Zone 12-Gamma looked the same as it always did, reality bent into shapes that hurt to perceive even through Paragon's sensors. Valoris had deployed here enough times that the wrongness had become familiar, the way colors shifted into spectrums that made her consciousness ache, the way gravity fluctuated in patterns that should have been random but felt deliberately hostile.

  Twenty-fourth deployment. Routine patrol and elimination. Standard mission parameters that meant finding entities and killing them regardless of whether they posed any actual threat. Except nothing felt routine anymore.

  Through Paragon's connection, Valoris maintained awareness of her squad's positions. Reaver on point as always, Zee's aggressive energy channeled into formation discipline. Meridian providing overwatch from elevated terrain, Saren's precision translating into perfect positioning. Specter phased partially between dimensions, Quinn's consciousness distributed across spaces that baseline humans couldn't perceive. Jinx moved with its characteristic chaos, Milo's constant communication with Buddy creating coordination that looked random but somehow worked.

  "Movement detected," Quinn announced through squad comms, their voice flat with the precision that came from processing sensory data without emotion. "Bearing two-seven-zero, distance four hundred meters. Multiple signatures. Classification uncertain due to dimensional interference."

  Valoris pulled up the sensor data on her tactical display. Entity cluster, maybe eight to twelve individuals based on the readings. Moving toward their position, but the vectors suggested they were heading for the rift scar that scarred the landscape another kilometer beyond Chimera's patrol route.

  Heading toward escape. Heading home.

  "Visual confirmation in thirty seconds," Zee reported, Reaver advancing toward the contact point with predatory efficiency. "Moving to intercept."

  "Hold position," Valoris ordered. "Let's see what we're dealing with before we engage."

  The pause felt wrong. Standard protocol demanded immediate engagement with any entity contact. Hesitation created risk, allowed threats to coordinate, gave enemies time to prepare. Everything they'd been taught said to close and kill before questions could complicate the equation.

  But Valoris couldn't stop thinking about the files they'd downloaded. The communication research. The evidence that entities demonstrated "pattern recognition consistent with sapient awareness." The fact that someone in authority had buried that research and locked up the scientists who'd proven it.

  They might be people. They might be refugees. They might be sapient beings trying to escape a dimension that was killing them, dying because human weapons blocked their only exit.

  "Visual contact," Zee said, and something in her voice made Valoris's attention sharpen. "Chimera Lead, you need to see this."

  Valoris adjusted Paragon's sensors, pulling the visual feed from Reaver's forward cameras.

  The entities had emerged from a fold in the corrupted landscape, a cluster of beings that defied easy categorization. Some were massive, forty feet of impossible geometry that shifted between configurations. Others were smaller, maybe human-sized, moving with a fluidity that suggested liquid rather than solid form. They moved together with obvious coordination, the larger ones positioning themselves around the smaller ones in patterns that looked protective.

  "They're not approaching us," Quinn observed. "Trajectory analysis confirms movement toward rift scar. They're attempting to avoid our patrol route entirely."

  "Doesn't matter," Saren said, her voice carrying the cold precision that meant she was forcing herself to focus on mission parameters rather than implications. "Protocol requires engagement. We have contact with hostile entities. We engage."

  "They're not hostile," Milo said quietly. "Look at them. They're scared. Buddy can feel it through dimensional resonance. They're terrified of us."

  "Protocol doesn't distinguish between hostile and scared," Saren replied. "Entities are threats. We eliminate threats. That's the mission."

  Valoris watched the cluster continue its careful progress across the corrupted terrain. The larger entities moved with a deliberate slowness that suggested they were matching pace with the smaller ones, staying close, maintaining protective formation even though it slowed their escape.

  Twenty-three previous deployments. Forty-three confirmed kills. How many of those had been families trying to reach safety?

  "Chimera Lead to squad," Valoris said, making her voice carry the authority she didn't feel. "Move to intercept. Standard engagement formation."

  She gave the order because orders were what kept them alive, what kept them functional, what maintained the illusion that they were soldiers doing their duty rather than executioners following scripts. She gave the order because refusing meant consequences none of them could afford, meant losing their mechs and their bonds and each other.

  She gave the order and hated herself for it.

