Her cursor hoveredover the data export button. She couldn’t save these to the company drive. If the Admin account was cleaning up reports, someone would notice her downloads.
She slipped a small USB from her bag—a nondescript silver drive she used for “personal documents”—and plugged it in, renaming it innocuously:ESG_CommunityReports_Archive.
She copied the reagent logs first, then the export permits.
A knock at her door pulled her back to the present. Marisol, the section head of logistics, stood there looking confused and holding a clipboard. “Hey, Riley. I saw you requested the weight tickets for last month’s barge shipments. Why? That’s more my department than ESG.”
Riley’s mind shifted gears instantly. She smiled warmly, gesturing to the seat across from her desk. “Hey, come on in. I’m running a variance check between port declarations and environmental records. The IAEA’s been asking for tighter oversight on bulk mineral transport, and they want ESG to be proactive. It’s all above board, but your tickets give me a cleaner picture than the summary files.”
Marisol sighed in relief. “Oh. Okay. You had me worried I’d messed something up.”
Riley chuckled. “If you had, I’d tell you before the auditors did.”
Marisol smiled at that, visibly relaxing. “All right. I’ll have my team send you digital copies.”
As soon as she left, Riley let out a slow breath.
The more information she pulled, the more the pieces whispered at the edges of her mind. None of it was proof. Not yet. But the reagent spike, the vague export codes, the sudden perfection in foreign shipment reports … all of it painted the same picture.
And her father’s voice echoed from when she’d confronted him.Acceptable losses, Riley.
Acceptable losses to him and a warning to her.
She slipped the USB into her bag and shut down the portal. From now on, she’d work in short bursts,pulling what she needed quietly, saving to her drive, and making sure every request she made had a plausible ESG reason attached.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, a quiet truth settled in. If she were right, she wouldn’t just be doing her job by protecting the environment; she’d be uncovering something someone would lie to cover up.
By the time the afternoon sun angled low over the ridgeline, Riley had moved through the rest of her ESG checklist. She’d signed off on the weekly reclamation report, reviewed the dust suppression logs, approved next month’s clinic supply order, and confirmed that the mine’s small community outreach team had enough budget for the upcoming literacy program.
Every box checked. Every item was documented. If anyone looked at her work for the day, it would look exactly like a diligent ESG Officer doing her job. But the reagent logs, which prove the company handled hazardous chemicals responsibly, still gnawed at her.
She opened the environmental monitoring dashboard and scanned the routine sampling schedule. Air quality, pH, dissolved solids in runoff—standard metrics all neatly lined up.
None of it would raise suspicion unless she added something. Her fingers hovered over the “Request Additional Test” option. It was built into the ESG system for exactly this purpose—unseasonal rain, sudden tailings seepage, or any anomaly that required extra confirmation.
She selected:Water Sample — Downstream from Processing Plant.
Under “Reason for Request,” she typed:Quarterly confirmation of heavy metal dispersion patterns due to increased seasonal rainfall and recent reagent usage.
Technically true. Perfectly defensible.
The presence of uranium in the tailings or in downstream sediments wouldn’t be unusual—mining always left traces. But theconcentrationcould tell her whether more ore had been processed than declared.
A knock on her door interrupted her work. It was Abdul, the site’s environmental lab technician, holding his field tablet. “Hey, Riley. Got your request for the downstream water sample. That wasn’t on the original rotation for this quarter. You want me to squeeze it in?”
Riley gave him an easy smile, leaning back in her chair. “Yes, please. We’ve had a lot more precipitation than normal, and I’d rather confirm ourbaseline data now than scramble if the regulators ask in six months. It’ll help me justify next quarter’s budget if we show proactive sampling.”
Abdul nodded, clearly unconcerned. “Makes sense. I’ll head down after shift change and pull the sample. Want me to run it local or send it out for full spectro?”
“Full spectro,” Riley said smoothly. “The external report carries more weight for the stakeholder meeting.”
Abdul grinned. “Always thinking ahead. I’ll send you the raw file when it comes in.”
After he left, Riley sat for a long moment staring at her computer screen. The request was in the system. The results, whatever they showed, would arrive within twenty-four hours. If the uranium levels were higher than expected for the declared output, it wouldn’t prove diversion on its own. But it would be one more breadcrumb.
One more piece of the puzzle she couldn’t stop herself from assembling. And if her father called again asking about the PR optics, she’d tell him exactly what he wanted to hear. Because optics were all he cared about. And Riley was starting to suspect they were being used to cover something far bigger.
The results came in at 05:42 a.m.
