The locker room at the back of the Seventh Division barracks was the only place in the building Caleb had ever been alone in. Even there it was usually a near thing.
He sat on the metal bench at twenty-two-hundred with the three folders from the filing cabinet open in his lap and the photograph from the desk drawer pinned flat under his thigh.
Folder one held coded shipping manifests, nineteen years old, watermarked with an unfamiliar sponsor stamp.
Folder two held a list of names, handwritten by his father, with a date next to each name. Six names carried a single mark, drawn in the same vocabulary as the kettle, the sample, the drudger, the statues. Eleven carried blank space. The marked names had dates. The blank names had absence, which was worse.
Folder three was the one he had been afraid to open.
He opened it. The folder held one piece of paper. The piece of paper held a name. *Caleb Mercer.*
