The Rodian appeared in the dark glass for the third time, and Darren stopped listening to Halden.
Nine minutes since the medical kiosk.
The same courier jacket on the walkway, the same parcel case at the entrance to the food lane.
There were only so many routes through this level; Darren knew that and still moved the borrowed datapad to an angle that showed him the crowd behind them.
“Rodian. Dark jacket, parcel case,” he said quietly.
“I may have a tail.”
Halden finished the sentence he had been speaking, then asked, without turning, “How sure?”
“Enough to check.”
They had less than an hour to reach Lena before her shift ended.
Darren chose a stall directly ahead, bought a reflective screen film for three credits and pressed it onto the pad.
A bubble formed beneath one corner.
The vendor reached to correct it, but Darren thanked him and stepped aside.
“You’ve made my screen worse,” Halden said.
“Only from this side.”
He darkened it.
The Rodian entered the warped reflection, still carrying the case.
Darren took a turn toward a parcel office and then another along its outer wall.
Halden stayed beside him.
When the courier quickened his pace, Darren caught Halden’s sleeve and moved him closer to the building; his own right hand settled near the blaster.
The Rodian passed them without a glance.
He pushed through the office door and raised the parcel case toward a clerk with the exhausted fury of a man who had already explained a delivery problem too many times.
Darren released Halden’s sleeve.
For a moment he could still feel the weight of the weapon he had not drawn.
His palm was damp, and the pull on Halden’s sleeve had woken the ache in his shoulder.
Beyond the glass, the courier put the case down and began emptying his pockets for a receipt.
“Late delivery,” Halden said.
“Looks like it.”
“You could have told me which way to move.”
“I thought he’d started closing on us.”
“You had time to buy that.” Halden pointed at the pad.
“Next time, give me something to do before you decide to drag me.”
Darren looked back at the clerk, who had found the missing receipt beneath the case.
“Stay on my left if I say we’re being followed. If I need you against a wall, I’ll say so.”
Halden nodded.
The irritation remained, but he moved to Darren’s left when they resumed walking.
Darren flexed the hand that had caught his sleeve and wiped his palm against his trousers before trying to smooth the film.
The loose corner caught against Darren’s thumb.
He nearly peeled the film off, then pressed it back down.
Two hundred and thirty-six credits left.
For three credits, it ought to have found him a more convincing enemy.
Lena Var was arguing about two missing cases when they found her.
“The dispatch says six. There are four.”
A young worker stood beside a trolley, holding a scanner toward the shelf as if another reading might improve the count.
Lena pointed to an empty space on the rack, then took two smaller containers from him and carried them toward the counter.
“Check the transfer cage before you call it a delivery error. And leave the sealant line open.”
Darren stepped out of her way.
Disinfectant from the loading bay mixed with hot bread from next door.
She had short brown hair, a gray-blue work jacket and a small patch of dried adhesive on one sleeve.
When Halden gave their names, her eyes went first to his credentials and then to the weapon at Darren’s hip.
“Ralo called,” Halden said.
“He told us we could ask whether you’d speak with us.”
“I said that before the delivery came in.”
“We can wait,” Darren said.
“No. You can’t stand here waiting for me.”
The worker glanced toward them.
Halden put his credentials away.
Darren stepped back far enough to let Lena place the containers on the counter.
“All right. We’ll leave.”
He meant it.
She had scarcely looked at him since noticing the blaster, and he could not make himself less armed by smiling.
Halden followed him toward the entrance without trying to leave a business card.
“Mr. Vey.”
They stopped.
Lena set one container straight on top of the other.
Her hand stayed there a moment before she took it away.
“Did someone actually shoot at you?”
“Yes,” Halden said.
“Ralo said there were witnesses.”
“Four of us gave statements.”
She looked toward the loading bay, then beckoned them past the counter.
“Five minutes. And keep your voices down.”
The back office had two chairs.
A kettle stood on a shelf crowded with cartons.
Lena took the chair behind the desk.
Halden sat opposite.