  Chimera Squad moved into position with the coordination that came from years of training together. Meridian took an elevated position, Saren's railgun tracking the cluster with patient precision. Specter phased deeper into dimensional space, Quinn circling to cut off retreat paths. Jinx deployed environmental disruption that would prevent the entities from detecting Chimera's approach until it was too late.

  Reaver led the advance, Zee closing distance with the predatory efficiency that had made her the squad's most effective combat asset.

  And then Zee stopped.

  Reaver halted mid-stride, forty feet of assault-class mech frozen in a posture that suggested internal conflict rather than tactical assessment. Through the squad channel, Valoris heard Zee's breathing change, heard the rhythm shift from combat focus to something ragged and uncontrolled.

  "Chimera Two?" Valoris asked. "Status report."

  Silence. Just breathing. Just the sound of someone trying to hold themselves together while something inside them cracked.

  "I can't," Zee said finally, and her voice sounded nothing like the aggressive confidence Valoris had learned to rely on. "Val, I can't do this. Look at them. The way they're moving, the way the big ones are protecting the small ones. They might be people. They might be families. And we're about to murder them because orders say entities are threats."

  "Zee, we don't have time for this. Maintain formation and prepare to engage."

  "No." The word came out sharp, definitive, carrying a finality that Valoris had never heard from Zee before. "I won't. I can't. I can't kill that. I can't be the thing that ends a family trying to go home."

  "Chimera Two, you are ordered to maintain formation and engage hostile contacts."

  "They're not hostile!" Zee's voice cracked. "They haven't attacked anyone. They're running away. And I won't murder refugees just because Command says they're threats. I won't be that. Not anymore."

  The cluster had noticed them now. The larger entities shifted position, placing themselves more firmly between Chimera Squad and the smaller ones. Trying to protect their people from the monsters in giant machines who killed everything that moved.

  "Chimera Two is non-responsive," Saren reported, and her voice carried a cold fury that Valoris recognized as fear processed through Saren's need for control. "Recommend immediate squad discipline and forced compliance protocols."

  "We don't have forced compliance protocols for this," Milo said. "Also, I kind of agree with her? Not about refusing orders, that's definitely bad, but about the moral implications of what we're doing here. Buddy's showing me their emotional resonance patterns and they're really scared and I don't think I can–"

  "Chimera Five, focus," Valoris snapped. "We have a mission. We complete the mission. Personal feelings don't change operational requirements."

  "Don't they?" Quinn's voice came through flat but carrying something underneath the flatness that sounded like genuine uncertainty. "We have evidence now. Documentation proving entities demonstrate sapient awareness. Killing sapient beings who pose no threat constitutes murder by any ethical framework."

  The squad was fracturing. Valoris could feel it happening in real time, the unity they'd built over the years cracking under the weight of knowledge they couldn't unlearn. Zee refusing to engage. Milo hesitating. Quinn questioning. Only Saren maintained combat focus, and her focus felt more like desperate denial than genuine conviction.

  "The entities are moving," Saren reported. "They're using our hesitation to advance toward the rift. If we don't engage now, they'll escape."

  "Good," Zee said. "Let them escape. Let them go home. That's what they want. That's all they've ever wanted."

  "That's dereliction of duty. Treason. That's–"

  "That's mercy," Zee cut her off. "Something we should have shown a long time ago."

  Valoris watched the cluster continue its desperate progress across the corrupted landscape. They were moving faster now, the larger entities practically herding the smaller ones toward the rift scar that represented their only chance of survival. They knew Chimera had found them. They knew what human pilots did to entities. And they were running with the kind of desperation that came from knowing death was close behind.

  She thought about the files. The communication research. The evidence that had been buried for decades because acknowledging entity sapience would make genocide harder to justify.

  She thought about her family's legacy. Five generations of Kades who'd served with distinction and honor. Who'd killed thousands of entities without ever questioning whether those kills were justified.

  She thought about what kind of pilot she wanted to be. What kind of person.

  And then she made her choice.

  "Chimera Squad, engage," she ordered, her voice steady despite everything inside her screaming protest. "Chimera Two, you are relieved of combat duty. Hold position and maintain observation. Chimera Three, Four, and Five, execute standard elimination protocol."

  "Val–" Zee started.

  "That's an order." Valoris pushed Paragon forward, taking point position since Zee wouldn't. "We complete the mission. We survive to fight another day. And we find another way to change things that doesn't end with all of us court-martialed."

