Chapter 18 - Seraphina #2
My heart hammered, and the old animal urge to run was back, stronger than ever. But I’d lived my whole life with a ghost in the passenger seat—this was just another turn in the maze.
I pressed the button.
It rang five times, then routed me to a staffer. A brisk voice answered: “St. James office. How may I direct your call?”
“This is Dr. Seraphina Dalton. Los Alamos Adaptive Systems. I have to speak with the Senator. It’s urgent.”
There was a pause, the kind only trained assistants can make sound like routine. “The Senator is unavailable. Is this regarding the current appropriations bill?”
“No,” I said. “It’s about Blue Spirit. It’s about Russian operatives infiltrating American soil, and about the possibility of imminent loss of life.”
Another pause. Longer.
“I’ll need your credentials.”
I gave them. The staffer verified. Then transferred.
Five minutes later, I was on with a different voice, female, clipped, direct. “Please state your emergency for the record.”
I didn’t say what had happened to me. I didn’t describe the van, or the duct tape, or the way Nitro had come for me with the certainty of a bomb finding its target.
I just said, “They want Blue Spirit. The code is not safe. I have evidence of a foreign actor, and I have proof that the official story is a lie.”
The line was silent for a full breath. Then: “Can you come to the Senator’s office in Santa Fe? Nine a.m. tomorrow.”
“Yes,” I said.
The call ended. I let my hand drop to the desk, the watch face smearing a line of sweat onto the fake wood grain.
At home, the place was exactly as I left it, with lights off, curtains drawn, the ghost of the fire pit lurking behind the sliding glass.
I set my bag on the table and moved through the rooms in a pattern, locking every window, checking every blind spot.
The coffee mug I’d abandoned two days ago was still in the sink, a ring of dried brown at the bottom.
I didn’t shower. I didn’t undress. I just sat on the edge of the bed, watch still on my wrist, and waited for the fear to bleed out of me.
It never did.
At 3 a.m., I woke to the sound of the elevator in the hallway, a distant metal rattle. I sat up, pulse racing, and waited for footsteps that never came. I realized I was at home.
At 4:17, I dreamed of the van, and the duct tape, and the way Nitro’s arms had felt when they wrapped around my ribs to pull me free. I woke with my hands at my neck, tracing the line where his fingers had checked for a pulse.
I wanted to call him. I wanted to tell him what I was about to do. But the last thing I wanted was to bring him into this again.
He’d saved my life. He’d done enough.
I lay back down, the ceiling above me a blank white expanse. I closed my eyes, counted to a hundred, then to a thousand, and let the numbers scrub my mind clean.
When dawn broke, I got up, dressed, and drove to Santa Fe with the watch on my wrist and the plan alive in my skull.
***
Senator Carly St. James’s office was everything you’d expect from a woman with enemies in three time zones and the ear of a standing President.
The lobby was a refrigerated shrine to American power: glass walls, marble floors, the Stars and Stripes in a state of perpetual salute.
The receptionist—a blur of lipstick and threat—directed me to the elevator with the smile of someone who could arrange a black bag rendition with a single email.
Upstairs, two men in earpieces scanned my ID and my bag, then ushered me down a corridor lined with photographs. I counted five Presidents, three Secretaries of Defense, and a dozen generals. In the background of one, blurry but unmistakable, was Damron, younger, jaw even harder than I remembered.
The senator’s inner office had its own gravity.
High ceiling, flag at her back, a wall of windows overlooking the Sangre de Cristo mountains.
The desk was a monolith—real wood, not the laminate I was used to—and she sat behind it with the posture of someone who expected the world to obey her or burn trying.
She stood as I entered. Taller than I’d thought, athletic, hair pulled back tight. Her suit was black, crisp enough to cut. She offered a hand, businesslike. I shook it, feeling the bones in her fingers and the calculation behind her eyes.
“Dr. Dalton,” she said. Her voice was tuned to the room, just enough volume to own the space but never overshoot. “Thank you for coming on such short notice.”
I nodded, sat when she gestured to the chair.
“You said it was urgent,” she prompted.
I took the watch from my pocket and set it on the desk, face down. “You know about the attack. But you don’t know everything about it.”
She didn’t blink. “Enlighten me.”
I did, in as few words as possible. “Russian asset extraction. They wanted Blue Spirit. They failed, but they won’t stop. The Feds think I’m compromised. They want me to testify against the man who saved my life.”
She arched a brow, just a millimeter. “The MC connection.”
I nodded. “Nitro. They’re painting him as the perpetrator.”
“And he isn’t.”
I slid the watch toward her. “Play the third file.”
She picked it up, turned it over, and navigated the menus with more dexterity than I expected.
