Chapter 9
SELENE
The memo interface hangs in the air above my desk like a confession waiting to be signed, its blank fields crisp and unforgiving beneath tribunal-white light.
My fingers hover over the projected keyboard for a long moment, not because I don’t know what to write, but because I know exactly what writing it will do; once you name sabotage inside a machine that survives by pretending it cannot be sabotaged, the machine either swallows you or tries to make you look insane.
Outside my office pod—if you can call a glass-walled cubicle with a locking door an office—tribunal staff move in brisk, anxious patterns, their voices muffled by privacy fields but still detectable in the small rises and falls of tone that signal panic.
The building smells of warmed circuitry and over-brewed stimulants, the bitter tang of coffee clinging to recycled air like an accusation.
Somewhere overhead, broadcast drones reposition, their stabilizers whispering, because even administrative hallways have become part of the show now.
I do not look up.
I type.
To: High Arbiter Solenne Drax — Office of Tribunal Authority
CC: Internal Ethics Review Panel; Evidence Chain Oversight
Subject: Internal Concern Memo — Evidence Integrity Irregularity / Unlogged Maintenance Window / Secondary File Corruption
Case: Kirell Evacuation Corridor — Varos, R.
I force myself to keep the language dry. Not because I feel dry, but because dry language is armor.
Summary: Secondary archive confirmation file retrieval (approved under tribunal authority) was rendered unavailable via “corruption” flag following an unlogged overnight maintenance override.
Audit trail indicates anomalous access permissions spike within maintenance interval, and supporting log data is unavailable.
The sequence suggests deliberate tampering with evidentiary chain.
My jaw aches from how hard I’m clenching it.
I attach the vault audit excerpt. The timestamp.
The maintenance window anomaly. The corruption flag screenshot.
I add the note about the system health diagnostics spike, because patterns matter, and I refuse to let anyone wave it off as “entropy” without having to explain why entropy follows clearance protocols.
At the end, I add a single sentence that feels like stepping off a ledge.
Request: Immediate inquiry into maintenance authorization, associated personnel clearances, and restoration attempts; preservation of remaining evidence chain to prevent further compromise.
My thumb hovers over SEND.
My compad vibrates on the desk, a soft pulse against metal.
I ignore it.
I press send anyway.
The memo transmits with a small chime that sounds far too cheerful for what I’ve just done.
For a moment, the room feels too quiet, the kind of quiet that comes right before someone decides whether to applaud or shoot.
I exhale slowly, tasting metal at the back of my throat, and only then do I glance at my compad.
It’s not another media alert this time.
It’s tribunal-wide communications.
TRIBUNAL NOTICE: Due to public interest and diplomatic urgency, the tribunal will implement an accelerated procedural timeline. Sentencing phase scheduling will be advanced pending evidentiary review.
I stare at the words until they blur slightly, as if my eyes are refusing to cooperate with the reality my brain is processing.
Accelerated.
Public interest.
Diplomatic urgency.
It’s dressed in polite language, but it reads like a threat: shut up, hurry up, and stop poking at the rot.
A laugh escapes me, short and sharp, more bark than humor.
“Of course,” I mutter. “Of course you’d speed-run justice the second someone points at the evidence vault.”
The glass wall of my cubicle reflects my face back at me—too pale under tribunal lighting, eyes too bright, expression caught between fury and disbelief.
I force my shoulders down, force my breathing into something resembling calm, because if I look like I’m spiraling, I’ll hand them the exact narrative they want.
Emotionally compromised.
Unstable.
Remove her.
I stand abruptly, chair scraping softly against the floor, and the sound makes a passing staffer glance my way. She looks away fast, like I’m contagious.
I leave the pod and head toward the secured corridor that leads to custody review suites, moving fast enough that my boots strike sharp, controlled echoes against the marble.
The tribunal complex is awake now, fully awake, and it feels like walking through the belly of a beast that has decided it might have swallowed something dangerous.
As I move, compads flicker in hands around me, people whispering, some with excitement, some with fear. A legal clerk mutters to another, “Sentencing’s being moved up—” and the other replies, “They’re trying to stop the bleed—” and then they see me and shut up.
Good.
Shut up.
Let the silence choke you.
At the custody suite entrance, a tribunal officer blocks my path with a polite rigidity.
