Page 96 of Fought and Found

I close my mouth.

“She’ll be here shortly,” Morrison says. “I would recommend tea.”

“Morrison, I don’t need you to —“

“Weekly reports,” Morrison says. “On the Torek case. On your staffing. On —“ she glances at Petra, who has begun reading the labelon the tea canister without actually touching it, a compromise that satisfies no one “— personnel development.”

“I’m not reporting to you. I’m not OOPS anymore. SNAG is an independent —“

The Look. Again. Longer this time. The blue eyes that say: you are independent. You are your own operation. And you will send me weekly reports because I trained you and I love you and I will not stop managing your safety just because you changed your job title. The reports are not negotiable. The reports have never been negotiable. The reports are Morrison’s love language and they will arrive on my desk every Friday or I will come to your office and sit in this chair until they do.

“Fine,” I say. “Weekly reports.”

“On Fridays.”

“On Fridays, Morrison.”

“Before noon.”

“Don’t push it.”

The almost-smile again. She touches Petra’s shoulder one more time — brief, firm — and then she sits. Not in a client chair. Against the wall, arms folded, the posture of a woman who is staying to watch what happens next. Because Morrison doesn’t leave before the important part. And the important part hasn’t arrived yet.

Natalie Torres arrives fifteen minutes later at 1510 and I can tell the fairy lights do not impress her.

I can tell because she looks at them, and then she looks at me, and the expression on her face communicates an entire audit report in a single glance. She’s tall — five-nine, athletic, the build of someone who trains daily and not for show. Dark hair in a braid so tight it looks regulation. Brown skin, sharp jaw, and a scar through her left eyebrowthat she wears like a medal. The Junction One security uniform fits her like it was designed around her specifically, and the insignia — HEAD OF STATION SECURITY — is polished to a shine that could cut glass.

She takes in the room. Two alien males. A woman with a stuffed animal on her knee. A woman with a notebook and a claiming mark. Morrison sitting against the wall like a spectator at an event she orchestrated. Fairy lights. A ceramic figurine named Gerald.

“Ms Knight.” She does not say Flossie. She says Ms Knight the way Morrison says Florence — with the full weight of formality as a tool. “I’m Natalie Torres. Director Morrison asked me to coordinate on a missing persons case originating in Junction One jurisdiction.”

“She did.” I stand. Extend my hand. “Flossie. Please.”

Torres shakes my hand. Firm. Precise. One shake, exactly the right pressure, the kind of handshake they teach at military academies and Morrison’s dispatch school. “The missing Xarthian. Torek. I’ve pulled the docking records for the relevant timeframe. Transit logs, security feeds, bay access data — I’ll need a formal coordination request filed before I can release them to a civilian operation.”

“That seems —“

“Unnecessary,” Tael says from the reinforced chair.

Torres’s eyes snap to him. She hasn’t looked at him until now — she looked at Xor first, because Xor is the largest threat in the room, and then at me, because I’m the person she was sent to coordinate with. Tael was furniture. Tael is no longer furniture.

“Excuse me?”

“A formal coordination request. For docking records. There’s a woman dying because her bonded mate is missing and you want paperwork filed before you’ll share the security feed that might showwho took him.” Tael hasn’t stood. He’s still in the reinforced chair, legs stretched out, tail in its lazy spiral, the posture of a male so confident in his own assessment that sitting down while delivering it is its own kind of provocation. “How many forms? Just so I can plan my afternoon.”

Torres’s jaw sets. “The protocols exist to prevent unauthorized access to sensitive station infrastructure. They exist because without them, anyone with a convincing story could walk in and —“

“I don’t need a convincing story. I need twelve hours of docking bay footage from ten months ago. You could pull it in thirty seconds.”

“I could. And then I’d be releasing classified security data to an unvetted civilian contractor operating out of a market office decorated with —“ She looks up. The fairy lights blink back at her. “— decorative lights.”

“They’re festive,” Petra offers from the second chair. Nobody asked her. She doesn’t care.

“They are a fire code violation,” Torres says. “Which I will be noting separately.”

“They are not a fire code violation,” I say. “Sprout ran the specifications.”

“I did,” Sprout confirms. “The fairy lights meet all Junction One safety standards. I have documentation. Would you like me to display it?”