This couldn't be.
Greg started flipping through files, scanning only the resolution pages. His fingers left tracks in the dust on the folders as he read about a mother in France, 1723, a wife in the Qing Dynasty, 1801. A father in Ohio, 1943… All the stories ended the same.
Someone flagged the problem. Someone authorized the removal. Someone carried it out.
Not once had the system tried to break the contract itself. Not once had it negotiated, sought an alternative, or attempted to dissolve the deal. It just killed the person who'd made it and collected the soul it was owed.
In one file someone had written a note in the margin.
Contractual interference cannot be permitted to stand. The natural order requires restoration. The system's position is and has always been clear: you don't get to cheat death and live.
Greg read the note three times.
Then he sat down on the floor between the shelves because his legs had stopped working.
Never lose another child in my lifetime.
That was what Cathy had said. Those were the terms.
The system knew exactly how to work around that.
Greg thought about Cathy at her kitchen table, jaw set, eyes dry. She'd done what she could to keep her remaining son with her.
And the system would kill her for it.
Greg pressed his palms against his eyes until he saw colors.
He thought about Morrith in his cubicle, running Dustin's file through the system four times. Investigating. Morrith didn't know about Cathy yet. But Morrith was looking, and Morrith was thorough, and sooner or later the same machinery that had processed these files forcenturies would turn toward a woman in Colorado who loved a little too fiercely.
He couldn't let that happen.
But how could he stop it?
He was a rookie with a clipboard and no plan.
Not knowing what to do with himself, he stood and put the files back on the shelf, carefully, in order, because even now he couldn't bring himself to leave things in disarray.
He walked back through the rows of shelving. Past Eda, who was likely on a new chapter and still didn't look up.
“Find what you needed?” she asked.
Greg chewed his lower lip.
“Yes,” he said. “Thank you.”
He left the archives and walked back through the quiet corridors of HQ, past the empty cubicles and the dark break room and the poster that said Every Soul Counts.
Every soul counts.
He wondered if whoever made that poster had ever actually believed it.
CHAPTER 31
Greg came back through the front door, phasing through the wood without even knocking.
“Hey,” Dustin said.
“Hi,” Greg said.
