Page 221 of Operation: Defiance

Chapter Sixty

Asher

I rub the back of my neck, the tension turning my shoulders to granite. We’ve been at this all day. Checking and cross-referencing every file that ends abruptly. Every RJ-3 escalation. Every retirement memo.

By the time we finish the last file, we have eighty-seven names written in the notebook between us.

A little after four, we start working through those names one at a time. All the while, my dark phone screen sits like a lead weight on the table.

Raine’s thoughts turn to Ellen more than once. I can always tell. She goes still. All except for her hands. The tremor returns whenever she’s stressed. I should have found a doctor I could pay off. Gotten her an MRI. Treatment. Even if it would have been risky.

We work side by side, checking each of the eight-seven names against public databases, professional licensing boards, property tax records.

I use my connections to access voter registrations and credit reports.

People always leave traces somewhere.

We don’t speak much. Brief check-ins with what we’ve found. Tea and coffee refills. The occasional clarifying question. This is too important for small talk.

Raine moves quicker than I do, cross-referencing two systems at once, running secondary searches without breaking the rhythm of the first.

When a lead dead-ends, she doesn’t linger over it. She pivots. She’s composed, but I can see the effort it takes to stay that way.

By five, the sun is a distant memory and the rain hits the windows in sheets. I need to stretch. To move muscles that have been locked up tight for too long.

I pick up my phone for the tenth time, checking the screen, but there’s nothing. No message from my client. Nothing new from GSD.

Opening the fridge, I pull out six apples, butter, and flour. I have no idea if Raine likes apple pie, but baking is meditation with sugar.

Once I’ve made the pie crust dough, I return to the list. An hour later, we’ve found thirty-six that resolve to something. Driver’s licenses, tax records, mortgages.

All evidence of messy, verifiable lives.

The remaining column is cleaner because there’s nothing there. No death certificates, no employment records, no forwarding addresses.

Fifty-one names that don’t exist after they were escalated to RJ-3 and sent to Coherent Path.

Raine stares at the second list for more than five full minutes, her fingers trembling along the edge of the laptop.

“We can’t do anything more with these tonight,” she says. “I’m going to start working on my affidavit. As much as I can get through without the Procedure Index.”

I offer her my hand, and when she takes it, I bring her fingers to my lips. “You’re running on fumes. That’s not strategy. That’s exhaustion.”

“What else am I supposed to do, Asher?” she snaps. “They’re going to shock Ellen. Three times. Increasing amplitude. Do you know what happens after the current goes through your head? You have a seizure. In a hospital—when it’s actually used for therapy—they sedate you so there’s no pain. Coherent Path doesn’t give anyone that luxury.”

She draws in a shaky breath. “The first one is short. Fifteen, maybe twenty seconds. The next is longer. Thirty or forty seconds. And the third…that’s the worst one. Mine lasted almost a full minute.” Tears spill from her eyes. “Nothing in my life has ever hurt so much. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. If I let her go through that…I’ll never forgive myself.”

“You’re not giving yourself up.” It’s the closest I’ve ever come to telling her what to do. Right now, she’s too raw to see anything but the one option I refuse to entertain. “If they take you, there won’t be anyone left who can actually stop them. I’d try—until my last breath, I’d try—but I’m outside the system. I didn’t survive it. You did. You’re the only one who can end it.”

She pulls her hand away, turns back to the computer, and opens the first image—the one of her wrists. “I know. You don’t get to carry this for me, Asher. I have to do it alone.”

It doesn’t matter that she’s right. I still want to tear the whole goddamn world apart to fix it for her. Frustration settles in my shoulders. I grit my teeth hard enough my molars scrape against one another. This building has a gym. I could go down to the basement and punch a heavy bag for half an hour. But that wouldn’t solve anything. So I move to the kitchen. Pie won’t fix this either, but it’ll give me something to focus on.

By the time the pie goes into the oven, I’ve run through more than a dozen scenarios. Everything from going public with what we have now to disappearing in Costa Rica. Only one of them keeps Raine safe and has the potential to stop Ellen’s disposal. If only I thought Raine would agree.

I’m pulling the pie from the oven when my phone vibrates on the counter.

Client 7.