They found it in a sealed archive.
Not hidden—finished.
The kind of document meant to end conversations.
Noah opened the file and immediately went still.
"Oh," he said quietly. "This is thorough."
---
Cause of death: Confirmed.
Body recovery: Verified.
Biometric match: 100%.
Witness corroboration: Multiple.
Every checkbox satisfied. Every doubt preempted.
"They built this to survive scrutiny," Noah said. "Internal. External. Historical."
Aria scanned the pages without blinking.
Time of death.
Environmental conditions.
A medical breakdown detailed enough to convince a coroner who'd never met her.
Even the phrasing was familiar.
"Protocol-grade language," she said. "No emotion. No flourish."
Her eyes stopped on an appendix.
Appendix C — Post-Termination Risk Assessment
She frowned.
"That shouldn't exist," she said.
---
The appendix assumed movement after death.
Asset drift.
Loyalist behavior.
Residual influence.
"They modeled the fallout," Noah said slowly. "Not just the end."
"And they planned for it," Aria replied.
---
Near the end sat the signatures.
Three names.
Two were dead.
The third was redacted—not blacked out, but removed, leaving a gap in the formatting like a missing tooth.
No alias.
No department.
Just absence.
"That's deliberate," Noah said.
Aria nodded. "You don't erase a name unless you expect someone to look."
---
She leaned back.
"They didn't write this to bury me," she said.
"They wrote it to stabilize the system."
Noah swallowed. "By making sure no one came looking."
"Yes," Aria said. "And by making sure that if I ever came back…"
She tapped the screen lightly.
"…there'd be no room to argue whether I should exist."
The report closed with a final line:
Case resolved. Further inquiry unnecessary.
Aria stared at it for a long moment.
Then she smiled faintly.
"They were wrong about one thing," she said.
Noah looked at her. "What?"
She stood.
"Inquiry is never unnecessary," Aria said.