Page 89 of Dozer

"Copy. On my mark, we go simultaneously. Three servers, redundant. Untouchable the second it's out."

My finger hovers over the key. This is it. All the people who decided truth was something they could own simply because they had enough money and power to decide which version everyone else got to hear.

"Mark it."

I hit the sequence. For one heartbeat, nothing happens. Then the screen fills. Upload confirmed. Second server. Confirmed. Third. Confirmed. Files cascade outward faster than anyone can pull them back. Medical records. Financial records. Authentication data. Forensic verification. Everything time-stamped, duplicated, mirrored, released beyond any single person's ability to erase it.

The truth doesn't whisper its way out. It detonates. The digital explosion is large and loud and I am damn proud of it.

"It's live," Ruby says, and there's something dangerously close to triumph in her voice. "It's everywhere. Kenzi, this is done. There's no burying this now."

Done. The word should feel bigger. Instead, all I can hear is the silence behind me.

"Dozer."

No answer.

The bottom drops out of my stomach.

I am moving before I've finished the thought. The laptop stays behind. Evidence secured. Baton forgotten somewhere near the storage cabinet. I run through the lab door and into the corridor, past bodies, shattered glass, blood that I refuse to identify because there are some moments when being a forensic specialist is the worst possible thing a person can be. Every stain tells me something. Every pattern gives me information I don't want.

Then I see him.

He's on the floor near the lab entrance. Two more hostiles are down around him. For one horrible second, Dozer isn't moving. My brain does what it always does. Catalogues. I look at his position, at the blood volume loss, at his skin tone and at his lack of respiration…

No.

"Dozer." I'm on my knees beside him so hard they hit tile.

His eyes open and the change in his face nearly destroys me.

Relief.

He's lying on a museum floor with blood soaking through his shirt, and he's relieved because I'm okay.

"You're okay," he says. His voice is rough, barely there. I could kill him myself. "Evidence?"

I stare at him, blinking hard. Did he just ask me that? "Live. All of it. Ruby confirmed." My hands are already moving, pressure against the wound, training taking over because panic is a luxury I absolutely cannot afford right now. "Don't you dare ask me about the mission right now, you absolute maniac. You're bleeding out on a museum floor."

"Had to ask."

"You absolutely did not."

His mouth moves. The idiot is trying to smile.

"Dozer."

"I'm here."

"Good. Keep doing that. Keep staying here with me."

Blood wells hot against my hands. Too much. There’s too much damn blood. I know what that means. For years, knowing the body has been my advantage. I can look at damage and turn it into information. Right now, I would give anything to know less.

"You had one job," I tell him, and my voice cracks despite every effort to keep it steady. "You had one actual job, and it was not getting shot."

"Pretty sure there were other jobs."

"This is not the moment to discover conversational range." That does it. A breath leaves him that might actually be a laugh, weak and painful and the best sound I've ever heard. My eyes burn as I fight back tears. "Stay with me."