“Liaison Ardent,” he says, scanning my badge. “Access requires scheduled appointment.”
“I’m scheduled,” I lie, and the lie tastes like acid, but this is what they taught us—procedure is a weapon, and if you’re not willing to use it, you will be used.
He hesitates, then checks his compad. His brow furrows slightly. “I don’t have you—”
“I was added under expedited review,” I say, and I hate how easily the words come out, like I’ve always been good at sounding official.
He studies my face for a beat too long, then steps aside. “Five minutes.”
“Plenty,” I reply, and my voice is colder than I intend.
The custody corridor smells faintly of antiseptic and recycled air. The lighting is dimmer, the walls matte, the sound dampened as if the building wants to swallow any human noise that might be inconvenient.
An officer leads me to a small interview room—gray composite walls, a table bolted to the floor, two chairs, a recording node embedded in the corner like an unblinking eye.
The hum of security fields vibrates faintly under the floor, a constant reminder that this place is designed to contain bodies and truths.
Rhyx Varos is already there, seated, binders glowing faint blue at his wrists. He looks up when I enter, pale gold eyes steady, face carved into controlled calm.
The officer gestures. “Five minutes.”
He shuts the door behind me.
The recording node hums softly.
I don’t sit.
Rhyx’s gaze flicks briefly to the node, then back to me. “You should sit,” he says, voice low.
“I’m fine,” I answer, and the words are nonsense because I’m vibrating with fury.
His eyes narrow slightly. “Something happened.”
“Something always happens,” I snap, then bite down hard on the edge of my own anger. I inhale once, slow, then speak again with deliberate precision. “I filed an internal concern memo about the corrupted secondary file.”
Rhyx’s posture stills. “And?”
“And within hours, the tribunal announces an accelerated sentencing timeline,” I say, and my voice shakes despite my efforts to steady it. “Public interest and diplomatic urgency, they say. As if rushing the outcome makes the truth less messy.”
Rhyx’s jaw tightens. The binders hum faintly as his hands curl against the table. “They are closing the window.”
“Yes,” I say sharply. “They are slamming it shut.”
He looks at me for a long moment, his expression unreadable, then he exhales slowly. “They do not want you digging.”
“No kidding.”
I finally sit, because if I don’t, I might pace, and pacing looks like instability on record.
For a heartbeat, neither of us speaks. The hum of the recording node fills the silence like a reminder of consequence.
Then I lean forward, fingers pressing against the table’s cool alloy, and the question that has been chewing at my ribs since the clarification session forces its way out.
“Why didn’t you contest it?” I ask, voice low but sharp. “Back then. After Kirell. After the war cooled enough for negotiations. Why didn’t you stand up and say, ‘Hey, this corridor shifted, and it wasn’t me’?”
Rhyx’s gaze holds mine, steady, heavy. He does not flinch from the question, which somehow makes it worse.
“Because I didn’t have proof,” he says.
“That’s not an answer,” I reply, and the words come out harsher than intended, but I can’t help it. “That’s a reason to look for proof, not a reason to die quietly with everyone thinking you killed forty-seven thousand people.”
His eyes narrow slightly, not in anger, but in something like pain.
“Selene,” he says, using my name in a way that feels too direct, too human in this room, “the Coalition was ready to retaliate. The ceasefire talks were held together with spit and fear. If I accused the League of override interference without documentation, Coalition hawks would have used it as justification to mobilize. The war would have reignited.”
I stare at him, feeling heat climb into my face, my chest tight with a pressure that wants to become either sobbing or screaming.
“So you sacrificed the truth for stability,” I say, voice trembling with contained rage.
“I sacrificed a suspicion,” he replies, voice steady. “For the chance that the guns would finally stop.”
The words hit, and something in me breaks just enough to let the real anger through.
“You chose personal execution,” I spit, and the sound of it in my own mouth shocks me with its bitterness. “You chose to get yourself hanged like a neat little ribbon tied around the war so everyone could clap and say the universe is fair.”
Rhyx does not react outwardly, but his jaw flexes once, muscle shifting under scaled skin.
“You think this is neat?” he asks quietly.
“I think you made it easy,” I fire back. “You made it easy for them to pin it on you, package it, broadcast it, and move on. And you did it like it was… noble.”
His gaze hardens. “It was not noble.”
“Then what was it?” I demand.