The debriefing room sat heavy with the kind of silence that came after a problem revealed itself to be worse than the one you started with.
Sophie stared at the two names still glowing on the main screen, Mei Lin, First Lady, and felt the shape of the whole day shift underneath her.
"So," Sera said slowly, breaking the quiet first. "Even setting aside how we would ever prove any of this. Even setting aside the risk of accusing a woman none of us have ever seen, whose face is not public knowledge, who exists to most of humanity only as a title. We now have a mountain sitting in front of that mountain."
"Which is," Angel said, though she already knew the answer, asking mostly to make Sera say it out loud so it couldn't be avoided.
