“That’s Andrew’s personal digital signature. He didn’t think anyone would ever audit these logs.”

My father walked slowly to the table, his heavy boots dragging slightly.

He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out his reading glasses, slipping them over his ears.

He bent over the table, his eyes moving across the documents I had laid out.

The room was so quiet I could hear the ticking of the clock on the wall.

He picked up the second page, his hands starting to shake.

“This…” he whispered, his voice losing its firm, commanding tone.

“This is the email about your promotion board.”

“Yes,” I said.

“The one where he told you I had failed the physical readiness test.”

“But here,” my father said, his finger tracking a line of code. “This says the file was generated on his computer.”

“He wrote it himself,” I said.

My mother looked from my father to the papers, her eyes widening as the truth began to settle in.

“He told us you were ashamed of us,” she said, her voice barely a whisper.