The Disruptors 1.2

The energy of the room vibrated around him while laughter, clinking glassware, and small performances played out like an orchestra he and his wife had composed together over decades. At the center of it all, the Minister watched his wife move through the crowd with practiced warmth, every touch intentional, every smile measured, every lingering glance lasting just a second longer than necessary when it counted.

He felt pride watching her. Not the soft kind. This was the kind earned through decades of pressure applied in the right quiet rooms, through men willing to bury themselves for access or proximity to power. The family had invested completely in influencing results without ever appearing to touch them directly, and tonight they stood untouchable.

The same vibration that once felt electrified with pride suddenly felt off to the left. As his gaze drifted upward, he wondered what might be pulling his attention until he saw Jessica.

The connection there had always been strong. His family had known her as a child, and though she would never remember those moments, he believed some part of her appreciated him. When they met again as adults, he noticed his wife felt it too, and he quietly enjoyed knowing she would forever hate the young girl still living somewhere inside the woman.

From the center of the auditorium the Minister stood composed before his people, glancing briefly toward a man discussing rehabilitation funding and community partnerships while his gaze crossed donors near the front tables and corporate affiliates positioned close enough to elected officials without appearing directly attached. Security remained spread throughout the venue in plain clothes. Quietly, he controlled the entire thing while nobody noticed.

The Minister kept his smile perfectly intact just as his control began slipping and the room around him dissolved into meaningless noise.

When he looked back toward Jessica, she was no longer glaring at him and his wife. Something had pulled her attention sharply toward the opposite side of the ballroom.

An unfamiliar feeling crawled slowly up his spine.

When he turned to see what had captured her so completely, realization hollowed the air from his lungs.

Jess was staring at Blue, and when Blue looked back, something clicked instantly between them before both sets of eyes shifted toward him and his wife.

The Minister felt his wife’s hand settle lightly against his arm, subtle enough for the room to miss entirely. The way she leaned in and whispered steadied the fracture in him just enough.

“I already let the PC’s know. Security is moving in with them.”

Across the ballroom, Blue’s expression barely changed, though he noticed the half-second delay before she reached for her phone. People in regular clothes shifted through the room with the unmistakable posture of men carrying weapons. Two security guards watched her too closely while her phone buzzed in her hand.

Phone message:

Blue’s sister:

Don’t come home, they raided the house, took all your devices.

Another message followed almost immediately.

Keep your mouth shut and you’ll be fine.

The Minister watched horror slowly replace confusion on Blue’s face as his plan settled into place.

Blue looked up from the screen toward him, took a slow breath, lifted her chin, and stepped directly into the arms of the security guards approaching from behind.

The Minister grinned while they guided her toward the hallway. Seventy-two hours. Enough time for her to understand the consequences. When he turned back to see whether Jess understood her inevitable end, she was already gone.

Jess moved quickly the same way she had entered, unable to shake the image of Blue disappearing into the hallway while the Minister watched with quiet satisfaction. What disturbed her most was how little anyone else reacted. The room continued moving around itself while Blue vanished out of sight as if nothing had happened at all.

A little breathless, she asked Rook, her Ai assistant for an Uber.

“An Uber?”

“I started recording through your mataglasses when your bios spiked. The Uber’s already outside.”

The click of the exit door felt like pressure releasing from her chest as cold air hit her face. Her thoughts kept returning to Blue disappearing into the hallway and her VA doctor’s last words ticking through her head with eerie timing. They would usher her away quietly too if they could.

The Uber’s hazards blinked ahead like a sigh of relief while the doors unlocked with a soft click.

“Jess?”

The woman behind the wheel smiled beneath the dim interior lights of the SUV.

“Victoria?”

Jess started climbing into the vehicle even though something about the way Victoria looked at her lingered too long against her instincts.

Rook played a chill playlist through the earpiece.

“Thanks, Rook.”

“Of cour—”

The transmission scrambled.

The music continued normally, but the connection beneath it came through scratchy and broken. The same uneasy feeling she experienced stepping into the cold air returned immediately.

The energy inside the car felt wrong enough that Jess reached for the window controls. Locked. Her hand stayed there a second too long.

Victoria lowered the music.

“You must be a reporter, coming from that event?”

The static in Jess’s ear sounded less like interference and more like warning. She couldn’t make out what Rook was saying, only that he kept trying to push through the disruption. Usually he was concise to the point of intimidation. The fact he kept attempting to speak told her enough.

“It was impressive what you did the other day. No one knew you mastered vehicle dynamics training in the Army.”

As Victoria finished the sentence, Jess slipped her hand into her boot and wrapped her fingers around the utility knife hidden there.

The tension sharpened the moment the SUV stopped at the light.

Something in Victoria’s posture suggested she already knew what came next.

Jess did too.

The sharp end of a needle glinted toward her just as Jess drove the blade toward the rear passenger window beside her head.

The impact cracked the glass without breaking it. Jess slammed her elbow into the same spot immediately afterward.

This time the window gave.

Glass exploded outward while the tint held parts of it together in hanging sheets. Jess forced herself through the opening anyway, jagged edges slicing her forearm as she shoved half her body outside the vehicle.

