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I pointed at the terminal. “Administrative fraud usually has a simple purpose.”
“Such as?”
“Money. Access. Covering a mistake. Hiding somebody’s incompetence. Getting someone approved who should’ve been denied.”
He nodded once.
“This is too complicated,” I said.
“How?”
“Too many moving parts.”
I gestured toward the columns. “Different warriors. Different women. Different status changes. Different dates. Different sample discrepancies. Somebody altered records after deaths, transfers, reassignments, and unavailable matches.”
Veyr’s gaze moved back to the screen. I could see him thinking. Not looking for reasons I was wrong. Looking for weaknesses in the pattern. That was different. Better.
“If somebody just wanted to fake one compatibility result,” I continued, “they would change one result.”
“Yes.”
“If they wanted to hide one mismatched sample, they would fix one manifest.”
“Yes.”
“If they wanted to protect one warrior or one woman, they would manipulate one file.”
His eyes narrowed. “But this is selective.”
“Exactly.”
I pointed to the list. “Not everything is changed.”
That mattered. A lot.
The majority of records were untouched. Normal. Boring. Which made the altered ones more important.
“Random corruption would spread everywhere,” I said. “Bad software. Migration errors. A damaged archive. You’d expect noise.”
“And this?”
“Clusters.”
He was quiet. I could feel the idea settling between us. Clusters meant intent.
I pulled another record forward. “This one.”
Veyr read it. “Human female. Earth acquisition. Initial compatibility high.”
“Then lowered after the matched warrior died.”
“Yes.”
“Mine did the same thing.”
His gaze flicked toward me. That part still felt strange. Not emotionally. Clinically. My own life had become one of the data points. I hated that.
“Now look at this one.”
