CHAPTER 79: THE SPIDER WEB

Madrid, Midnight – Two Weeks Later

In a quiet corner of the Royal Post and Telegraph Station, a man in maintenance overalls unlocked a side panel of the telegraph repeater. He moved with confidence—too much confidence for someone supposedly low in the hierarchy. Inside the panel, he retrieved a small copper device, attached to the primary line like a parasite. It blinked red once, then powered off.

He slipped it into his coat and walked away, nodding at the guard who barely looked up from his coffee.

Outside, a carriage waited. The man climbed in, shut the door behind him, and exhaled.

"You were right," he said. "They’re using encrypted pulses now. And internal memos suggest all state communication lines are shifting to alternating phase codes."

Opposite him sat a woman in a veiled bonnet. Her accent was Britannian, but her posture was military.

Lady Marguerite Ellenshire tapped the side of her notebook. "We need a sample of that phase code. And soon. We’ve only cracked a third of the last batch."

"I’ll try. But their security rotations change every forty hours. They’re using clockwork triggers tied to internal power nodes—if I’m caught, there won’t be a body left."

Marguerite’s expression didn’t change. "Then don’t get caught."

She signaled the driver, and the carriage rolled off into the early morning fog.

Meanwhile – Royal Engineering Complex, Calvaria

Beneath layers of concrete and steel, Prince Lancelot stood with Chief Engineer Bernardo Estevez inside the War Logistics Vault. The chamber resembled a cathedral more than a bunker—arched supports, electric chandeliers, and rows of humming prototype systems.

Before them: a railgun model the size of a small tram engine, and beside it, a modular generator that could power it in isolation for a full day.

"Will it work?" Lancelot asked, arms behind his back.

"In theory," Estevez said. "We can test it next month, once the capacitor shields arrive. But the more interesting part—" He gestured to a table covered in blueprints. "—is this."

A map of underground routes crisscrossed Madrid like a nervous system. In red ink, junctions and nodes were marked with military call signs.

"These aren’t just utility tunnels anymore," Estevez explained. "You’ve turned them into arteries. Troop movements, weapons transfers, even mobile command units—beneath their noses."

Lancelot’s gaze hardened. "Then we must defend them as such. How many breaches so far?"

"Four attempted. None successful."

"None successful," he repeated. "So far."

He turned to Isandro, who had arrived moments earlier. "Status of Lady Ellenshire?"

"Tracked. Her contacts rotate locations every four nights. She’s never stayed in one safehouse twice. Very cautious."

"She’s not here to steal blueprints," Lancelot said. "She’s here to profile us. Me. She’s mapping our psychology. Find her mirror."

Isandro frowned. "You want a counter-infiltration?"

"No," Lancelot said quietly. "I want her confused. I want someone who reflects her—intellectually, emotionally. She thinks she’s walking into a maze. I want her to walk into herself."

Madrid – Academy of Arts and Letters

Lady Ellenshire didn’t expect her target to be so... charming.

Professor Emilio Vargas, thirty-four, a lecturer on political literature and industrial rhetoric, was disarmingly well-read and infuriatingly perceptive. Over several evenings of public lectures, she found herself genuinely intrigued by his commentary on the evolution of post-feudal nationalism.

"I suppose you agree with everything the Prince does," she said one night, their voices low in the echoing courtyard after a symposium.

Vargas smiled. "Agreement isn’t necessary. I study, I observe."

"But you approve?"

"I understand. Understanding is more dangerous than approval."

Marguerite’s eyes narrowed. "Why dangerous?"

"Because it leads to belief."

She realized then that she was being studied just as much as she studied him.

And she wasn’t sure if she liked it or not.

Fort Aurelius – Intelligence Hall

"We’ve begun psychological profiling," Isandro reported. "She shows symptoms of layered compartmentalization. That’s standard for spies of her rank. But here’s the interesting part: she’s asking why Aragon is doing what it’s doing. She’s not just gathering data. She’s building a case."

Lancelot looked up from his desk. "A case?"

"A moral argument. For or against us. For whom, we don’t know yet."

"Everyone," Lancelot said. "She’s building an argument for her entire continent. And when she’s done, her empire will decide whether to destroy us or embrace us."

Overseas – Glanzreich Strategic Command

The reports from Aragon were erratic, full of contradictions. One month, it was trams. The next, mobile factories. The next, whisperings of automated weapons. None of it made sense—yet it all worked.

"They’ve surpassed us," said Admiral Albrecht von Strahl, head of foreign operations. "Not in sheer power, but in orientation. They’re not playing our game. They’ve invented a new one."

A strategist whispered, "If they begin exporting this model to colonies..."

"Then our empires collapse."

Another officer proposed action. "We need to intercept their science corps. We need to kidnap someone high-ranking."

