Mara returned to the Echo Authority the next morning.
The building buzzed with restrained chaos. Analysts hurried through corridors, their voices clipped and tense. Legal teams occupied conference rooms normally reserved for routine briefings. Armed security stood at checkpoints where none had existed before.
Helix Dynamics had issued a denial.
No one believed it.
Mara moved through the noise like a ghost, her expression unchanged. No one stopped her. No one questioned her authority.
They trusted her too much for that.
In her private review room, she loaded older cases.
Not random ones.
Her cases.
The ones she remembered most clearly.
She began with a simple street homicide from six years earlier. Clear visuals. Confession followed Echo playback. Textbook.
She entered the Echo.
A dark alley. The smell of rain and garbage. A man running, breath ragged, fear sharp and acidic.
Mara slowed her perception.
She didn't focus on the violence. She focused on continuity. On the smooth progression of sensation from one moment to the next.
Then—
A faint hitch.
Her heart skipped.
She rewound.
Again.
There it was.
Not enough to disrupt the narrative. Not enough to be called corruption.
Just a brief, perfect absence.
Mara exited the Echo abruptly, her breath shallow.
Coincidence, she told herself.
She loaded another case.
Then another.
Out of twenty Echoes, she found three gaps.
Her stomach twisted.
This wasn't random.
This was systematic.
Mara leaned back in her chair, pressing her fingers to her temples.
A dull ache pulsed behind her eyes.