Ch.27: The Financial Audit

The escape was almost too easy.

At 3:00 AM, the lights flickered. The heavy steel door of our cell clicked and swung open.

"The Cleaner," Julian whispered, helping me up. "He hacked the grid."

We ran. Not out the front door, but down. Into the maintenance tunnels that snaked beneath the city like its veins.

We ran for an hour, splashing through ankle-deep water, the only light coming from the emergency strips on the walls.

We emerged in an abandoned subway station in Sector 4. It was dusty, silent, forgotten.

"We need a safe house," I said, leaning against a rusted turnstile, trying to catch my breath.

"I have one," Julian said. "But first, we need answers."

He led me to a small maintenance room. Inside was a terminal, powered by a backup generator. It was old, clunky, but it had a connection.

"I can't access the Ghost Drive without the shard," Julian said, typing furiously. "But I can access the public ledger. The blockchain."

"Why?"

"Because if Sterling killed your brother for a key, he must have paid for it. Or someone did."

He pulled up the public financial records for Liam Vance.

I watched the screen. My brother was broke. He worked at a coffee shop and delivered packages. His bank account never had more than a few hundred credits.

"Look closer," Julian said.

He ran a search for encrypted wallets associated with Liam's biometric ID.

A new window opened.

**WALLET ID: 994-X-ALPHA.**
**BALANCE: 5,000,000 CREDITS.**

I gasped. "Five million? Where did he get five million credits?"

"Look at the transaction history," Julian said.

He scrolled down.

**DEPOSIT: 50,000 CREDITS - 12/01/2045**
**DEPOSIT: 50,000 CREDITS - 01/01/2046**
**DEPOSIT: 50,000 CREDITS - 02/01/2046**

It was a monthly payment. Like a salary. Or a bribe.

"Who was paying him?" I asked.

Julian traced the source. It was a shell company. **Chimera Solutions.**

"I know that name," I whispered. "Kael mentioned it. Project Chimera."

"It's a black ops fund," Julian said. "Owned by Sterling & Wolfe."

He looked at me, his face grim.

"Your brother wasn't just selling the key, Harper. He was working for them. He's been on their payroll for years."

I shook my head. "No. Liam was good. He was trying to expose them."

"Was he?" Julian asked. "Or did he get greedy? Maybe he tried to sell the key to me because Sterling stopped paying him. Maybe he wasn't a whistleblower. Maybe he was just a blackmailer who got caught."

I stared at the screen. The numbers didn't lie.

My brother wasn't a hero. He wasn't a victim.

He was an employee.

And if he was working for Sterling... then everything I thought I knew about his death was a lie.

"We need to find the other half of the key," Julian said. "The voiceprint."

"You said you had it," I said. "You said you had the token."

"I have the token," Julian said. "But the voiceprint... the biometric lock on the drive isn't mine."

He looked at me.

"It's Liam's."

"But Liam is dead."

"Exactly," Julian said. "Which means the only way to open that drive is to find a recording of his voice that hasn't been scrubbed from the internet."

"Sterling scrubbed everything," I said. "His social media. His phone. It's all gone."

"Not everything," I realized.

I remembered the safe in my apartment. The one that had been emptied.

But there was one thing Sterling didn't take. Because he didn't know it existed.

"The mixtape," I whispered.

"What?"

"Liam was a musician," I said, a tear sliding down my cheek. "He made a mixtape for my birthday three years ago. He recorded an intro. A dedication."

"Where is it?" Julian asked.

"It's not digital," I said. "It's on a cassette tape. An antique."

"Where is it, Harper?"

I looked at him.

"It's in the one place Sterling would never look."

"Where?"

"My mother's grave."

I looked at the screen again. The payments from Chimera Solutions. The betrayal.

My brother wasn't the whistleblower. He was on the payroll.

But even a traitor leaves a trace. And Liam had left his voice in the ground.