When Nitro’s voice crackled out, low and unvarnished—Get behind me, Doc.
Now—she listened, eyes narrowing. She replayed it.
Then she set the watch down, index finger tapping the band in a slow, lethal rhythm.
“This is good,” she said. “But it’s not enough to rewrite the narrative. The Bureau has a motive; so does your rescuer.”
I leaned in, lowered my voice to match her wavelength. “You know that my project isn’t just research. It’s operational. You know the implications if the wrong people get it. This isn’t about criminal liability. This is about national security.”
She steepled her hands, and for the first time, I saw something like uncertainty slip behind the eyes. “You’re not wrong. But the Justice Department is already in motion. I can’t just order them off the case.”
I took a breath, let it out slow. “I know about your husband. I know the history with the Scythes. I’m not here to threaten you. I’m here to make you an offer.”
The moment hung, brittle.
She didn’t look surprised. She looked tired, the way old warriors do when the war has moved on without them. “And the offer is?”
“Clear his name. Make it disappear. I’ll testify that he saved me. I’ll make the project unhackable. You get credit for preventing a disaster and a campaign narrative about government overreach. Win-win.”
She smiled, a cold knife-edge of white. “You’ve thought this through.”
I shrugged. “It’s my job.”
She pressed a button on her phone. “Give me the number for the Deputy AG,” she said, then released it. She stood, walked to the window, and arms folded behind her back. “They’ll need corroboration. You have any witnesses?”
I shook my head. “Just a dead Russian and a lot of broken glass.”
She nodded, still staring at the mountains. “That’s sometimes all it takes.”
She turned back to me, eyes flat as obsidian. “You understand this will not make you many friends in the Bureau.”
“I don’t have friends,” I said.
She almost laughed, but it came out as a sigh. “Fine. I’ll make the call. You’ll be deposed, but you’ll have protection. Your man will be in the clear. For now.”
I stood. “Thank you.”
She offered her hand again, and this time the shake was firmer, an agreement hammered out in a heartbeat.
As I walked out, I caught a glimpse of her on the phone, voice low, urgent, the world already reshaping itself to the new data.
In the hallway, I paused, let the adrenaline wash out of my system. My legs trembled, but only a little.
I made my way to the elevator, not looking at the photographs, not looking back.
For the first time in days, I felt like something had shifted. Maybe not enough to fix anything, but enough to buy a little time.
In science, that’s all you can ever ask for.
***
The sun was setting as I walked into the lab for the second time that day.
The parking lot was an empty void, lit by a handful of sodium arcs and the blue pulse of the perimeter alarm.
I scanned the badge, stepped inside, and was greeted by the usual: the security camera eye over the door, the faint echo of my own footsteps, the absence of any other living soul.
The Adaptive Systems corridor felt even colder at night. The overheads had been dimmed to half-strength, and the glow from the server rack was the only light worth a damn. I made my way to my carrel, unlocked it, and sat. The chair creaked under me, sharp and sudden in the silence.
I opened my notebook. Stared at the equations on the screen until the symbols swam, then split and recombined into a fractal I couldn’t follow.
I looked up, caught my own reflection in the black of the monitor.
The face there was cracked, split by lines of fatigue and the shadow of what I’d almost lost.
I waited.
At 7:43 p.m., my phone rang.
I let it buzz once, twice, then picked up. My hand was shaking. It always did, now.
“This is Dr. Dalton,” I said.
The voice on the other end was a stranger’s, professional, uninflected.
“Dr. Dalton, this is Deputy U.S. Attorney Miller. We’re calling to inform you that the charges against Seager Culberson are under review, in light of new evidence.
There will be a formal hearing, but for now, there is no action required from you. You may be called as a witness.”
I managed to sound normal. “Thank you.”
He hung up without another word.
I set the phone down. Stared at the equations again, saw them for what they were: just numbers, just another language for the same old problem. I pressed my palms to my eyes, hard enough to see stars.
When I could see again, I laughed. It was a stupid sound, sharp and too loud in the vacuum of the lab.
I didn’t call Nitro. I didn’t even write his name. But for the first time since the ranger station, I let myself believe that things might not end exactly the way the world wanted them to.
I gathered my things, zipped my bag, and paused at the threshold. The security camera in the corner was still aimed at my desk. I straightened my shoulders, made sure the mask was in place, and walked out with my head up.
The parking lot was empty, but I scanned the shadows anyway. Not because I was scared, but because it’s what you do, after.
The air was cold and sharp, the sky so clear it hurt to look at. I got in my car, turned the key, and let the engine catch.
For the first time in weeks, I wasn’t waiting for disaster. I was just waiting to see what came next.
It felt like progress.