Recommendations?
Accelerate your cover story, find evidence against Moore or make some. Make the asset valuable enough that disposal becomes costly.
I close the channel and sit in the dark, processing.
The fabricated intelligence on Moore is good, but it's not enough. Webb won't be satisfied with second-hand informationabout a political network. He'll want something concrete. Something that proves Elliot is worth more alive than dead.
Something that proves I'm still functional.
I pull up Elliot's acquisition file and start reading again. Medical records. Psychological assessments. Handler logs from his time with Moore.
Eighteen months of documented abuse. Seventy-three separate "disciplinary sessions." Four suicide attempts, all interrupted. One escape attempt, punished by three weeks in isolation with minimal food and water. Rape. Medical abuse. Psychological torment.
The data is clinical. Detached. Just numbers and dates and incident reports.
But as I read, something happens that I don't expect.
I start to feel.
Not empathy. I don't have the capacity for empathy. But something adjacent to it. A coldness that spreads through my chest when I read about the incidents which are far too detailed for what is considered necessary reporting. A tightening in my hands when I see the medical photos of his injuries. A pressure behind my eyes that I haven't experienced since I was nine years old and the Foundry taught me that crying was a weakness to be eliminated.
I close the file.
I sit in the dark and breathe and wait for the feeling to pass.
It doesn't.
At 0200, I hear him moving.
The bedroom door opens. Soft footsteps in the hallway. He's trying to be quiet, but I've been tracking his breathing patterns for hours. I knew he was awake before he did.
I don't turn around. I stay at my laptop, screen dimmed, watching his reflection in the darkened window.
He stops at the edge of the living room. Hesitates.
"I couldn't sleep," he says.
"I know."
"You heard me?"
"I hear everything."
He processes this. I watch his reflection shift, arms crossing over his chest, a self-protective gesture.
"Can I...sit with you?"
The request is unexpected. Assets don't ask for proximity. They endure it or avoid it. They don't seek it out.
"Yes," I say.
He crosses the room and sits on the couch, pulling his knees up to his chest. The oversized shirt rides up, exposing the pale line of his thigh. I catalog the detail and file it away.
"What are you working on?" he asks.
"Your file."
He goes still. "My file?"
