I crawled in behind her, the narrow space smelling of damp earth and old copper pipes.

Above us, the floorboards creaked under the weight of tactical gear.

We crawled in silence until we reached the metal grate leading into the basement security office.

I pushed the grate open quietly and dropped onto the concrete floor.

Madison scrambled down after me, wiping dust from her knees.

The room was dark, lit only by the green and blue flashing lights of the server racks.

I sat at the main terminal and began typing, my fingers flying over the keys.

“The ledger page,” I muttered. “My father said the last name wasn’t Vance.”

“Look at the registry files,” Madison said, leaning over my shoulder.

Her finger tapped the glass screen, pointing to a hidden directory marked Project Eclipse.

I bypassed the firewall using my military override code.

The screen flickered, then displayed a digitized copy of the ledger’s final page.

Under the column of military transport numbers, there was a signature.

It wasn’t Vance, and it wasn’t my father.

It was Colonel Hayes’s personal digital signature, verified by his defense network serial number.