Darren remained by the wall, leaving the door clear until she closed it herself.
“No recording.”
Halden laid his pad facedown and took a folded sheet of paper from his pocket.
“May I take notes?”
“About the records. Not about my sister.”
Neither man had mentioned a sister.
Darren felt the question arrive and kept it to himself while Lena switched on an old terminal.
A work roster filled the screen.
She closed it before opening a local file.
“Show me what survived,” she said.
Halden asked permission to turn his pad over.
When she nodded, he brought up the certified summaries and moved the display within reach.
Lena did not touch it.
She read two references aloud, checked them against her file and pulled the pad closer.
“That one was in his first set.” Her finger stopped over the next reference.
“That wasn’t.”
“Can you tell what it adds?”
“Not from a summary.”
Halden started to explain where the full records were.
She waved him quiet and enlarged her own projection.
Rows of supplies crossed a span of years: medical consumables, nutrition, atmospheric maintenance, habitation.
Farther along, the categories changed.
Field medical.
Mobile nutrition.
Deployment habitation.
Replacement parts.
Halden leaned forward.
“The totals increase, but that isn’t the only change.”
“No. Look where the replacement stock starts.”
Darren followed her finger.
The shift sat roughly seven years ahead of the first records.
He saw white armor in a room full of gray cartons and forced his attention back to Lena.
“Could those supplies support a colony?” he asked.
“They could. But why plan to move its medical support at the same time as its accommodation? Voss couldn’t get an answer to that.”
“An evacuation?”
“Planned years in advance?” She looked at Halden.
“You see why he kept asking.”
“I see a change of use the declarations don’t explain.”
“He thought military,” Lena said.
“He wanted me to put that in writing. I would only confirm the change in categories.”
“Because you disagreed?”
“Because that was what I could sign my name to.” She closed the projection.
“He was angry with me before anyone else was.”
Halden glanced at his notes.
Darren recognized the temptation to ask for another look at the dates.
Instead he watched Lena put both hands flat on the desk, covering a delivery slip with one palm.
“What happened after you signed?” he asked.
“Two people came to my apartment. Procurement Integrity credentials. They knew my department, my supervisor, the dates I’d spoken to Voss.”
Lena reached for the kettle, discovered it empty and put it back.
Halden moved his chair out of the way as she filled it from a dispenser beside the door.
“They wanted to establish whether I’d misunderstood his request. That was how they put it. As though he might have used my name unfairly and they were there to help.”
“Did they ask you to withdraw?” Halden said.
“No.” The kettle clicked into its cradle.
Lena kept hold of the handle.
“One of them asked if my sister still worked mornings at the transport clinic near Senate District Seven.”
Darren glanced at Halden.
The accountant had stopped writing.
“Was that in a public record?”
“I don’t know. Would that make it better?”
“No.”
“She worked mornings because she was looking after someone in the afternoons. He knew the mornings. He didn’t have to know anything else.”
The kettle began to hiss.
Lena let go of it and sat down, rubbing the seam of her sleeve between finger and thumb.
“I withdrew that afternoon. Three weeks later I resigned. My sister moved.”
Darren remembered the warning he had asked Ralo to give her.
A line on a terminal had seemed reason enough to call.
Now he pictured her hearing it while a delivery waited outside, having to decide whether the names coming through the door were about to take away another job.
“Does she know why?” he asked.
“Enough.”
He waited rather than asking her to define it.
“I told her someone had mentioned her schedule. She wanted to know what I’d done.” Lena looked at the delivery slip beneath her hand.
“I told her I’d corrected it.”
The answer stayed in the room with the kettle’s hiss.
Darren had told people a problem was handled when what he meant was that he could not bear one more question about it.
He did not offer the resemblance as comfort.
Halden lifted his pen, then set it down.
“Ralo needs to know there was a visit.”
“He can know they came to me.”
“And the reference to another person’s schedule?”
“Without her name. Without her workplace.” Lena looked from one man to the other.
“I haven’t asked her to testify. You won’t ask her through me.”
