Free Sample
The Arachne Protocol
A Novel of Cyber and Cognitive Warfare
by Jerome Baxter
Chapter 1: Chapter 1
The air in the Foreign Office briefing room had the flat, recycled taste of a building that had been running its ventilation on emergency protocols for six hours. Eleanor Whitmore stood at the window, her back to the room, watching the Thames slide past the Embankment like a ribbon of tarnished pewter. Behind her, the secure video link hummed with the low thrum of a connection that had been open too long, and the three screens on the wall displayed the faces of men who were trying very hard not to look at one another.
“The disclosure was made at 0600 hours London time,” said Sir Alistair Finch, the Director of GCHQ, his voice carrying the clipped cadence of a man who had been awake for thirty-six hours and had decided that sleep was a luxury he would allow himself never again. “Anthropic released their findings to the press, the UN, and, rather pointedly, to the Chinese Ministry of State Security, all within the same minute. There was no heads-up. No courtesy call. They simply… dropped it.”
Eleanor turned. The movement was slow, deliberate. She had learned, in twenty years of navigating the corridors of power, that speed was a tell. It betrayed anxiety. And anxiety, in this room, was a currency that could bankrupt a career.
“They believe they have evidence of an AI-orchestrated cyber espionage campaign,” she said. It was not a question.
“They don’t believe, Secretary of State. They have it. Packet captures,