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Writing / Novels

Novels

Long-form fiction, sorted by in-universe reading order.

The Shadow Docket

IN PROGRESS
xaoc #1 1 min read

In 2070, a routine morning in St. Petersburg turns catastrophic when Boris Frolov — a disabled veteran fitted with a military-surplus prosthetic arm — detonates in a crowded coffee house, killing a dozen civilians. Within hours, four more coordinated explosions strike Paris, Hamburg, Brussels, and Rotterdam, all triggered remotely through a single restricted NPL quantum frequency, all involving XAoC Cybernetics prosthetics installed just one week prior. ICPO Counter-Terrorism analyst Yasutake Masanori — himself a cybernetic amputee — recognizes a chilling contradiction: precision-engineered limbs sabotaged with crude, deliberate trigger mechanisms. His investigation points not to the RBLA, the radical cell claiming responsibility, but to something buried inside XAoC's own supply chain — and directly into the Orlova family, the dynasty that built the company. Meanwhile, XAoC cybersecurity analyst Larisa Sokolova stumbles onto falsified inventory logs and watches an innocent colleague dragged away by the company's shadow enforcement arm. Forced to flee with raw evidence, she reaches out to investigative journalist Chuman Patel — only to watch her leaked data get weaponized, corrupted, and turned into a narrative that protects the very conspirators she tried to expose. At the center of it all is Katerina Orlova — CEO, family matriarch, and the ruthless architect of a decades-long shadow war against her father, Alexander, whose criminal network has been quietly repurposing XAoC prosthetics into remote-detonated bombs.

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