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Mission number. Black priority. Target: Talia Mercer. Restricted reproductive data compromised. Potential hostile dissemination. Recovery authorized. Termination conditional.

Nothing new.

Then I opened the metadata.

And stopped.

The original mission creation timestamp appeared first.

Then supporting evidence.

Then threat designation.

Then the alleged theft.

I checked the sequence twice. Something was wrong.

Talia noticed before I spoke.

“You’ve been staring at the same screen for five minutes.”

“I am reading.”

“You don’t blink much when you’re worried.”

I glanced at her.

She returned to the authorization strip as though that observation required no follow-up.

I opened the deeper audit trail.

The system requested an authentication key that no longer existed. Expected.

I bypassed it with an emergency field cipher.

That should not have worked.

It did.

My pulse slowed. Not because I was calm. Because I was angry.

Talia set the strip down. “What?”

I expanded the timeline. “Come here.”

She was beside me immediately.

No argument.

That was becoming more common when she heard something in my voice.

She leaned over my shoulder. “What am I looking at?”

“Mission creation.”

Her gaze followed the timestamp. “Okay.”

I opened the alleged theft event beneath it.