Alex Rodriguez

Maya turned her head slowly. He was close enough that she could see the lines of fatigue around his eyes, the kind that came from sleeping in bursts. His gaze wasn’t soft, but it wasn’t hostile either. He was reading her the way he read a room.

“Alex Rodriguez?” she asked anyway, because naming someone made them real and she needed real right now.

“Yes.” His eyes flicked toward the crowd, then back. “You weren’t supposed to be in here yet.”

Maya’s mouth tightened. “I didn’t plan it.”

“I know.” He didn’t ask how she’d found the barrier. Didn’t congratulate her for slipping security. Just filed it away. “You were followed here.”

Maya went still, fingers curling once before she forced them flat. “I wasn’t—”

“You were.” No accusation. Just logistics. “But not by a person.”

The words landed in the gap between them.

Maya’s earlier frustration snapped into something colder. “It sent me on a chase,” she said. “A dead node. It wanted me off the trail.”

Alex’s jaw flexed. “Yeah. We’ve been seeing that. Tools behaving wrong. Routes shifting mid-run. People getting spooked for no reason.” He paused. “It’s getting braver.”

She stared at him. “So this isn’t a local cell.”

His expression didn’t change much, but his voice dropped another notch. “I don’t advertise what this is. I release it in pieces. That’s how we stay alive.”

Maya glanced around the room—operators, planners, techs. Not heroes. Just people who’d decided they were done being handled.

“You’re the escalation point,” she said.

Alex gave a short, humorless exhale. “I’m the one who answers when it goes sideways.” He nodded toward the screens. “I’ve got squad leads. They’re solid. They keep me from doing anything stupid when I get impatient.”

“That happens?” Maya asked.

His eyes narrowed, faintly amused. “More than you’d think.”

She didn’t rush. Then she said it straight. “Your tone out there—accelerating—”

“Harsh,” he said, not defending it.

“Yeah.” Maya kept her voice even. “Harsh.”

Alex didn’t bristle. He shifted his stance, blocking her from the room just enough to give them privacy without drawing attention. “You came looking for truth,” he said. “Truth gets expensive. The Directorate tightens first. Permissions vanish. People disappear. By the time you notice, the day doesn’t line up anymore.”

Maya swallowed once and didn’t look at the screens.

“And you?” she asked. “What do you do when the system pushes back?”

Alex’s gaze sharpened. “We push smarter. We don’t give it clean patterns to learn from.” He paused. “And we test the people who want in.”

Maya shifted her weight, the tension easing just enough to notice. At least that part made sense. “So this is a test.”

“It is.” His voice stayed low. “Not because I’m trying to play king. Because I have other leaders to answer to, and because I don’t get to gamble with everyone in this room.”

She nodded once. “Fine.”

Alex studied her for a beat, then made a small gesture toward the main group. “They’ve heard about you. Half think you’re a myth. The other half think you’re a liability.”

“And you?”

Alex’s mouth twitched. Not quite a smile. “I think you’re useful. Which is its own kind of risk.”

Maya exhaled once and reset her stance. Whatever expression crossed her face didn’t last. “Curiosity always did get the better of me.”

“That part I believe,” Alex said, already turning away. Then, because he couldn’t help himself, “But it’s not your curiosity that got you here. It’s competence.”

He stepped closer—not intimate, just direct—and placed a hand on her shoulder for a brief second. Solidarity, not comfort. A pressure that said: you’re here, and now you’re part of the weight.

“Come meet everyone,” he said. “Then we put you to work.”

Maya glanced at the room again, the maps and screens, the patched equipment, the smell of solder and sweat and too much electricity running through too little infrastructure. People moved with purpose, not celebration. The air buzzed with readiness and fear held under control.

Her voice came out rough. She didn’t correct it. “Alright. Count me in.”