Daniel stepped forward.
“You're under federal investigation.”
Pierce laughed.
“Investigation?”
He looked around the hangar.
“Do you have any idea how many agencies use systems connected to ours?”
Daniel didn't answer.
Pierce continued.
“You think this is a private operation.”
“No.”
“Good.”
He looked at me.
“You understand now.”
“You stole children.”
“We relocated them.”
“You forged guardianship records.”
“We corrected administrative errors.”
“You erased people.”
“We removed obstacles.”
I stepped toward him.
“You killed my sister.”
Pierce's smile disappeared.
“I didn't kill Elena.”
“Then who did?”
“She was going to expose something she didn't understand.”
“She understood enough.”
“No.”
Pierce's voice hardened.
“She understood only the surface.”
“What was underneath?”
Pierce looked at Apollo.
She was standing behind me.
I hadn't seen her enter.
She held the gray folder.
Pierce's face changed.
“You shouldn't have brought her.”
Apollo stared at him.
“You took me.”
“We protected you.”
“You lied.”
“We saved you from people who wanted you dead.”
“My mother protected me.”
Pierce looked at her.
“Your mother was wrong.”
Apollo shook her head.
“No.”
She pulled out the USB drive.
“You were wrong.”
Pierce's eyes went to it.
“There it is.”
I understood.
The entire meeting was about the drive.
Pierce raised his hand.
The guards moved.
Daniel shouted:
“Federal agents! Drop your weapons!”
The hangar erupted.
Gunfire cracked against the metal walls.
I grabbed Apollo and pulled her behind the aircraft.
Daniel returned fire.
The two guards surrendered.
Marcus Vance ran toward the side exit.
An agent tackled him.
Pierce tried to escape through the aircraft cabin.
I chased him.
He slammed the door.
I caught it before it closed.
He struck me.
I fell backward.
He reached for Apollo.
I grabbed his arm.
We crashed into the fuselage.
He was stronger than I expected.
“You don't understand what you're stopping,” he shouted.
“You're kidnapping children!”
“You're stopping a system that protects them!”
“You call this protection?”
“Yes!”
He pushed me away.
“Do you know what happens when courts lose records? When identities disappear? When a child becomes invisible?”
“You made that happen.”
“We learned how to stop it.”
“You became the criminals.”
Pierce stared at me.
Then laughed.
“You think criminals are the people with guns?”
He pointed toward the federal agents.
“The people who decide which records are real are much more dangerous.”
I froze.
He continued.
“Your sister discovered that.”
“What did she discover?”
Pierce hesitated.
Then:
“She discovered that Apollo's file wasn't the first.”
I felt the blood drain from my face.
“What does that mean?”
“Apollo was one of several children.”
“Where are the others?”
“Some are dead.”
Apollo gasped.
Pierce looked at her.
“Some disappeared.”
“Where?”
“And some…”
He smiled.
“…are still living under different names.”
Daniel reached us.
“Enough.”
Pierce raised his hands.
Then every light in the hangar went out.
A gunshot cracked.
Pierce collapsed.
The lights came back.
He was dead.
Everyone froze.
“Who fired?” Daniel shouted.
No one knew.
The agents searched the hangar.
Marcus Vance was gone.
Again.
Beside Pierce's body lay a boarding pass.
Apollo's.
The barcode had been cut away.
On the back, written in black ink:
ONE FLIGHT REMAINS.
Daniel picked it up.
“That's impossible.”
“What?”
“The flight hasn't been scheduled.”
I stared at the paper.
Then I noticed a number beneath the message.
A flight number.
A departure time.
And a destination.
Not San Diego.
Not anywhere in the United States.
DENVER.
Daniel looked at me.
“Project Orpheus isn't finished.”
THE FLIGHT THAT DIDN'T EXIST
The flight wasn't on any public schedule.
No airline database listed it.
No airport departure board showed it.
But the flight number existed inside the private transportation system.
That meant one thing.
Someone had created a shadow route.
A route invisible to ordinary passengers.
Daniel contacted federal investigators.
They traced the aircraft registration.
A small private jet.
Owned by a shell company.
The company had no employees.
No office.
No website.
But it had transported children.
We found twelve records.
Five were missing.
Seven were still active.
Apollo stared at the list.
“Are those the other children?”
“Yes.”
“Can we find them?”
Daniel looked at me.
“We can try.”
Apollo shook her head.
“Not try.”
She pointed to the screen.
“We have to.”
I knew she was right.
We traced the aircraft.
It had landed in Denver four hours earlier.
We flew there under federal escort.
The hangar was empty.
But the records showed a destination.
A private medical facility outside the city.
We arrived before sunrise.
The facility was enormous.
Modern.
Clean.
Expensive.
The kind of place that looked completely legitimate.
The director met us at the entrance.
“What can I do for you?”
Daniel showed his badge.
“Federal investigation.”
The man's face tightened.
“We have nothing to hide.”
“We're looking for seven minors.”
He smiled.
“We don't have minors.”
Daniel handed him the list.
The smile disappeared.
“These names don't exist.”
“That's the problem.”
We searched the building.
The children weren't in the main hospital.
They were underground.
A secured wing.
Behind a biometric door.
We found six children.
One room was empty.
Apollo stared through the glass.
A girl of about thirteen sat on a bed.
A boy was reading.
Another child slept.
All had medical bracelets.
All had false names.
Apollo stepped closer.
“Mom tried to find you.”
The girl looked up.
“What?”
“A woman named Elena Mercer.”
The girl's eyes widened.
“She told me someone would come.”
Apollo pressed her hand against the glass.
“She was my mother.”
The girl started crying.
I looked away.
The evidence became overwhelming.
These weren't abstract files anymore.
They were children.
Real children.
Confused children.
Children who had been told their parents had abandoned them.
Children who had been told their guardians didn't want them.
Children who had been erased on paper so completely that they had started believing the lies.