Halden’s mouth tightened.
“Those details would help establish what happened.”
“They helped them establish it too.”
Darren spoke before Halden could answer.
“We tell Ralo about the visit. Anything more, he asks you himself.”
Halden looked at Lena, then drew a line through the half-written sentence on his paper.
“The visit, the credentials, the reference to a relative. Nothing identifying her.”
Lena nodded and poured hot water over an old tea bag.
Darren shifted his weight against the wall.
She took a sip, winced at the heat and set the cup beside the delivery slip.
“Did you keep in touch with Voss?” he asked.
“Not enough.”
She opened a drawer and took out a photograph.
Darren recognized the raised hand and badly fitting jacket from Ralo’s file.
Here the image was smaller, its corners softened by handling.
“He wanted me at this dinner. I told him I wasn’t spending an evening with people I already had to see all day.”
“Did you go?”
“For the food.” Her thumb covered the corner.
“He complained about that too. Said they’d charged us for imported wine and served something made three levels down.”
“Was he right?” Halden asked.
“Probably. He took the bottle home to find out.”
Halden laughed, and Lena almost did.
She put the photograph down between them before the sound had quite become a laugh.
“He could be unbearable. He forgot my birthday and remembered every credit I’d ever owed him. Then he found this and expected everyone to be as stubborn as he was.”
Darren looked at the man protesting the camera.
“Were you angry with him?”
“Yes.” She answered quickly, as if glad of a question she could answer without qualification.
“I was angry when he died. It didn’t stop because he died.”
Halden lowered his eyes.
The photograph lay beside his financial notes, and neither man reached to move it.
Lena turned it facedown herself.
“Ralo said you’re missing one packet.”
“Forty-Four,” Darren said.
Her gaze sharpened.
“You have the number.”
“Only the number.”
“He called it the part where the money became geography. The others showed how much. Forty-Four showed where it went.”
“Did he show you?”
“No. By then he didn’t trust anything he had to send.”
She picked up the tea, held it without drinking and searched the far corner of the room for a memory.
“He used to complain about a private storage box. Paying every month for somewhere to leave things he didn’t want in his apartment.”
“Which company?” Halden asked.
“Oridian Exchange. Upper CoCo Town. It closed. Or changed its name. I stopped seeing their signs.”
Halden reached toward his pad.
Darren touched the edge of the desk, catching his attention without catching his hand.
“Public business records first. We don’t know who sees a customer lookup.”
Halden nodded and wrote the name instead.
Lena watched him do it.
“You’ll tell Ralo?”
“Yes.”
“And if you find it?”
Halden answered before Darren could.
“We’ll try to establish what’s there.”
“I don’t mean the box.” Her eyes went to the photograph.
“If you find out what happened to him.”
“We’ll tell you what we find. Even if it isn’t an answer.”
A knock interrupted them.
The young worker called through the door that the sealant discrepancy was still open.
Lena looked at the time; their five minutes had become nearly twenty.
“I have to work.”
Halden closed his pad.
“May I keep these notes?”
She read the page, checking the account of the visit before the dates.
Then she pushed it back to him and opened the door.
At a public terminal two districts away, Halden paid for the call and the business-record search through his account.
The privacy option screened their conversation from nearby booths; it did not make Darren forget the camera over the entrance.
Ralo answered on the second attempt.
Darren told him what Lena had allowed them to share, including the limit concerning her relative.
He gave the number Forty-Four and the name Oridian Exchange.
“I saw recurring storage payments,” Ralo said.
“I couldn’t get authority to inspect the contents after the death ruling.”
“Could this change that?”
“It belongs in the request. I’ll need her account.”
“You can ask her. She hasn’t signed anything today.”
While they spoke, Halden followed the company’s acquisitions through the public register.
Oridian had been divided; a surviving storage division operated under Varel Storage and Document Services, still in Upper CoCo Town.
He copied the address onto paper.
“There’s something else,” Ralo said.
“The case was accessed again. Twenty minutes ago. Employment attachments this time.”
