THE ARCHITECT, THE one who’d put together the Consortium, the one who’d had the foresight to see the fall of Silence on the horizon and to understand the power vacuum it would leave in the world, considered the latest data on the Trinity Accord.
If successful, Trinity and the ensuing United Earth Federation would kill the Consortium, though right now, the accord appeared to be barely treading water. Still, the Architect took nothing for granted. The Consortium had made the decision to go under to regroup after a member in the uppermost echelon of its membership was captured by the Arrow Squad, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t action small-scale disruptions.
The Human Alliance, for example, would have little patience for Trinity business if anti-human insurgents started making trouble in their territory. As it happened, the Architect knew of one such group. All it needed was a nudge to the right location and a catalyst to light its destructive fuse.
It was a small thing, but all chaos had to begin somewhere.
As for the much bigger operation that had been put into motion by another one of the core members of the Consortium . . . The Architect looked down at the brief on Nadiya Hunter. It was pitifully empty, but then the child wasn’t even a year old, according to Consortium sources. Her importance as a symbol, however, was starting to grow as the Psy race came out of its post-Silence stupor and began to look around.
The Architect’s fellow Consortium member was right: Killing the child in the right way held the potential to incite a bloody war between Psy and changeling, humans caught in the crossfire. It would be a decisive blow that permanently shattered Trinity and any hope of a peace that promised to severely frustrate the Consortium’s plans.
However, a single mistake and the fury of DarkRiver and its powerful allies would focus solely on the Consortium. The Architect knew predatory changelings well enough to understand they wouldn’t stop until each and every member of the Consortium was dead.
The pros and cons of the Nadiya Hunter gambit required further thought—but all the pieces were in place, if and when the Architect decided it was time to press “go.”