The Choice
262 Words
Leo looked at the folder. It wasn't a shield anymore. It was a beacon.
"Why tell me this?" Leo asked. "You’re a cop."
"I’m a cop whose partner was killed by a Vanguard 'accidental' hit three years ago," Chen said. She stood up and offered a hand to Elena. "I need that folder to go public. But I can't do it. The department is owned. You, however... you have a seat on the board. You have the legal right to audit the servers."
A distant siren wailed, echoing through the hollow metal of the shipping container. The city was closing in.
"Tomorrow morning, you have a choice, Leo," Chen said, retreating back into the rain. "You can go to the board meeting and try to be a 'good brother' to Sloane. Or you can use that folder to burn the whole thing down. But remember: if you start this fire, there’s no South End left to go back to."
She vanished into the mist, leaving Leo and Elena in the echoing silence of the steel box.
Leo looked at his mother. Her breathing had stabilized, but her eyes were fixed on the folder. He realized that the "90-day probation" was no longer about efficiency or shares. It was a countdown to a detonation.
He reached into his pocket and felt the cold, hard plastic of the black keycard. Tomorrow, he wouldn't be going to work. He would be going to the heart of the machine to find the "Backdoor" Julian had left for him.
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