Darren stopped reading the address.
“Lena’s?”
“The request includes them.”
“Who?”
“Same routing. I still don’t have an individual.”
Halden leaned toward the pickup.
“You warned her about the first access. Has she heard about this one?”
“I’m calling her next. I can send a unit.”
Darren pictured the cooperative’s counter, the worker looking up when Lena told them to leave.
A patrol could protect the entrance.
It would also be visible to everyone who used it, including anyone watching her.
“Offer it,” he said.
“But there may be another way to get her out of the building.”
Halden turned.
“The missing sealant.”
“You heard that?”
“I was standing beside you.” He pulled Lena’s approved notes closer.
“She’s handling the discrepancy. The supplier may require her signature in person. I can ask for a priority reconciliation through my business.”
“Can you get it accepted?”
“If the supplier confirms the discrepancy and Lena authorizes me. I’m not their auditor.”
Ralo said, “I’ll ask her. Don’t send anything until she agrees.”
“Tell her about the new access first,” Darren said.
“Then the options.”
“I will.”
When the line went dead, Halden saved the supplier’s public contact number.
The request fields stayed empty.
They waited in a food court within sight of the terminal booth.
Halden bought soup and bread through the business account, placing a second bowl opposite his own.
Darren’s breakfast had been hours ago; he ate while Halden checked the supplier’s public contact details.
The steam caught beneath the low lights.
At the next table, a child was balancing a spoon on one finger while a parent pretended not to watch.
Darren put the borrowed pad facedown beside his bowl and let the room remain a room for a few mouthfuls.
Halden broke the bread and pushed half the loaf across to him.
“If she’d told us to leave a second time, I’d have asked one more question.”
“Which one?”
“Where he kept it.”
Darren looked at him over the bowl.
Halden seemed annoyed by his own admission, but he did not retract it.
“You’d have made it sound quick.”
“It would have been quick.” Halden turned his spoon over on the table.
“That’s what I would have said.”
Darren looked down at the bread.
He had been ready with the same excuse while Lena watched the time.
Across the table, Halden left his spoon where it was.
“I thought you were going to ask her,” he said.
“So did I.”
Halden glanced up.
Darren tore the bread and dipped it into his soup.
Neither reached for the notes.
For a while they ate without speaking.
Then Halden asked, “If the box points where you expect, what will you do?”
The white armor returned, followed by a place Darren had never reached in this life.
He could see it too easily.
He could see other rooms as well, lit by weapons, and people who had not yet learned they needed to run.
Across the table sat the man he had just told about the Chancellor; Darren could not tell whether Halden was thinking about Voss or wondering what his security contractor might do next.
“Find out who I can reach,” he said.
“And what I can actually get them away from.”
Halden watched him.
Darren knew how much he had left unsaid; he also knew they were sitting beside a child whose spoon had just clattered onto the floor.
“That’s as far as I can take it here.”
“All right.”
The answer contained no assurance that Halden believed him.
Darren finished his soup anyway.
Ralo called as Halden was stacking the bowls.
Lena had heard about the second access.
She wanted the supplier visit if it could be arranged, and she wanted to speak to Ralo again afterward about going home.
She had not requested a marked patrol at the cooperative.
“Does she understand we haven’t identified a threat at the building?” Darren asked.
“She does. She says the discrepancy still needs resolving.”
Halden took the call and confirmed the limited authorization for the supplier request.
No employment history, no mention of Voss.
He would handle the charge for priority processing.
Ralo would remain Lena’s contact; neither man was to return to collect her.
Darren folded the address for Varel and tucked it inside his jacket.
They would go today, once the request was underway.
He checked the time against the lodging’s evening deadline; there was still time to collect his bag afterward.
Halden had nearly ended the call when Ralo added, “She gave me a message for you both.”
Darren leaned close enough to hear.
“She wants her five minutes back when you have something worth telling her.”
Halden looked at Darren, then at the pocket holding the address.
“Tell her we’ll knock.”