The air was brisk and chilly on the rooftop of Saturn Technologies. Only a few bright stars pierced the haze of smog and light pollution, and the moon glowed a sickly yellow.

"Why are we up here?" asked Maria. Agent Singh had led her up from the top floor, via an unobtrusive service access. Clearly, she'd been up here before.

"Look out there," replied Agent Singh, gesturing out towards the city with one arm. Under her other arm, she held a thick volume pressed against her body. It was unlike any book Maria had never seen: thick, garish, and printed on cheap newsprint. "What do you think when it’s all spread out in front of you like that?"

Maria shivered. Beyond the freeway, the lit windows and blinking spires of the downtown skyline stood out against the dark sky. Though the buildings occluded her line of sight, she knew that the megalopolis stretched far into the distance beyond. The city’s yellow halo would be visible on the horizon for miles, like the illusion of an approaching dawn.

"Um, well… those cars on the freeway are like stars."

"Stars."

"Yeah. Their light's yellow, normally. But when they're travelling away from us, it's red."

"That’s not how red shift works," replied Agent Singh.

"I know, I know. But you asked what I was thinking, and that's what came to mind."

"I did.” Cars roared by. "What I see, Maria, is hundreds of thousands of casualties. Every car. Every shining window. All going dark for good.”

"Casualties of what?”

"Terrorists. State actors. Stupid accidents."

She flipped open the thick volume, showing Maria a few pages. They were filled with names and numbers.

"This is a phone book I ordered online. People don't use them much anymore, but I carry it with me for some jobs.”

Maria took the book from her hands and experimentally hefted it a few times, testing its weight. "Heavy. It’s really heavy."

"Yes. And whenever I start to feel as though nothing I do matters, I pick it up. And I think to myself: If I fail badly enough, everyone in this book, from Aarnson to Zyskowsi, will die."

A grim silence followed.

"There won't be room for obituaries," said Agent Singh. "The best we could do, if there's any 'we' left afterwards, would be to retitle a phone book.” She took it back from Maria, who hunched over a little and drew her arms in for warmth. When she got back to her office later, she’d toss it back into her little bookshelf without a second thought.

She had phone books for a lot of cities. One already had R.I.P. scribbled across the cover, along with a pathetically inadequate frowny face, the understatement of the century. That one was probably a collector’s item now.

What must it be like, Maria wondered, to be responsible for so many? It could have just been the poor light and the late hour, but Agent Singh looked and sounded exhausted.

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As they gazed into the distance, the interrogation continued. “Do you know why the Bureau of High-Risk Research was founded?"

"It was after Batavia, right?"

The Batavia disaster had begun with research into energy production and ended in a burst of gamma rays and a 200-meter-deep crater. "Yes. Existing oversight had been spread too thin. Officially, our directive is to police certain forms of experimentation. Unofficially, we’re here to make sure genies stay neatly bottled."

“But what does that have to do with my Uncle? Or me?” Maria already suspected, and dreaded, the answer.

"I'm going to walk you through my theory of the crime," said Agent Singh, still gazing out into the distance. "If nothing exculpatory comes to light, this is what I'll be telling my superiors. I’m afraid that your happiness – and even your innocence or guilt – is a matter of little importance right now. What I need is leverage, and one way or another, I’ll find it.”

"Then why tell me at all?" said Maria, puzzled. "Why give up your advantage in the trial?"

"It saves time. And don't assume you'll get a trial.”

If Mr. Fell were here, he’d call her on that, thought Maria. I think.

"When your mother disappeared, I laid out my logic for Henry Omnia, and he claimed it was accurate,” said Agent Singh. “Which wasn’t the response I expected. But he’s decided he’d rather die than tell us the truth.”

Maybe if I just listen, and don’t talk, it’ll be fine, thought Maria. "What's your theory?"

"I'm glad you're willing to humor me. Let's go back down.”

When they returned to the conference room, Agent Singh unfolded a neatly labeled map onto the table. The whole floor was laid out there: Uncle Johann's office, Vincent's office next door, various storage rooms, the machining room, the animal testing room, the elevator, and the fire escape. Although these plans had likely been drawn up for the previous investigation, as far as Maria could tell, they were still accurate.

“We’ll start with the motive, which ties everything together."

Out of the evidence crate came a manila envelope, from which Agent Singh produced a document covered in zebra stripes of redaction. It was hard to make sense of, but one section was circled:

Reports on ongoing development of  ███████████████████ are unacceptably vague. We have cause to believe that significant progress is being concealed by the lead members of the research team: ██████████, ████, and  █████, possibly with the intention of espionage, sabotage, or negotiation with a foreign actor. Even disregarding the use of a ████████ power source, the risk this conduct poses to national security cannot be overstated.  A site inspection of  ██████ ████████████ will be conducted on ████████████, and appropriate action will be taken.

"What on earth were they working on?" wondered Maria aloud. 

"I’d very much like to know that myself," said Agent Singh. "I’d also like to know where one metal donut went. It was an unobtrusive thing, about two inches across.”

Years before, during the investigation, Maria had been asked about that device. But neither she nor her sister had any idea what happened to it, or what it was, for that matter.

“It was an antimatter containment unit,” continued Singh, intuiting Maria’s question. “Saturn Technologies commissioned three, but when they were audited after the disappearance, only two were accounted for. Are you starting to see why your mother would want to disappear?”

"My mom wasn't a spy!"

"You were young. You couldn't have known everything about her.” Singh brushed off Maria’s horror. “So Henry Omnia helped her escape, and your Uncle helped him cover it up. Mr. Omnia is slated to be executed... and that brings us to tonight."

Maria's stomach tensed, and she found herself shifting her weight down in her chair, as if trying to hide. Singh's tone had become dangerously insinuating.

"Only two people could tell you where to find your mother, and one was about to die. So you decided to try to get your uncle to talk, and possibly hand over the key to that safe in his office. Maybe you pleaded for Henry, or insisted that you deserved the truth. It doesn’t matter now."

Agent Singh watched Maria's face closely as she enumerated each possibility, looking for a flinch, a tell, anything to confirm her suspicions.

"You pulled a gun. He tried to disarm you."

"And?" Maria's voice rose to a squeak.

"You shot Johann Palmstroem."