The shrapnel caught Victoria across the face, slowing her down just enough.

Not enough.

A violent grip clamped around Jess’s ankle and dragged her backward against the broken glass still hanging from the frame. Another sharp slice tore across her arm before adrenaline took over completely. Jess twisted onto her back and drove her free foot directly into Victoria’s face.

The grip loosened.

Jess shoved herself the rest of the way out and hit the pavement hard enough to knock the air from her lungs while car horns screamed around her and a door slammed somewhere behind her.

Before she could fully process the pain, she was already moving again, stumbling into the shadows while the sound of her shoes found rhythm against the pavement.

The only place she found to hide was behind a dumpster near a massive truck stop. Trash swirled through the air around her, thick enough that she almost appreciated it. Nobody important came snooping around places like this.

The adrenaline came in waves while Rook played music steady enough to keep her grounded. Blue disappearing into the hallway and the needle glinting beneath the streetlight replayed in her head like warnings she hadn’t understood quickly enough.

“You’re alright now. Heart rate is stabilizing.”

“Feels fake, Rook.”

“Your nervous system still perceives danger.”

“That’s because we aren’t out of this mess yet… Text J. Tell him where we are.”

"Done. He said he's on the bike. See you soon."

Silence settled again before something small clicked into place.

Jess lifted her eyes slowly.

“Hey… in my emails, there was an advert for an art party this weekend, right? That place we used to go to with Vera?”

“It’s actually tonight. Starts at 9 PM. Goes until sunrise apparently.”

Jess stared toward the truck stop lights flickering against the dark.

“Sounds about right.”

The sounds of laughter followed the smell of cigarettes closely enough to warn her to move. Without making a sound she slipped behind the dumpster and crept around the corner, wiping blood from beneath her nose with the sleeve of her hoodie. She still wasn’t sure where all of it had come from. The other sleeve hung torn where she had wrapped the wound tightly enough to slow the bleeding.

The last part replayed in her mind: the Minister standing perfectly still while everything collapsed around someone else. They orchestrated it. But why? There had been a moment when he realized Blue and Jess knew each other, and real fear crossed his face.

The thought of Blue pulled the maintenance man back into focus along with his sister at the gas station, the abnormal interest, and the sudden shift in her employees after Vera and Jess separated.

Of course.

Vera and Blue were the reason Alfred noticed her in the first place.

Her phone buzzed.

Unknown Number:

Another round?

Jess stared at it.

Another message appeared before she could think too hard about the first.

Unknown Number:

You always leave before the best part?

Jess read the message longer than she meant to.

ME (V.O.)

Coincidences, by definition, don’t repeat.

A truck roared past the freeway entrance nearby, rattling the metal wall behind her.

Jess pulled the hood lower over her head and finally stood.

VERA:

You coming tonight or ghosting again?

Another message followed immediately beneath it.

VERA:

Art district. Old warehouse on Mateo. Everybody’s here.

Attached below was a blurry photo from inside the party. Colored lights spilled across massive canvases while bodies packed shoulder-to-shoulder through the warehouse.

Blue stood near the back of the image beneath the colored lights, not centered or posing, just there.

Jess zoomed in slightly.

Something about Blue felt wrong. Not scared exactly. Contained.

Another message came through from the unknown number.

Unknown Number:

Get back in.

The attachment showed the exact same scene from a different angle beside Blue.

Jess immediately realized they would recognize J on sight if they entered together. They had practiced moving through rooms without acknowledging one another, practiced pretending not to know each other at all.

“Send J the coordinates to the party.”

“Sent.”

The roar of the Ducati vibrated through the trucks and cold air around them like cavalry condensed into one man. Jess grinned despite herself, remembering the first time she met him. J always carried that kind of presence.

When she approached, he handed her a helmet without speaking.

The moment she pulled it on, he slapped the visor down, kissed the screen, and took off.

“I think he said he knows a vet.”

“Yeah… he’d know a guy about a horse.”

The feel of the room reminded Jess of feathers against skin, light enough to ignore if the tension wasn’t coming from every direction at once. Once she had felt comfortable around these people. Now the smiles lasted too long, money poured endlessly through overpriced drinks beneath hanging warehouse lights, and tip jars sat beside every vendor and model like little shrines to manufactured authenticity. Quaint. Almost identical to the club from the night before.

Jess moved through the crowd and spotted Blue immediately. Blue avoided eye contact the second she noticed her. Nothing about her body language suggested support, and when Vera leaned in to kiss her cheek, both women looked toward Jess with matching grins that suddenly made far too much sense.

Then Red stepped into the pair and kissed Blue’s cheek too.

All three of them looked back toward Jess together.

She wondered how the hell she had gotten so popular considering how carefully she had kept her life low-key after the military.

What unsettled her most wasn’t that they knew each other. It was how long they must have been building something like this.

Vera and Jess had separated how long ago?

In the same moment, she spotted J stepping into the room.

As he moved closer toward the group—

“Tell him he’s walking right up on the three of them.”

Her phone vibrated again.

Unknown Number:

There you are.

Something brushed lightly against her shoulder.

When Jess turned, Victoria was already standing beside her.

Not across the room.

Right beside her.