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Chapter 98: Small, Ordinary Things
"You're doing it wrong. The thread goes under, not over." Priya leaned across the workbench, correcting Kai's clumsy attempt at stitching a torn seam in his jacket, and Kai huffed in mock offense. "I've survived solitary confinement. I think I can survive a loose button." "Clearly not, given the mess you've made of this sleeve." Priya took the needle from him, finishing the repair in a few efficient strokes. "You'd think, after everything, you'd have learned patience somewhere along the way." "I have patience. I'm choosing not to use it on a jacket." Kai watched her work, something fond in his expression. "How's the investigation going, separate from my tailoring crisis?" Priya's focus sharpened immediately, the easy warmth giving way to something more serious. "Slowly. Talia finally handed over her documentation two days ago. I've been cross-referencing it against the processing logs ever since." "Anything new?" "Confirmation, mostly, rather than revelation. Everything lines u
Chapter 97: Telling Her Mother
"You're actually here early. I half expected Mira to drag you in kicking and screaming."Elin opened the door with a knowing smile, already glancing at Alex's hand before he'd said a word."I wanted to tell you myself," Alex said. "Before Mira had the chance to tell the whole ship first.""Wise man." Elin ushered him inside, calling over her shoulder. "Mira, your fiancé's here, and he's being considerate enough to let his future mother-in-law hear it properly."Mira emerged from the kitchen, laughing, flour dusted across one cheek. "I was going to let you tell her. I wanted to see her face.""I saw her face through the door," Alex said. "She already knew.""I'm her mother," Elin said simply, settling into her chair with the satisfied air of a woman whose instincts had never once failed her. "Sit, both of you. Tell me everything. How, where, what she said when you finally worked up the nerve."They told the story together, interrupting each other happily, and Alex found himself, watchi
Chapter 96: What Voss Came to Say
"How did you get in here?"Alex's voice came out sharper than he intended, old instincts from months of surveillance flaring immediately."Captain's override. I'm aware that sounds invasive, and I apologize for it." Elena Voss remained standing near the window, her posture careful, almost uncertain in a way Alex had never seen from her before. "I needed to speak with you somewhere I could be certain wasn't being monitored by anyone other than myself.""What do you want?""A conversation. Nothing more, though I understand if you don't believe that yet." She gestured toward the small table. "Please, sit. I promise this isn't another offer, another deal with conditions attached."Alex sat warily, watching her carefully. "Then what is it?""I know about Kai's investigation. I've known for some time, longer than I let on even to my own husband." Elena's voice carried an exhaustion that matched the weight of everything she was clearly about to say. "I know about Talia, about Berhane, about
Chapter 95: The Choice
"I'm not going to meet her."Alex said it the moment he sat down across from Kai, his voice steady despite the restless night that had led him to the decision.Kai studied him carefully. "You're certain.""As certain as I can be about anything right now." Alex met his friend's eyes. "I've spent the last day turning it over, and I keep landing in the same place. Whatever I am, whatever Corvis thinks she knows, chasing that answer means choosing the investigation over Mira, over the life I've already decided I want. I'm not willing to make that trade again.""Even though it might explain everything? The disappearances, AURA-Core, all of it?""Even then." Alex's voice carried a hard-won conviction. "I gave the plaza everything I had. I gave months of my life to a cell because of it. I don't think I owe this ship another piece of myself, not when I finally have something worth protecting instead."Kai was quiet for a long moment, and when he spoke again, his voice had softened considerabl
Chapter 94: What the Contact Knew
“Sit down. This is going to take a while to explain properly.” Kai’s voice was careful, and Alex sat across from him in the utility room, unease already tightening in his chest at the tone alone. “Who did you meet?” “A woman named Corvis. She worked in the ship’s original systems division, decades ago, before any of the current architecture existed in its present form.” Kai leaned forward, choosing his words with visible caution. “She didn’t want to talk about the disappearances at all, not directly. She wanted to talk about you.” Alex felt his pulse quicken. “Me specifically? Why?” “She said she recognized something in the pattern of your file. Not the census discrepancy, something deeper.” Kai hesitated. “She asked me one question before she’d say anything else. She wanted to know if you’d ever had dreams that felt more like memories than dreams. Fragments of a life before this ship, things that never quite fit the story everyone else accepted.” Alex went very still, old, half
Chapter 93: Choosing What to Carry
“Someone messaged me. Late last night. They said they know what we found.”Alex slid his tablet across the table to Kai, and Kai read the message twice, his brow furrowing deeper each time.“A friend from a long time ago,” Kai repeated. “That’s not nothing. Someone’s been watching closely enough to know exactly what Priya pulled from those logs.”“I know.” Alex rubbed his eyes, exhaustion from a mostly sleepless night settling behind his temples. “I want to hand this to you. Whoever this is, whatever they know, I don’t think I should be the one who meets them.”Kai looked up, surprised. “You found the message. It came to you directly.”“That’s exactly why I need to hand it off.” Alex met his friend’s eyes steadily. “I told you both, when I got out, that I wasn’t getting pulled back into this. Mira’s father changed that, briefly, because I couldn’t separate her grief from my own life. But this message isn’t about her father anymore. This is the investigation itself, reaching directly f
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