Steenberg stood at the far end, hands behind his back, watching a map projected across the glass wall. It pulsed with slow movements: smart contract deployments, liquidity clusters, API volatility, search data, wallet node heat signatures. The map was silent. It didn’t need sound.

Behind him, four monitors displayed documents in various stages of redaction. One glowed orange. The analyst read quietly.

“Twelve second-tier wallet clusters. Five bridges flagged in Asia, two offline already. Coordinated obfuscation. Timing aligns with a silent token release—likely a stable peg.”

Steenberg didn’t blink.

“Human vectors?”

“Unclear. Public identities are missing. The DAO address is active but dormant. Contracts are finalized. Not upgradeable.”

“Activity?”

“Growing. Small volumes. High confidence. Clean entropy. No PR. No capital inflow.”

That, more than anything, concerned him.

“Is it decentralized?”

“Worse,” the analyst said. “It’s indifferent.”

Steenberg exhaled through his nose. He walked to the console. Two options hovered. Monitor or Interrupt.

He pressed Interrupt.

A new interface opened—legal packet deployment templates, flagged regulatory enforcement mechanisms, bridge license revocations, cross-jurisdictional AML seizures. Below that: domestic media briefings, coordinated narratives, blacklists.

He looked at the time.

“Execute Operation Disrupt.”

“Scope?”

“Everything below nation-state. Freeze liquidity, freeze attention, freeze imagination. Don’t give it time to become symbolic.”

The analyst hesitated.

“What about Ava V.?”

“Passive trace. No confrontation yet. If she’s involved, she’s a vector, not an architect.”

The commands confirmed one by one.

PEG blacklisted on three centralized exchanges

Interpol red notice for two related wallets

Fiat offramps in Spain, France, Senegal throttled

Bridge node assets frozen in Singapore

Regulatory warnings issued in four European capitals

Coordinated media leak: “Anonymous Protocol Threatens Financial Stability”

The map flickered. Several nodes went dark. Others pulsed harder.

Steenberg watched it all without moving.

“Sir,” the analyst said quietly. “Do you think it will work?”

“No,” Steenberg replied. “But it will confuse them. That’s what matters now.”

Outside, the snow had stopped. But the temperature was still falling.