Erica's contact was a woman named Mira who worked in the government records division and had the kind of face that people forgot the moment they looked away. David met her outside a coffee shop in District Four, a neighborhood of glass buildings and clean streets and people who didn't look at anyone else for too long. She was sitting at a table by the window, a cup of something in front of her, a tablet open to a screen that looked like work but probably wasn't.
"You're David Ashborn," she said when he sat down. Her voice was flat, uninterested, like she saw famous people every day.
"I'm David Ashborn."
She looked at him for a moment, then at Erica who had taken a seat at the table behind them, then back at David. "Erica says you need access to Director Chen's files. The ones she keeps off the main network."
"I need to know what she knows about the Phoenix Clan. About what happened eighteen years ago. About the people she's been protecting since then."
Mira's expression didn't change but something in her posture shifted, a slight tightening, a small adjustment. "That's a dangerous question. Chen has been in power a long time. She has friends in places you wouldn't believe."
"I have friends too."
Mira looked at him for a long moment, something flickering in her eyes, respect maybe or just curiosity. "Chen keeps her personal files in a separate system, one that only she and a few others can access. I can't get into that system. No one can. But I can get you into her office. What you find there, what you take, that's on you."
David nodded. "When?"
"Tonight. She has a dinner with the Vane family, some kind of alliance thing, she'll be gone for hours. The building will be quiet, the guards will be lazy, and I can get you past the front door." Mira slid a card across the table, thin and black, no markings. "This will get you into the service entrance. Be there at nine. Don't be late."
She stood, picked up her cup, walked away without looking back. David sat at the table with the card in his hand and watched her disappear into the crowd.
Erica slid into the seat across from him. "Mira's good. She's been doing this for years, never been caught, never been linked to anyone she's helped. If she says she can get you in, she can get you in."
David looked at the card, at the blank surface that was supposed to open doors into places he wasn't supposed to go. "Why is she helping us? She doesn't know me. She doesn't know what we're looking for."
"She knows enough." Erica's voice was quiet. "She was there, David. Eighteen years ago. She was a junior analyst in the records division when the Phoenix Clan fell. She saw the reports, the ones that didn't make sense, the ones that disappeared. She's been waiting for someone to ask the right questions for a very long time."
---
The government building where Director Chen worked was a tower of glass and steel in the center of the city, the kind of building that was designed to impress, to intimidate, to remind everyone who saw it that power had a shape and a weight and a place where it lived. David stood across the street from it at nine o'clock, the card in his pocket, Lucas beside him, Becca in the shadows somewhere, Erica watching from the roof across the way.
Lucas was wearing dark clothes for once, which was unsettling, like seeing a dog walk on its hind legs. "I feel like I'm in one of those old spy movies. You know, the ones where the guy in the fancy suit sneaks into the bad guy's building and steals the plans and then there's an explosion."
"There's not going to be an explosion."
"There's always an explosion. It's a rule. You can't sneak into a place like this without something exploding eventually."
David looked at the building, at the lights in the windows, at the guards at the entrance, at the service entrance around the side where Mira had told him to go. "Stay here. If I'm not back in an hour, come find me."
"I'm not staying here."
"Lucas."
"I'm not staying here, David. I didn't come all the way across the city to stand on a street corner while you go into some government building alone." Lucas's face was set, the expression he got when he'd decided something and wasn't going to change his mind. "I'll be quiet. I'll be careful. I'll even be sneaky if I have to. But I'm not staying here."
David looked at him for a moment, at his best friend, at the person who had been with him through everything, at the face that said I'm not going anywhere. "Fine. But you do what I say. When I say it."
"Always."
"You never do what I say."
"This time I will. Promise." Lucas grinned, the tension breaking for a moment. "Now let's go break into a government building."
---
The service entrance was a door at the back of the building, plain and grey, the kind of door that thousands of people used every day and no one ever looked at twice. David held the card to the scanner and the lock clicked open, no alarms, no lights, no sound. Mira had said it would work and it worked.
They moved through corridors that were empty at this hour, the cleaning crews not due for hours, the night staff somewhere on the upper floors. David had the building layout on his phone, a map Erica had pulled from somewhere, a path marked that led from the service entrance to Chen's office on the fourteenth floor.
