Chapter 26 · Lamp Eight

The archive smelled like dead paper and lamp oil. Alto pressed his back against the stone wall, watching Lira yank another file box off the shelf. Dust came down with it. She didn't cough. Just set the box on the floor and started pulling folders.

"You sure nobody comes down here?" he asked.

She didn't look up. "Third shift. Records clerk's drunk by now."

He believed that. The whole governor's complex felt half-asleep tonight, which was the only reason he'd let her drag him through the side gate after the wagon job. That and the Blood Lamp sitting in his pocket, still warm. The seal etched into its core wasn't standard issue. It was his. His unit. The one that died in the sand six years back while he was busy bleeding out in a command tent three hundred miles north.

Lira flipped past a stack of requisition forms and supply logs. Her hands moved fast. She knew what she was looking for.

"What exactly are we doing here?" Alto said.

"Proving you wrong."

"About?"

"The Federation." She pulled another folder. "You think we're all the same.