The document sat on Fen Callow's kitchen table for six agonizing hours before he possessed the nerve to touch it again. A single sheet of paper, heavy with potential ruin, staring back at him under the dim kitchen light.
He had read the text twice that morning, set it down, and forced himself through his routine. He had run the high-security perimeter drills, swallowed a mid-day ration he couldn't taste, and returned to his quarters. His hands had remained steady during the drills, but his mind had been entirely elsewhere.
The sheet of paper remained exactly where he had left it, the crisp black ink gleaming like an unexploded shell. It was a countdown timer waiting for a single touch.
'You saw what you saw. I'm only asking you to say so.’
Fen was thirty-one years old. He was a third-t