  She hated the words even as she said them. Hated the logic that made sense, the calculus that weighed five pilots' futures against a dozen entity lives and found the entities expendable. She hated herself for being the kind of leader who could make that calculation and act on it.

  But she made it anyway.

  Saren's railgun spoke first, the electromagnetic discharge crossing four hundred meters in an instant to impact the largest entity's center mass. The being staggered, its protective posture faltering as dimensional coherence failed catastrophically. It collapsed in a spray of wrong-colored energy, screaming in frequencies that hurt to perceive even through Paragon's audio filters.

  The smaller entities scattered. Panic. Terror. Desperate flight in every direction as their protector died and the monsters in machines advanced.

  Quinn's Specter emerged from phase-space directly in their path, cutting off the most direct route to the rift. Not attacking, just blocking, forcing them to change course into Valoris's engagement zone.

  Milo's Jinx deployed containment protocols, Buddy's chaos translated into dimensional interference that slowed entity movement, made escape harder, gave the hunters more time to close for kills.

  And Valoris engaged.

  Paragon wasn't built for decisive combat. Command-class mechs coordinated and supported. But Valoris had learned to find moments when support became offense, when coordination meant positioning herself to deliver strikes that her squad set up.

  She killed two of them herself. Small ones, maybe young ones, beings that died confused and terrified because a human pilot decided completing the mission mattered more than their right to exist.

  The engagement lasted fourteen minutes. When it ended, eleven entities lay dead or dying across the corrupted landscape. Dimensional residue marked where sapient beings had existed moments before, dissolving slowly into the corruption that surrounded everything.

  One escaped. A single small entity that had somehow slipped past Quinn's blocking position, that had run fast enough and been lucky enough to reach the rift scar before Chimera could intercept. Valoris watched it disappear through the dimensional damage, fleeing into whatever waited on the other side, carrying news of human hunters back to wherever entities called home.

  Eleven dead. One survivor.

  Zee hadn't moved throughout the engagement. Reaver stood frozen at the position where she'd refused orders, forty feet of assault-class mech that had killed more entities than any other in Chimera Squad now motionless because its pilot couldn't stomach murder anymore.

  "Mission complete," Saren reported, and her voice sounded hollow. "Eleven confirmed kills. One escape. Chimera Two failed to engage throughout the operation."

  "Noted," Valoris said. "Squad, return to the extraction point. We're done here."

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  They moved in formation that felt wrong, gaps in their usual coordination that reflected the fractures in their unity. Zee followed at the rear, Reaver's movements mechanical and disconnected, pilot and mech operating on automatic while something essential remained broken.

  Nobody spoke during the return to extraction.

  Nobody had anything to say that wouldn't make everything worse.

  The transport back to base felt longer than usual, silence filling the compartment with weight that pressed down on all of them. Zee sat apart from the others, her expression blank, suggesting she'd retreated somewhere inside herself where the horror couldn't reach. Saren's jaw was tight with fury she was barely containing. Milo fidgeted with equipment he wasn't actually adjusting, nervous energy with nowhere to go. Quinn flickered at the edges, dimensional stability failing under stress.

  Valoris sat with her hands clasped in her lap, feeling blood on them that wasn't actually there.

  Eleven kills. Eleven sapient beings who'd died because she'd ordered it. Because she'd chosen mission completion over moral conviction. Because she'd decided that survival and finding another way mattered more than the lives of refugees who just wanted to go home.

  She'd made the practical choice, the strategic choice. The choice that kept her squad intact and preserved their ability to change things from inside the system. She wondered if that was what every war criminal told themselves. That the ends justified the means. That pragmatism excused atrocity. That killing today enabled saving tomorrow.

  The transport landed with a jolt that felt appropriate. They filed out into the deployment bay with the mechanical efficiency of soldiers who'd done this hundreds of times, checking equipment, logging returns, following protocols that provided structure when everything else felt broken.

  "Chimera Squad," the bay officer announced. "Commander Thrace requests your immediate presence in her office. All five members."

  Valoris felt her stomach drop. Immediate summons from the commander after deployment meant something had gone wrong.

  She looked at her squad. Zee's blank expression shifted to something that might have been fear or might have been relief that the waiting was over. Saren's fury crystallized into rigid military bearing. Milo went pale. Quinn flickered more intensely.

  "Understood," Valoris said. "We'll report immediately."

