The motel room hums under neon light. Amilia spreads the files across the bedspread, and the routing codes from the alley line up with shipment dates, shell companies, and Department signatures.
Amilia Jacobs
It is not just transport. It is cover. They route bodies and powers through “medical transfer” paperwork, then claim the UN ban does not apply.
She taps a stamped form. One code matches the crate in Los Angeles. Another matches the harvest chain Polpovich described. The paper trail points straight at a DSA records vault, and then farther up.
Amilia Jacobs
This gives us a legal path, too. If we expose the loophole, we do not just accuse them of experiments. We prove they built the whole pipeline to hide them.
Sally
The codes connect the alley to the lab, and the lab to the people who kept moving her.
Outside, a car door shuts somewhere in the lot. Amilia goes still, listening. The files are suddenly not just evidence, they are a target.
Amilia Jacobs
We have their machinery now. Next, we take their records before they burn them.
✓ Quest Accepted
Take the Department records vault evidence before they burn it
✓ Quest Accepted
Expose the harvest-chain loophole
“I ask Amilia to pinpoint the exact location of the records vault.”
SUCCESS (Great Reasoning, rolled -1)
Sally
Can you pin down the vault for me, exactly?
Amilia Jacobs
Yes. Under the federal records annex in Washington D.C., sublevel three. The vault sits behind the intake archive, and the routing code on these papers matches its access spine.
Amilia slides one stamped page out from the stack and circles a block of numbers with her pen. The chain of signatures tightens into a clean line, from the Los Angeles crate to a Department storage hub and then east to the annex.
Amilia Jacobs
If they burn anything, they burn it there, on paper and in memory, both.
She taps the annex seal, then the vault stamp. The legal path is no longer abstract, it has an address, a floor, and a door that can be named in court.
Sally
Washington D.C. records vault, sublevel three.
A hard knock sounds in the hallway, close enough to shake the lamp. Amilia freezes with her finger on the stamped seal, and the bedspread of evidence suddenly feels too exposed.
“I ask Amilia to hide the vault papers now”
SUCCESS (Legendary Persuasion, rolled +0)
Sally
Hide the papers now, before whoever's outside gets a look at them.
Amilia Jacobs
Already on it. Hand me the annex pages and the routing sheet, I can split the trail from the proof.
Amilia sweeps the vault pages into her folder, tucking the stamped originals under a stack of motel stationery. Her pen moves fast, blacking out the route code copy while leaving the legal chain intact.
She slides the folder under a pillow, then shoves the marked evidence packet into the bedside drawer beside Sally's camera and badge. The knock in the hall comes again, harder this time, but the paper trail is already buried.
Amilia Jacobs
If they burst in, they find a rented room and a tired pair of travelers. Not the vault copy.
Outside the door, footsteps pause. The motel lamp hums over the bed, and the circle around Washington D.C. disappears from view beneath closed wood and folded cloth.
Amilia Jacobs
We have the chain. If they came for the papers, they are already too late.
“I listen at the door”
SUCCESS (Superb Perception, rolled +0)
Sally goes still at the door, one hand lifted for silence. The corridor sound sharpens into a muffled male voice, low and irritated, with a second set of steps lingering farther back.
Sally
Two people. One close, one hanging back.
A key scrapes in the lock outside, then stops. The man mutters something about a missed handoff and a room number that is off by one.
Unknown Man
This is the wrong door. Check the other room, the one with the blackout curtains.
Amilia freezes by the bed, folder held tight to her chest. The pillow over the hidden pages barely shifts as she watches Sally for the answer.
Unknown Man
If the papers are here, they have already moved them. We are late.
From the hall, the second person answers with a short, clipped nod and the soft rustle of a coat turning away. The footsteps start down the walkway, not away from the motel.
“Are they here for the vault evidence?”
YES (VeryLikely, rolled 55)
Sally
They are not looking for a room. They are looking for the vault files.
Amilia Jacobs
They know exactly what we took from the annex. If they are checking the other rooms, they have a tracker on the evidence itself.
“I ask Amilia how she wants to protect the files”
SUCCESS (Legendary Persuasion, rolled +1)
Sally
How do you want to protect them?
Amilia Jacobs
We split the chain, we make copies, and we make the originals boring. If they burn one set, the others still stand up in court.
Amilia slides the pen across the bedspread and reaches for the folder stack with careful hands.
Amilia Jacobs
If the vault team is hunting the evidence, then the evidence has to become more than one thing.
She tucks a copy under the pillow, seals another packet in the drawer, and leaves the working set spread between them like a map.
Amilia Jacobs
One packet for the courtroom, one for the press, one for a backup that never leaves my sight. If they grab one, they do not get the story.
Outside, the neon washes the motel glass while Amilia taps the altered routing sheets flat and meets Sally's eyes, steady and intent.
“I help split the evidence into more copies”
SUCCESS (Good Science, rolled +0)
Sally leans in and helps sort the stack, using the bed as a clean work surface while Amilia watches her hands closely.
With a quick, practiced check of margins and copies, Sally separates the packets into matching sets that keep the chain intact.
Amilia nods once and slides one new copy into the drawer, then another beneath the pillow, as the originals stay centered between them.
The motel lamp catches Sally's identification badge on the table, and the altered pages now read like a file meant to survive seizure.
Amilia Jacobs
Good. Now the paper trail can take a hit and still stand up.
Amilia taps the top page flat, then points Sally to a fresh blank packet beside the bed, inviting one more copy set before the room settles.
Quest Complete
Take the Department records vault evidence before they burn it
Attribute Upgrade: Reasoning Great→Superb