Marc watched the reporter's digital ghost flicker on his screen and felt a cold dread he hadn't known since Actium.
It was a different kind of dread. Not of warships and fire, but of a single, insignificant thread that, if pulled, could unravel their entire world. He had seen empires fall from less.
He found Cleopatra in the master suite's dressing room. A tailor was on his knees, pinning the hem of a gown made of shimmering, liquid gold. She was admiring her own reflection, radiant with the glow of her first easy victory.
She looked every bit the goddess. But gods could be forgotten.
Marc walked towards her, the tablet in his hand feeling heavier than a shield. He held it out. "We have a problem."
Cleo glanced at the screen, a flicker of annoyance in her eyes. "I see data. It is your domain, not mine. Do not bore me with it."
"A reporter from the Chronicle," Marc said, his voice low and tight. "Her name is Zoe Barnes. She accessed the hotel security feed. She has a visual of you, however poor."
Cleo waved a dismissive, jeweled hand. The tailor flinched. "A gnat. In my time, I would have had her tongue removed for such impertinence."
Marc's jaw tightened. "This isn't your time, my Queen." His words were sharper than he intended. "A gnat with a printing press—or a website—can topple an emperor here. They don't use swords; they use words and pictures."
He stepped closer, lowering his voice so the tailor couldn't hear. "We have to cut the thread before she pulls it any further."
For the first time, a flicker of real anger crossed her face. It was the anger of a monarch whose strategy was being questioned. "Your caution borders on cowardice, my General. We are here to be seen, to be feared."
"We are here to win," he countered. "And we will do it my way. Through a war of shadows, until we are strong enough to stand in the light."
He turned from her, leaving no room for argument. He went to his command center—a sleek desk with a bank of monitors overlooking the city.
He didn't need legions anymore. Just a keyboard and a fiber-optic line.
He slipped through the WashingtonChronicle's server security in under five minutes. It was pathetic. A digital wall made of crumbling brick and good intentions.
He found her profile. Zoe Barnes. Her employee photo showed a woman with tired, intelligent eyes and a stubborn set to her jaw. He read through her past articles. She was good. Too good. She saw patterns others missed. She was the exact kind of threat he feared.
He accessed her personal network drive. There it was. A folder labeled 'THOMPSON.' Inside were notes, fragments of security footage, and the beginnings of a web connecting the Senator to the shell corporation, Nile Strategic Solutions.
She was already closer than he'd thought.
Deleting the files would be a clumsy move. An alarm bell. It would tell her she was right. No, this required a surgeon's touch. A strategist's mind.
His fingers flew across the keyboard. He wasn't stealing information. He was building a weapon. A piece of malicious code, a digital poison designed for a single purpose.
It would mimic a catastrophic user-end failure. It wouldn't just delete her Thompson files. It would corrupt everything on her drive—every article, every source, every note from the last year—and rewrite the system logs to blame her.
It was a clean, silent assassination of her work.
He felt a cold, professional satisfaction, the same as when a siege engine breached a wall exactly as planned. This was not murder. It was logistics. He clicked 'execute.' The digital serpent slithered into her world, unseen.
With the immediate counter-attack deployed, Marc shifted his focus back to the campaign. The gnat was being dealt with. It was time to hunt bigger game.
He pulled up the file on their next target and brought the tablet to Cleo. She had dismissed the tailor and was now sipping a deep red wine, the gold dress pooled at her feet.
"Meredith Vance," he said, placing the tablet before her. The screen showed a woman in her late forties with a severe haircut and a gaze of pure ice. She was the most powerful energy lobbyist in the world. A corporate conqueror.
"She's our key to the energy sector. But she is not Thompson."
Cleo studied the photo, her head tilted. "Obviously. This one has a spine."
"She has no interest in men," Marc continued, swiping through the intel. "Her financials are a fortress. Her personal life is nonexistent. Her only lust is for power." He looked at Cleo directly. "Seducing her won't work the same way."
A slow, intrigued smile touched Cleo's lips. It was the smile of a chess master seeing a worthy opponent.
"You mistake seduction for mere coupling, my General." She set her wine glass down. "Seduction is about finding a person's deepest hunger and becoming the only one who can feed it."
"Her hunger is control," Marc said. "She's hosting the St. Jude's Charity Gala in two days at the National Portrait Gallery. The most powerful people in D.C. will be there. It's our entry point."
"A gala," Cleo mused, her eyes gleaming. "A court full of backstabbing nobles and grasping merchants. Some things never change." She stood, the discarded dress a pool of gold at her feet. "See that I have an invitation. I will give this Meredith Vance something to hunger for."
On a small monitor to his side, a simple, green progress bar filled. A small notification popped up.
CORRUPTION COMPLETE.
The digital serpent had done its work. Zoe Barnes's investigation was now a wasteland of broken data.
But Marc wasn't finished. He opened a secure, anonymous browser. He typed a quick, carefully fabricated tip into a news alert system he knew Zoe subscribed to. It pointed to a rival senator—a known enemy of Thompson's—as the one who had applied the pressure. A complete dead end, but a plausible one.
He wasn't just destroying her path. He was building a false one to lead her into the wilderness.
He felt a grim sense of victory. The immediate threat was contained. He had protected his queen. He had protected their mission. The world may have changed, but the art of war—misdirection, sabotage, neutralizing the enemy before they could strike—remained the same.
He closed the laptop, the ghost of the reporter's digital life erased. The gnat had been swatted. Now, for the real queen.