  The walk to Thrace's office felt like walking toward execution.

  Other students watched them pass. Whispered. The sight of Chimera Squad moving through corridors in full deployment gear, heading toward administrative sections with grim expressions, was anomalous enough to draw attention. Everyone would know within hours that they'd been summoned. Everyone would speculate about why.

  Thrace's office door was open when they arrived. The commander sat behind her desk with her dimensional exposure scars visible in the harsh overhead lighting. An aide stood near the filing system, young and efficient, clearly recording everything for official documentation. Thrace glanced at him and made a sharp gesture toward the door.

  "Dismissed."

  "Sir, protocol requires–"

  "I'm aware of protocol. Out."

  The aide left, uncertainty clear in his posture. The door closed behind him with mechanical finality. Thrace touched something on her desk, and the air around the office shimmered slightly. Soundproofing activated. Whatever she was about to say, she didn't want it recorded.

  For a long moment, she just looked at them. Five pilots standing at attention, trying to maintain military posture while fear and guilt and exhaustion warred across their faces.

  "Sit," Thrace said finally, gesturing to the chairs arranged before her desk.

  They sat. The silence stretched.

  "Did you honestly think," Thrace began, her voice carrying quiet fury, "that you weren't being monitored as a matter of routine?"

  Valoris felt the blood drain from her face.

  "Every pilot squad is watched," Thrace continued. "Especially fourth-years. Especially squads showing psychological instability. Especially squads whose reports consistently question engagement protocols and document entity behavior patterns that contradict official doctrine."

  She leaned forward, her damaged eye catching the light in ways that made it look almost alive.

  "We knew you were planning something. Security flagged unusual research queries weeks ago. Your communications have been monitored for the past month. You're being watched. Everything you do. Everywhere you go. Every word you speak is monitored. You think you're being subtle. You're not. You think your questions are private. They're not. Every deviation from protocol has been documented. Every conversation with other pilots has been logged. Every moment you spend thinking you're acting without observation is recorded for review."

  Milo made a small sound that might have been despair.

  "Four nights ago," Thrace said, "at approximately 01:00 hours, someone attempted to access restricted database archives using legacy vulnerability exploits. The intrusion was detected within the first three minutes. Security protocols were triggered. Containment measures were deployed."

  Valoris's mind raced. They'd been detected. Milo and Quinn's careful work, all the preparation, all the confidence about maintenance windows and camouflage protocols, and they'd been detected within moments.

  "The intrusion team was sophisticated," Thrace continued. "Sophisticated enough that our security systems couldn't determine exactly what was accessed before containment locked them out. The breach was registered as attempted but unsuccessful. No files compromised. No data extracted." She paused. "Officially."

  Something in her tone made Valoris look up.

  "Unofficially," Thrace said, "I've read the technical reports. Your people are good. Better than our security teams expected. They got further than the official logs suggest before containment triggered. Whether they extracted anything useful before lockout..." She shrugged. "The system says no. The system also says the intrusion was unsuccessful. I have my doubts about both conclusions."

  "Commander–" Valoris started.

  "I'm not finished." Thrace's voice cut through like a blade. "In addition to the database breach, surveillance has documented multiple conversations among your squad members that constitute concerning patterns. Discussion of entity sapience. Speculation about communication research. Questions about the barrier collapse narrative. Explicit statements suggesting reluctance to continue standard engagement protocols."

  She looked at each of them in turn.

  "And today's deployment. Where one of you refused direct orders to engage hostile contacts, forcing the rest of your squad to complete the mission without her. Where your kill efficiency dropped forty percent from previous operations. Where post-engagement analysis suggests multiple squad members hesitated before firing, extended engagement windows, allowed opportunities for entity escape that a committed team would have prevented."

  The weight of her words pressed down on all of them. Everything they'd done. Everything they'd discussed. Everything they'd thought was private. All of it documented. All of it known.

  "You've made yourselves visible," Thrace said. "Spectacularly, catastrophically visible. And now I have to decide what to do about it."

  "Ma’am," Saren said, her voice tight with controlled desperation, "I want it on record that I did not participate in the database breach. I had no involvement in unauthorized access attempts. I maintained protocol throughout today's engagement while other squad members failed to comply with orders."

