Page 81 of Pocket Wife

“Corporate predecessor filings. Trust merger histories. Registry shells used before Helix consolidated its extraction license. And a temporary administrative seal matching the same amendment chain.”

Kaun speaks at last, voice controlled. “Specialist Veyr, you are approaching allegations against Authority leadership.”

“I am already standing inside them.”

A few witnesses shift. No one interrupts.

Salo turns toward Kaun’s seal. “Director Kaun, does the Authority possess Director Kade’s protected memorial archive?”

“Yes,” Kaun says.

“Can it be opened?”

“Not under ordinary review.”

Lucy’s voice cuts in from the resident table. “This is not ordinary.”

I don’t look at her. I can’t afford to. Through the bond, I feel her anger like a hand at my back, not pushing, simply refusing to let me stand alone.

Kaun’s face appears fully on a secondary display. She looks older than she did two days ago. Or perhaps less hidden by office. “Memorial archives contain private correspondence, internal deliberations, and personnel records. Releasing one requires either criminal threshold or direct tribunal order.”

Salo’s expression hardens. “Then the tribunal asks whether criminal threshold has been met.”

Sen cuts in. “Adjudicator, Helix objects. This hearing concerns provisional relocation, not a fishing expedition through Authority history.”

I face her. “A fishing expedition does not begin with a hidden archive opened by a dead director, followed by altered land classifications, coerced administrators, falsified consent language, and a claimant attempting emergency enforcement before authentication can finish.”

Torren mutters from the back, “Sounds like a very full pond.”

Jessa elbows him.

Salo ignores them both. “Objection noted. Director Kaun, preliminary criminal threshold?”

Kaun is silent long enough for the room to hear the drones outside.

Then she says, “Met.”

Corvek stands. The movement is abrupt enough to distort his display. “Director, be careful.”

Kaun’s eyes move to him. “That sounded like advice.”

“It is.”

“No,” she says. “It sounded like memory.”

For once since I met her, Director Kaun lets anger show.

Not much.

Enough.

She opens a sealed Authority channel. The chamber display shifts from tribunal blue to archival white. A warning appears.

Memorial archive access: Director Arven Kade. Protected record. Criminal threshold invocation required.

Kaun enters her authorization.

The first file opens.