I open my eyes and look at the files again.
“God,” I say. “There is no floor.”
Rhyx’s mouth tightens. “There rarely is.”
I stand up too fast and pace once to the window, then back again. The apartment suddenly feels too small for the amount of government rot sitting on my table. Rain streaks the glass. The city beyond is all blurred amber and slate. Somewhere below, a siren flickers past and fades.
“If I release this,” I say, mostly to myself, “the Senate breaks open.”
Rhyx does not move. “Yes.”
“The reform coalitions weaponize it immediately. Civilian trust implodes. League loyalists call the inquiry illegitimate. Coalition hardliners call the ceasefire fraudulent from inception.”
“Yes.”
“I know what happens next,” I say, and now I’m looking at him because I need the truth to have another witness in the room or I might start lying to myself just to sleep. “Not tomorrow. Not in one dramatic instant. But fast enough. Sanctions. Fleet posturing. Security incidents. Everyone claiming defense. Everyone claiming they’re the one acting responsibly while the architecture burns.”
He holds my gaze. “Yes.”
I hate that he agrees. I hate more that he’s right.
“And if I sit on it,” I say, quieter now, “then I become what I hated.”
“No.”
The answer comes so fast it almost startles me.
I stare at him.
His expression is steady, but there’s an old grief in it now, something worn and knowing. “Choosing not to trigger mass retaliation with incomplete capacity to contain it is not the same as burying civilian deaths for strategic advantage.”
I cross my arms because suddenly I need something to hold. “That sounds dangerously close to strategic argument.”
“It is moral argument informed by strategy,” he says. “Those are not always the same thing.”
I look away.
Because the bastard is right in the most infuriating possible register.
I go back to the table and start building encrypted copies.
If I can’t release it, I can’t leave it singular. I won’t make that mistake. Not after the archives. Not after Kirell. My fingers move through security layers automatically—multi-key fragmentation, mirrored vault partitioning, timed decoy headers. I create three encrypted copies, route them through separate dead-storage channels, and lock the original packet in an offline partition under a civilian key structure no tribunal or Senate office will casually trip over.
Rhyx watches in silence for a while, then asks, “Who gets access.”
“No one,” I say.
“For now.”
I stop long enough to meet his eyes. “Maybe forever.”
The words hurt in a specific way. Not like cowardice. Like choosing to hold a live charge in your bare hands because throwing it would kill people you can’t even see yet.
He nods once. No triumph in it. No relief. Just understanding.
I finish the final encryption seal. The projection compresses into three small confirmation glyphs and then goes dark one by one until only the original folio remains.
I shut it.