The elevator was too risky, too many cameras, too many ways to get caught. They took the stairs, climbing in silence, their footsteps echoing off the concrete walls. Lucas was breathing hard by the tenth floor, his size making the climb harder, but he didn't complain, didn't stop, just kept moving.
The door to the fourteenth floor was locked but the card opened it, the same card that had opened the service entrance, the same card that Mira had said would open any door in the building. David wondered how she'd gotten it, what she'd done to get it, what she'd been waiting for all these years.
Chen's office was at the end of a long corridor, a corner office with windows on two sides, a view of the city that stretched for miles. The door was wood, heavy, the kind of door that said important person works here. David held the card to the scanner and it opened.
The office was what he expected. A large desk, leather chairs, bookshelves filled with things that probably never got read. Diplomas on the walls, awards, photographs of Chen with important people at important events. David moved to the desk, started going through the drawers, looking for anything that might tell him what he needed to know.
Lucas stood by the door, watching the corridor, his body tense, his eyes moving. "Find anything?"
"Nothing yet." The drawers were full of the usual things, pens, paper, old files, nothing that mattered. David was about to close the last drawer when his hand touched something at the back, something that wasn't paper or plastic.
A data crystal. Small, black, hidden. He pulled it out, held it up to the light.
"That's it," Lucas said. "That's what we came for."
David pocketed the crystal and was turning to leave when he saw the photograph on the desk. Chen, younger, standing with a group of people at some event he didn't recognize. But one face in the photograph made him stop.
Marcus Vane's father. Standing beside Chen, his arm around her shoulders, both of them smiling at something the camera couldn't see.
David picked up the photograph, stared at the face of the man who had killed his parents, at the woman who had helped him get away with it. "They've known each other for years. They've been working together since the beginning."
Lucas moved to his side, looked at the photograph, his face hardening. "Then we've got them. We've got proof."
David put the photograph back, careful, exact, the way he'd found it. "We've got a start. We've got a crystal we don't know the contents of and a photograph of two people who might have killed my parents standing next to each other. That's not proof. That's a reason to keep looking."
He was at the door when he heard it. Footsteps in the corridor, coming toward them, too many to be a single guard, too fast to be a coincidence.
Lucas heard it too, his body already shifting, his hands already clenching. "Someone's coming."
David looked at the corridor, at the windows, at the door behind them that led to Chen's office and nowhere else. "How many?"
"Three. Maybe four. Moving fast."
They were trapped. The corridor was long, the windows were sealed, the stairs were on the other side of the people coming toward them. David was reaching for his fire, was about to tell Lucas to get ready, was about to do something he couldn't take back, when the lights went out.
The corridor went dark, the office went dark, the whole floor went dark. David couldn't see anything, couldn't hear anything except Lucas's breathing beside him and the footsteps that had stopped somewhere in the darkness.
A voice came from behind them, from Chen's office, from somewhere he couldn't see. "This way. Now."
David turned, his fire flickering in his hand, the light catching a figure in the doorway. A woman, tall, dark hair, eyes that seemed to see everything. He didn't know her, had never seen her before, but something about her made him listen.
"Who are you?"
"I'm the person who just saved your life. Now move."
The footsteps in the corridor were starting again, voices calling out, lights flickering back on somewhere down the hall. David made a decision, grabbed Lucas's arm, and followed the woman into Chen's office and through a door he hadn't noticed before, a door that led to a service corridor, a stairwell, an exit.
They ran. Down stairs, through corridors, past doors that opened for the woman's hand, past guards who didn't see them, past everything that should have stopped them. By the time they burst out onto the street, Becca was there, Erica was there, a car was waiting.
David pulled Lucas into the back seat, the woman sliding in beside them, and the car was moving before the door was closed.
Lucas was breathing hard, his body still shifted, his hands still shaking. "Who the hell are you?"
The woman looked at him, then at David and smiled. It was not a friendly smile. "My name is Elena Vane, Marcus Vane's sister and I've been waiting to meet you for a very long time, David Ashborn."