"Too risky," von Strahl growled. "This prince executes traitors in the plaza. He’d retaliate tenfold."

"But can we do nothing?"

Von Strahl stared at the map of Aragon’s industrial network.

"No," he said. "We leak disinformation. We send in saboteurs—not to succeed, but to distract. And if that fails..." He trailed off, then added coldly: "...then we assassinate the Prince."

Three Nights Later – Southern Metro Hub

The saboteurs never reached their target.

They didn’t see the thermal snipers on the rooftops. They didn’t hear the pressure-sensitive cobblestones. And they didn’t feel the gas until it was too late.

Lancelot stood before the sedated bodies hours later. "Three from Glanzreich. One from Francois."

He looked at Isandro.

"Change the message."

Across Aragon – Public Square Broadcasts

On towers and bulletin boards, posters began to appear. Not of executions. Not of fear.

But of diagrams. Public ones.

The government began educating the populace on what they were building: self-reliance. Modular infrastructure. Decentralized command.

In bold letters: WE BUILD TO BE FREE.

And beneath it: No Empire Will Chain Us Again.

Marguerite stood in a tram station one morning, staring at one of these posters, heart pounding.

It was brilliant.

Not just defiance—but clarity.

They weren’t hiding anymore. They were telling the world: We are preparing for war, not because we want it, but because you will force it.

And they were doing it with the people behind them.

Final Scene – Secret Session, Francois High Council

A circle of ten figures, all masked, sat around a dark marble table.

"The Prince is no longer just a reformer."

"He is a symbol."

"And symbols must be destroyed before they become fire."

"What do we authorize?"

A pause.

Then, the leader raised one gloved hand.

"We authorize Shadow Protocol."

"Define parameters."

"Unrestricted foreign operations. Use of defectors. Political destabilization. Infrastructure interdiction. If we cannot outbuild him..."

They all said the final line together:

"...then we will bury him under the rubble of his own ambition."

The message was short. Sealed in wax, folded five times, then bound in linen cloth stitched with the royal crest.

It traveled by night—passed hand to hand by a relay of trusted riders through rain-drenched hills, across copper-wired bridges and over half-finished railway lines that would soon connect the colonies to the heart of Aragon. No rider stopped. No one spoke a word. At every checkpoint, the guards already knew to expect them.

Its final stop was a lone farmhouse nestled in the pine-covered ridges outside Zaragoza. The windows were shuttered. A single lantern burned on the porch.

Inside, the room was quiet save for the ticking of an old pendulum clock.

A man in a wool coat took the message from the final courier, cracked the seal, and read the contents once.

Then he burned it in the fireplace.

The Prince had spoken.

Shadow Protocol was not a surprise.

He had known they would come.

Royal Palace, Madrid – Late Evening

The lamps in Lancelot’s private study glowed dimly as he gazed out the window toward the city.

In the distance, cranes swung steel beams into place. The underground sewage system, vast and multi-layered, was nearly complete. Trams rattled along fresh-cut stone roads. Factories thrummed with midnight production. From this height, it looked like a living machine.

Isandro entered silently.

"They’ve begun targeting civil engineers," he reported. "One was poisoned yesterday in Valencia. Two more attacked in the colonies. They’re probing for weak points. Anything outside the capital is now at risk."

Lancelot didn’t flinch. "Pull every key designer into the Core District. Let only their lieutenants manage the outposts."

"Won’t that delay expansion?"

"Yes. But we can afford delays. We cannot afford decapitation."

He turned to his intelligence chief.

"Have we traced Ellenshire’s messages?"

"Intercepted two carrier drops. Coded—cleverly, but not impossibly. She’s sending back human assessments. Personalities. Flaws. What scares you."

Lancelot gave a faint smile. "That’s good. Let her think I’m afraid of something."

He turned away, voice cold.

"Then give her a new fear."

Somewhere in the Francois Embassy – Same Night

Marguerite leaned against a narrow window, watching the gaslamps flicker in the fog-draped streets of Madrid. She was not easily shaken, but she couldn’t shake the words from the posters. "No Empire Will Chain Us Again."

It wasn’t just propaganda. It was a promise. A national oath.

She had seen revolutions before. But this—this was different. Aragon was no longer rising.

It had risen.

And now it stared back at the world with unblinking confidence.

Behind her, the courier entered, pale and frantic.

"My lady. We just received confirmation. Prince Lancelot has ordered the relocation of their entire civil infrastructure command to subterranean bunkers. We tried to intercept them. We failed."

Marguerite stared forward.

The trap was tightening—and she wasn’t outside it anymore.

She was inside it.

She realized, with a rare chill running down her spine—

She was no longer the hunter.

She was the study.

The prey.

And Lancelot was watching.