THREE DAYS LATER
Finn found Dara Fen on a Tuesday.
Not through the regional authority's records — those had been professionally unhelpful in the specific way that institutional records become unhelpful when someone has quietly made sure they would be. Not through the border survey logs, which had given him her name and her transfer request and then, abruptly, nothing. He found her the way you find things that don't want to be found — sideways, through the gap between two other things he was looking for.
A maintenance requisition. Western district, filed eighteen months ago. Standard equipment request for a solo threading assessor working independent contract near the Vel formation — one of the sealed sites, amber markers, Class Two instrument, the authority's steady authoritative glow that meant stay back and we have this managed and, apparently, there is possibly someone inside.
The requisition was signed D. Fen, Independent Contractor, License 7714.
