Still shaken by the experience, he had wandered through the streets, not knowing where he was going.

A buzz in his head told him there was an incoming holocall. He mechanically pressed two fingers against his temple.

“Halden? Are you alright?”

“Hi Vina. Yes. I’m fine.”

“Good grief! I just heard the news. I was so scared you were still in there...”

“No. I... No. Got out just before...”

“Halden! What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know... I don’t feel too good.”

“Go to a doctor! Right away!”

“No, no, it’ll pass, I’m sure. I need... What do I need?” He suddenly remembered why he had gone to the Regency. “Oh. Oh! I have to go, Vina. I’ll call you back.”

“Halden! Don’t you dare—”

He hung up and hurried down the street, looking all around him. He needed a place where he could sit down and focus. Not an inn or a tavern, it would be too noisy. A hotel would work...

Halden laughed when he remembered he was on Bernice. He could just go home.

He stopped at a Holscreen Terminal and ordered a hovercab. Five minutes later, it dropped him in front of his house.

It felt like he had been gone for years, but it was good to be back. Though he did not take time to bask in his pleasure.

There was more urgent business he needed to attend to.

He hurried to his desk, sat down, and sent the data from the chip to his TriVid screen.

The face of his daughter appeared, floating in the air before him, as beautiful as he remembered her. Though she did not look well. She seemed younger, too, as if this had been recorded some years prior. He couldn’t tell when exactly.

“Hi dad,” she said, and he could hear the strain in her voice. She was worried about something. She fidgeted with her pendant, looking down. “I shouldn’t be doing this, but I need to tell someone... even if you never actually see this. I think it’ll do me good to just get it off my chest. I just hope Rees doesn’t find out. He’d be mad as hell. But it’s for his own good, too. If anything happened to us...”

She stopped to wipe her cheeks. As resolve shot through her, she straightened and looked into the camera.

“Okay. I’m doing this. Dad. Rees is in trouble. We both are, to be honest, because he told me things he shouldn’t have. Things he was asked not to tell anyone. Not even to me.” She bit down on her lips. “That’s why I can’t actually send this to you. That would put you in danger as well. Damn it!”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

The recording stopped, then picked up again, probably recorded another day as Lucy now wore different clothes.

“Sorry, dad, but this is hard. As you know, Rees works on a confidential project for the government. He—”

Halden paused the recording and stood, staring at his daughter’s face.

No, no, no... She was about to reveal secrets. That wasn’t good. Not good at all. Secrets that belonged to Rees. That he had been sworn not to share. If his employers found out...

He went very pale.

This couldn’t be real. If it was, it meant the government was behind her death.

But why hadn’t they killed Rees too?

Because they still needed him, he realized bitterly.

He didn’t want to know about the secrets, but he needed to know why his daughter had been killed.

His eyes hardened as he started up the recording again.

“—was appointed to work on this thing, an alien device that was found decades ago, out on the rim. After all this time, it remained a puzzle. They’d discovered some things, like what it was made of, but they still didn’t know what its real purpose was. They couldn’t even open it and go inside! But Rees figured it out.” There was pride in his daughter’s voice. It eclipsed her concern, though only for a brief moment. “He could see things, patterns, that nobody else noticed. He ran new tests and... the damn thing opened! Inside, they found weird architecture and strange seats. Soon, he was able to confirm what some had suspected: the device could affect the weather. The powers-that-be summoned him and asked him all sorts of questions.”

Lucy fell quiet and looked to the side. She reached out and grabbed a cup. After sipping from it, she put it down and turned to the camera again.

“Dad, they want to use it as a weapon. The government. Can you imagine? They could go to any planet and use that device to create earthquakes, hurricanes, anything that would devastate cities and crush the enemy. Rees did not like that, but he dared not say anything.” She put her head in her hands. “It’s all my fault! I shouldn’t have pressed him with questions when he became so gloomy... But I was worried about him! I couldn’t help it. He wouldn’t answer me at first, but it was eating him inside. And so one day he cracked and he spilled it all out. He told me everything. Then made me swear never to tell anyone else. So I swore.” She bit down on her lip. “I’m not really telling you, so I’m not breaking my promise, okay? I’ll probably just erase this... And maybe record it again in a week. And again.”

She screamed as she buried her head in her hands once more, shaking it. Then she stopped the recording.

Halden waited, but she did not return.

She was gone.

Really gone.

That was it.

All that was left of his precious daughter.

He unclipped the chip and hid it back in his wristpad.

The government must have found out that she knew.

They couldn’t punish Rees, but they could punish Lucy.

Silence her.

And it would have served as a lesson, too.

Coldness gripped his heart as he thought back to his conversation with the visor.

Perhaps your mind has been dulled by your losses, had said Rash.

What did he know of his losses?

Was he the man who had ordered the murder?

Because this had been murder.

He now knew it with cold certainty.

His anger became even more intense when he realized his daughter had known something was going to happen to her. Otherwise, why had she sent him that second recording, with the clues to find this older one? Years had passed between the two. But something had happened, and the Imperium had learned that she knew.

He let himself fall in his seat, shaking his head.

Now he knew as well, but what good did it do him?

What could he do?

Absolutely nothing.

The Imperium was all-powerful.

He was nothing.

He was nobody.

Except...

The visor had given him a mission.

He would go back to Nad’irith and study the Fault. One day, he would find a way to use it to make those responsible pay for their crime.

He would not rest until he made them pay.