Red light churns over the Annex control room. The logs are secure, March is down, and the line to Covington is still open somewhere beyond the barricade.
Curtis
We have enough to hang them. Call it in now, before they wipe the board.
Dallas takes the Annex Chief’s packet, the routing sheets, the camera logs, and the carbon copies, a paper weight of proof against the whole harbor machine.
The chain is all there, from desk to desk to Covington.
Curtis
If you put this in front of the right eyes, the whole house comes apart.
Footsteps and shouted orders swell in the hall outside, but nobody comes through. The men on the other side are listening to the evidence being stacked against them.
Dallas stands at the console with Curtis at his side, the room breathing red. He has the proof, the names, and the final leverage. The next move is his.
“I call it in before they wipe the board”
SUCCESS (Legendary Reasoning, rolled -1)
Dallas keys the call through, calm and clipped, and the message goes out with the packet attached. The red room listens while the line connects.
On the console, the copied logs and carbon pages slide into the official channel, their chain of custody intact. Curtis watches the send bar lock in like a bolt.
Dallas Fontaine
It is in their hands now.
Curtis
Good. Then they cannot pretend this was never there.
Outside the barricade, the footsteps shift, then thin out. The hall goes quieter, not safe, just caught.
March stays down by the terminal, the desk bell beside him, while the emergency red lighting keeps pulsing over the room like a warning that finally has an answer.
Curtis
Let them come read it. This part is finished.
Curtis
Signal's out. It's in the light now.
Dallas Fontaine
Then let them choke on it.
Alder March
...no more rooms to hide in.
Outside the barricade, the noise thinned, then withdrew.
By dawn, the harbor machine had begun to collapse under its own public weight. Covington's protectors were arrested, their names dragged into the open, and the Annex stood as proof that the rot had finally been named. Dallas Fontaine left the red-lit room with Curtis, and the city did not look innocent anymore.