"Sometimes."

"People who don't look like they can afford the ticket?"

Claire lowered her eyes. "Sometimes."

Daniel nodded. "Thank you."

The second login was not a rumor. The audit trail recorded a workstation, an access token, and a time. None of those details belonged to Daniel's physical movements that morning. Robert printed the event summary and sealed it in an evidence envelope rather than trusting the same network to preserve it. "What if the record itself is false?" Claire asked. "Then we need the original signal," Daniel replied. "And if someone has erased that as well, we need to know who was allowed to erase it." The question hung in the room while another departure was called. Robert's hands moved quickly over the keyboard, then stopped. He was beginning to understand how the terminal had learned to ignore its own warnings. One team saw a complaint, another saw a system event, and a third saw an unexplained access request.

Chapter 04 — The Name in the Archive

Robert unlocked the historical archive using a second operator's witness code, a control Thomas Cross himself had written into the system years earlier. A faded note appeared beneath Thomas's employee record: IF THIS FILE OPENS WITHOUT A WITNESS, STOP READING. “Someone has been here before us,” Robert whispered. Daniel remembered his father giving him an old mechanical watch. Never trust a clock that everybody can reset, he had said. Now three timestamps in the archive contradicted one another. Daniel placed the watch on the desk as if it could settle an argument with the past. “Find the physical maintenance log,” he told Robert. “Not a scan. The book with ink on the pages.”

She looked confused. "For what?"

"For telling the truth."

Robert was watching the security terminal. He suddenly interrupted. "I found something."

Daniel walked over. A map of Terminal Four appeared. A red dot was blinking near Gate 41. "What's that?"

"Unauthorized access node."

"How far?"

"About two hundred yards from here."

Daniel stared at the map. "Gate 41."

Robert nodded. "Yes."

Daniel frowned. "That's strange."

"Why?"

"Gate 41 isn't assigned today."

Robert checked. "You're right."

"Then why is the system active there?"

Robert pulled up the gate schedule. Nothing. No flight. No boarding. No crew. No maintenance assignment. The gate shouldn't have been connected to the live network. Yet the unauthorized access was coming from there. Daniel looked at Robert. "Who's supposed to have access to Gate 41?"

"Maintenance."

"Anyone else?"

"Security."