Chapter Text
Prologue
Sacramento, 10:30 pm – Task Force HQ
The hum of fluorescent lights buzzed just loud enough to irritate. Suzy Chun leaned back in her chair, knuckled a hand across her forehead and squinted at the analogue clock mounted above Helen Metcalf’s head. 10:33 pm. The long hand ticked forward with that dull inevitability she hated—three hours into this meeting, and still no closer to clarity.
The conference room was airless, too tidy. Institutional grey carpeting, four grey walls, the faint scent of over steeped green tea and stale printer toner. Helen had turned the temperature down two notches, a trick she often employed to keep minds sharp and movement minimal. It worked. No one wanted to get up and stretch if it meant getting goosebumps.
Suzy adjusted the stack of printed personnel files beside her, nudging them out of the coffee ring someone had left earlier. She didn’t bother guessing who. Across the table, Arty was half-hidden behind her open laptop, the screen casting a pale blue tint across her cheekbones. Her braids were tucked behind her ears, her expression wary and focused in equal measure.
At the front, Helen clicked to the next slide of her deck, voice calm, methodical, precise. “—and that brings us back to the discrepancies first identified in the Irongate Solutions (IGS) audit logs. You'll see from the overlay here—” a red arrow blinked into life on the projected map of northern California, highlighting a cluster of fire camps “—these facilities reported consistent discrepancies: Inventory missing, missing supplies, duplicate invoices, a pattern has developed over multiple fiscal quarters. Yet all the camps and rehabilitation centres are reporting that their financial records are in order. Not even one has flagged it.” Helen stabbed at the desk with her index finger for emphasis.
A pause. The faintest hint of satisfaction curved Helen’s lips. “Because someone knew how to work the system.”
A few low murmurs rose around the room—agreement, weariness, maybe even resignation. One agent scribbled a note. Another took a gulp of coffee like it was hard liquor.
Suzy kept her hands folded over her notes. Kept her mouth shut. Kept the burn of doubt well behind her eyes.
It didn’t add up. Not the way Helen thought it did.
Too clean. Too perfect.
Not even the best criminals left logs this tidy.
Beside her, Arty shifted. A small movement—knee bumping Suzy’s chair. She didn’t speak, but Suzy felt the tension vibrating off her like heat. Arty had flagged the same unease weeks ago, her voice careful, deferential, peppered with qualifiers. “It could be nothing, I’m probably wrong, but…”
It wasn’t nothing.
The Irongate system—ERP, procurement, logistics, vendor management—every aspect functioned too smoothly. Like someone had swept the forest floor clear before the blood was spilled. The evidence of fraud was there, yes, but almost… performative.
Suzy remembered a conversation she’d had with Bode, of all people, last spring at Charlie’s BBQ—sweating under a striped parasol while he explained, half-laughing, how bad data left fingerprints if you knew where to look. How the best systems had flaws, because people did.
Now, there were no flaws. Just evidence.
Too much evidence.
Helen clicked to the final slide.
“Good news, people,” she said, tone light, almost giddy beneath the fatigue. “We’ve received full funding from the Justice Department. The operation has been greenlit.”
Suzy’s heart kicked once, hard, as murmurs of surprise and cautious excitement buzzed around the table. Even the agents slumped in their chairs straightened a little. Someone clapped, then awkwardly stopped when they realised, they were the only one.
“We’re building out the field structure for Phase One,” Helen continued. “We’ll need deep cover. That means people with law enforcement backgrounds who can believably embed either as corrections officers or inmates. Ideally both. The camps are hermetic—there’s no surface-level intel that’s going to cut it. We need eyes, ears, and someone who can follow the flow of money or supplies without drawing heat.”
Suzy glanced sideways, Arty’s lips were parted, brows lifted, the flicker of hope unmistakable.
This was their chance.
If she could get the right person in there—someone who understood the digital infrastructure, not just the human players—they might finally trace the real source of the anomaly. Maybe it was fraud. Maybe it wasn’t. But the audit trails Irongate were supplying weren’t telling the full story.
Helen tapped the screen. “You’ll all receive the call-for-nominations by morning. Think carefully. This op will be long-term, highly sensitive, and high-risk. We need people we can trust.”
With a practised flick of her wrist, Helen shut the presentation down. The projector blinked black.
“Dismissed.”
Chairs scraped. Agents stretched and began filing out. Paper rustled. Phones buzzed to life. Conversations restarted in murmurs and pairs.
Suzy remained seated. One hand flat on her notes. The other reaching for her phone.
Arty leaned closer. “Do you think she’ll go for it?”
“I don’t know,” Suzy said. “But I’m not asking permission.”
Arty blinked, startled.
Suzy stood slowly, rolling the tension from her shoulders. The ache behind her eyes had dulled into something manageable.
Out in the corridor, Helen was already striding away, silver hair catching the flick of overhead light. Suzy didn’t follow. Not yet.
She opened her messages, found Bode’s contact, thumb hovering.
She wasn’t sure if he’d say yes.
But she knew one thing: if anyone could dig beneath a flawless system and find the crack, it was the “secret nerd”, with his bashful smile, whose cheeks flushed at their Mother-in-Law's boasted how clever and handsome Bode was.
Her finger tapped out the words:
Need to talk. Tonight. It’s urgent.
Then she added one more sentence, without knowing why:
You were right about the fingerprints.
She hit send.
And for the first time in weeks, Suzy Chun allowed herself the luxury of belief.