Ray was going to die at noon.
Liam knew this because every national channel, every official bulletin, and three of Rex's new emergency justice announcements had repeated the information with the cold restraint of a state trying not to look delighted.
Ray Canmore, traitor to the crown, would be executed publicly after the tribunal confirmed the charges.
Liam read the notice once at breakfast and felt nothing dramatic.
Then he returned to the six open projections hovering above the table.
The Vanguard adaptation plan was proving far more troublesome than Ray's death.
The breakfast table had suffered accordingly. Tea had been pushed aside. Toast had become support for a tablet. Two annotated reports lay beneath a map of emergency deployment sites, and one small bowl of fruit had been repurposed to hold styluses because Liam had run out of patience and organizational trays.