  Thrace's expression didn't change. "Your objection is noted, Pilot Maddox. It's also irrelevant. You're Chimera Squad. What one of you does reflects on all of you. What all of you have done reflects on each of you individually. There is no separating yourself from your squad's actions when those actions constitute potential treason that went unreported."

  Saren's face went white.

  "I could end your careers right now," Thrace said. "Database intrusion. Insubordination. Failure to engage hostile contacts. Conspiracy to undermine military operations. Any one of those charges would be enough for expulsion and criminal prosecution. Together, they constitute grounds for court-martial that would destroy your futures and any chance of meaningful service."

  She let that sink in.

  "I could do that," she repeated. "Part of me thinks I should. You've put yourselves at risk. You've put your squad at risk. You've put me at risk, because when Command asks why Chimera Squad went rogue, they'll want to know why I didn't see it coming. Why I didn't stop it. Why pilots under my supervision turned into security threats."

  The silence was absolute.

  "But I'm not going to do that." Thrace's voice shifted, the fury bleeding into something that might have been exhaustion. "Not because you don't deserve consequences. You do. But because you're a good squad. Your combat record is exceptional. Your coordination is among the best in your year. And I understand that good pilots sometimes ask questions they shouldn't ask."

  She leaned back in her chair, something seeming to drain out of her.

  "I've been where you are. Years ago, when I was closer to your age than I am now. The doubts. The patterns that don't quite fit the briefings. The sense that something about the official narrative doesn't add up." Her voice went quieter. "I was a pilot for twelve years. I've killed hundreds of entities. Thousands, maybe. I watched friends die from corruption and in combat. I've made every choice you're facing. And I chose humanity. I chose us. I'm not proud of it. I'm not ashamed of it. I did what had to be done. I asked questions too. I wondered about the same things you're wondering about. And I learned that some questions don't have answers you can live with. Some paths lead nowhere good."

  She looked at each of them in turn.

  "I made my choice. I decided that doing my job, protecting the pilots under my command, serving humanity as best I could within the system, that was enough. That had to be enough. Because the alternative was becoming a problem that someone else would have to solve. Now it's your turn. I'm not asking you to like it. I'm asking you to do your job. Kill entities. Protect humanity. Die young from corruption so that children fifty years from now have a chance to live. Or don't. Refuse. We'll recycle your mechs, use the substrate for the next generation. There's always more cadets. You're talented but not irreplaceable."

  "Ma’am–" Valoris started.

  "I'm telling you this so you understand that I'm not unsympathetic," Thrace continued. "I know what it feels like to see things that don't match what you've been told. I know how hard it is to follow orders when those orders feel wrong. But I also know what happens to pilots who let those feelings override their duty. They break. They wash out. They disappear into medical holds that never end. Or they push too hard and someone decides they've become a liability rather than an asset."

  Her expression hardened.

  "This stops. Today. Whatever questions you have, whatever doubts are eating at you, you put them away. You do your job. You follow orders. You complete your missions and you graduate and you serve with the distinction that your training has prepared you for. That's the path forward. The only path forward that doesn't end with your careers destroyed and your futures erased."

  "And if we can't?" Zee asked quietly. "If we can't just put it away and pretend we don't know what we know?"

  "Then you learn to pretend better," Thrace said flatly. "Because the alternative isn't rebellion, Pilot Zavaretti. The alternative isn't finding truth and changing the system. The alternative is destruction. Yours. Your squad's. Maybe others who get caught in the blast radius when you finally push too hard and someone decides you've become too dangerous to tolerate."

  She stood, signaling that the meeting was approaching its end.

  "I'm choosing not to expel you. I'm choosing to believe the system and believe that you did not actually manage to access any classified files. I'm choosing to downgrade today's engagement failure from dereliction of duty to an operational disagreement. But these choices have limits. Next time something like this happens, the consequences will be out of my hands. Command will make the decision, and command doesn't have the patience I've shown you today."

  She pulled up documentation on her desk display.

  "Chimera Squad is hereby placed on probationary status for the remainder of the academic year. All members will receive formal reprimands entered into permanent records. Squad privileges are suspended, including private meeting authorization and enhanced facility access. You will undergo mandatory psychological evaluation, with particular attention to Pilots Zavaretti and Sterling."

  Valoris felt each item land like a slap.

  "Furthermore," Thrace continued, "your graduation certification will be flagged for review. Potential first assignments will receive documentation of this incident as part of your evaluation packages. Commands considering you for positions will know that Chimera Squad required disciplinary intervention for attitude problems and protocol violations."

