Chapter 7 · The Frame Job

The archive lock gave up with a click that sounded way too loud.

Elara froze, hand still on the bypass tool Nora had shoved at her twenty minutes ago. The tool was warm. Probably illegal. Definitely the only reason she was standing in front of a transit authority data vault at two in the morning instead of trying to sleep through another nightmare about Kane's face when he died.

No alarms. No footsteps.

She pushed the door open and slipped inside.

The archive was smaller than she'd expected. Rows of memory cores lined the walls, each one glowing a faint amber through its casing. The air smelled like ozone and old coffee. Someone had left a mug on the center console. Still half full.

Elara moved to the terminal and pulled up the search interface. Her hands were shaking. She flexed her fingers and tried again.

Disaster event. Midnight protocols. Black transit tokens.

The system thought about it for three long seconds, then spat back a file tree.

She opened the first folder.

Her own face stared back at her from the screen.

"What the hell."

It was surveillance footage. Multiple angles. Timestamps going back weeks.