I compressed the security footage and encrypted it with a key Arthur would recognize. The email subject read *Murder Weapon*. The discarded pills, the peppermints, the timestamp, and both faces at the open drawer were all visible in the recording.
I sent it to his secure server.
Then I returned to Athena.
Protocol Zero would preserve the system. A crash or planted bug could be blamed on me and might destroy ten years of valid work. I would not damage the architecture I had built simply to hurt the people trying to steal it. Athena needed to show its records exactly as they were.
I embedded the protocol in the genesis block, where later administrators could neither edit nor remove it. The Master Key would trigger three functions.
First, Athena would compare every line of code with my e