  "That will follow us everywhere," Saren said, her voice barely above a whisper. "Every assignment. Every promotion review. Every opportunity. They'll see the flag and pass us over for pilots without marks on their records."

  "Yes," Thrace agreed. "It will. That's the point. Consequences have to mean something, or they're not consequences. You wanted to push boundaries. Now you'll carry the weight of that choice for the rest of your careers."

  She looked at each of them again.

  "This is me giving you a chance to recover. A narrow chance, hedged with restrictions that will make advancement harder for years to come, but a chance nonetheless. Take it. Fall in line. Do your jobs. Prove through sustained performance that this incident was an aberration rather than a pattern. That's how you rebuild. That's the only way you rebuild. If you can’t? Then you won't have careers to worry about. You'll have cells. Or worse." She paused. "I've told you what I can tell you. I've done what I can do. The rest is up to you. Choose wisely."

  She gestured toward the door.

  "Dismissed. Report to barracks. Probationary protocols begin immediately. And Pilot Kade?"

  Valoris paused at the door. "Ma’am?"

  "You're the leader. Your squad follows where you lead. Make sure you're leading them somewhere that has a future."

  The walk back to barracks felt like walking through water, every step weighted with consequences they couldn't escape.

  "We're screwed," Milo said quietly, breaking the silence. "Probation. Flagged graduation certificates. Psychological evaluations. This is going to follow us forever."

  "We're alive," Quinn replied. "We're still pilots. We're still together. That's more than we had any right to expect."

  "She told us to stop," Zee said. "Just stop asking questions. Stop caring about what we're doing. Fall in line and be good soldiers."

  "Can you do that?" Valoris asked.

  Zee didn't answer. The silence said enough.

  Saren didn't speak. Her expression remained frozen in rigid fury that Valoris recognized as processing, Saren's mind working through implications and probabilities, calculating whether following Thrace's advice was possible or whether the damage was already too deep to repair.

  They reached the barracks and filed inside with the mechanical efficiency of soldiers who'd been broken and were still figuring out what shape the pieces made.

  Valoris moved toward her bunk, intending to collapse and process everything that had happened. The deployment. Zee's breakdown. The kills she'd ordered. Thrace's warning. The consequences that would define their remaining time at the academy.

  Her tablet chimed. Message notification.

  She almost ignored it. Almost decided that whatever it was could wait until she'd slept and thought and found some way to face the next day with something resembling coherence.

  But something made her look.

  The message had no sender identification. No subject line. No metadata that would indicate where it came from or who had sent it. Just text, appearing on her screen as if it had materialized from nowhere.

  You've been looking for answers. I have some.

  The database won't give you what you need. The files you want are buried deeper than academy systems can reach.

  But they exist. The truth about the barrier. The truth about the war. The truth about what you're really part of.

  If you want to know, meet me. Sublevel 7, maintenance corridor 12-C. Tomorrow, 02:00.

  Come alone. Tell no one. Trust no one.

  Someone is watching you who wants you to succeed. But others are watching who don't.

  Choose carefully.

  Valoris read the message twice. Then a third time, feeling her heart rate increase with each pass.

  Someone knew. Someone had been watching them, tracking their questions, monitoring their investigation. Someone who claimed to have answers that academy databases couldn't provide.

  It could be a trap. Command setting her up for final confirmation of disloyalty, giving her enough rope to hang herself with before bringing charges that would end everything Thrace had warned her about.

  It could be someone genuine. A defector, a sympathizer, someone else who'd asked the same questions and found answers they wanted to share.

  It could be anything.

  She looked at her squad, scattered across the barracks in various states of exhaustion and despair. Zee lying on her bunk staring at the ceiling. Saren sitting rigidly with her tablet, probably reviewing regulations. Milo curled in his corner, glasses askew, looking younger than his years. Quinn flickering at the edges, existing somewhere between present and absent.

  Tell no one. Trust no one.

  She deleted the message, then deleted it again from the backup cache, then ran a purge protocol that Milo had taught her months ago for eliminating data traces.

  She lay down on her bunk and stared at the ceiling, knowing she wouldn't sleep, knowing that whatever came next would change everything again. She'd wanted answers. Now someone was offering them.

  The question was whether she was willing to pay whatever price came with knowing.