly adjusting a system setting. The words ID Flagged for Review appeared on the screen, and then, with a few keystrokes, disappeared.
Cora’s hands clenched into fists.
This wasn’t a war in the way the Circle had prepared for. There were no open battles, no heroes charging the gates. This was slow, deliberate, almost invisible. It was making the machine eat itself from the inside.
And it had cost Alex his life.
She should delete it. If she was smart, if she wanted to survive, she would wipe the drive, burn the tablet, and pretend she had never seen any of it.
But for the first time in a long time, she hesitated.
Because for the first time, she saw the cracks in the Circle’s armor.
Alex had been caught. But the Underground was still out there.
And if they were still out there…
Maybe there was a way to fight back.
Even if she was too afraid to fight, even if she had spent too long watching and not acting, maybe there was something she could do.
She exhaled, staring at the screen.
Discover more from AJB Blog
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
