The hum of the cooling fans in Nix's laboratory gradually faded, leaving an awkward silence between them.
In the corner of a table cluttered with circuit scrap, Kaelen sat alone. He drew a deep breath, inhaling air that smelled of oil and wet metal, then pulled a shabby cloth pouch from a hidden fold in his jacket.
Inside the pouch were physical files and an old analog-style portable memory drive—the remnants of his life as a civilian investigator seven years ago.
Kaelen spread the yellowed paper documents across the table. Under the dim yellow desk lamp, the red stamped words *CASE CLOSED — INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE* looked like dried bloodstains.
Aira slowly stepped closer. Her footsteps were nearly silent. She stood beside Kaelen, studying the old photographs and handwritten notes scattered across the table.
"These are Mira's files?" Aira asked softly.
"These are the remains of my lies," Kaelen replied without looking back. His voice was flat, but a faint tremor gathered at the base of his throat.
Kaelen's right hand reached for the old memory drive and connected it to his own portable data reader. A small, palm-sized projector screen displayed a series of official investigation logs from the night Mira disappeared.
Aira examined the lines of text. Her data-processing eyes immediately caught an anomaly.
"This log," Aira said, pointing to a timestamp. "It says you arrived home at 8:45 p.m. and found the door damaged from the outside. But... in the physical evidence analysis you wrote yourself two days later, you noted that there were no signs of forced entry on the lock."
Ivo, who had been cleaning the remnants of medical fluid at the end of the room, stopped and turned. Nix also stilled her fingers above the keyboard, listening from behind her monitor.
Kaelen didn't argue. He rubbed his rough face with his right hand.
"I was the one who changed the report," Kaelen said, finally giving voice to the truth he'd buried for seven years. "That night... the lock on our front door wasn't actually damaged from the outside. It had been opened using an internal authorization code—a code held only by Soma Corp officials and... family members."
Aira tilted her head, trying to process that. "You falsified your own report?"
"I was scared," Kaelen whispered, his eyes fixed on the little screen. "Three hours after Mira disappeared, two Soma agents came to my apartment. They didn't threaten me with weapons. They simply showed me medical-rights transfer documents and told me that if I accused Soma Corp of kidnapping her, I'd lose my investigator's license, my home, and my clean air. They said Mira had been 'taken in for a life-saving procedure.'"
Kaelen clenched his fist on the table.
"I knew that if I kept tracing that authorization lock, I'd discover that someone I knew had sold access to my home—or that I'd been too late to save her myself. So... I closed the case. I altered my notes, signed the investigation-termination order, and pretended to believe that my daughter had died in an air-pollution system accident."
Silence settled over the laboratory again. In the cold world of Aethelgard, truth was a luxury often traded for one's own safety.
Aira looked at Kaelen. There was no judgment in her eyes. "You didn't do that because you didn't love her."
Kaelen looked up and met Aira's clear eyes. "I did it because I'm a coward who chose survival over the truth. And now... the evidence that Mira was turned into the raw material for an experiment is inside you. This city never forgets, Aira. It only waits for the right time to humiliate people like me."
Aira touched the edge of the yellowed file on the table. Her cold, gentle hand rested atop the document.
"In my memories," Aira said softly, "there's a tremendous fear every time a door opens. But there's also a sense of calm when someone knocks three times in a pattern."
Aira looked Kaelen straight in the eye.
"That calm doesn't belong to Soma Corp. It belongs to Mira. She believed in you until the end, Kaelen. Even if you changed this report, that trust wasn't erased."
Kaelen stared at Aira for a long time. Pain surged through his chest—a release from the thirst of guilt that had festered for years. For the first time, Kaelen didn't see Aira as a shadow projection of his daughter, but as someone helping him rise from the ruins of the past.
Nix broke the mood with a loud clearing of her throat from her control desk.
"What an extraordinary emotional moment," Nix cut in, though her voice was slightly gentler than usual. "But this old investigation log of yours just gave me one important lead, Vance."
Kaelen quickly wiped his eyes and turned toward Nix. "What lead?"
Nix pointed to her monitor, which displayed the glow of radio frequencies. "The internal authorization code you mentioned in your file... its encryption pattern matches an old radio signal that just went active on this sector's emergency-scanning frequency."
The digital lens in Nix's eye blinked rapidly.
"Someone is transmitting that authorization signal right now. And the signal is aimed directly at this laboratory's local communications channel."