Chapter 4 - The Unseen Machinery
I didn't follow Colin. I knew him well enough to know he needed space to let the illusion shatter completely.
Instead, I stayed at the dining table, looking down at the messy layers of paperwork that built our family’s entire reality.
“You’ve put her in an impossible position,” Dad said softly, breaking the silence.
“I didn’t put her anywhere, Dad,” I replied, pulling up the digital audit log on my tablet. “Colin walked into an active government evaluation with a tainted file, and Dalton caught it because my name was on the release order. This isn't a family misunderstanding. It’s an ethics violation that reaches straight into federal procurement.”
Dad rubbed his temples. “If Hawthorne’s contract gets pulled over a clerical date, the whole regional logistics partnership collapses. Our firm takes the hit, and Hawthorne loses its defense tier.”
“Then maybe Robert shouldn't have tampered with government documents.”
“Robert was protecting our interests,” Dad muttered.
“Whose interests?” I asked, leaning down so I was looking directly into his eyes. “Mine? Colin’s? Or yours and Robert’s?”
Dad went silent.
I picked up the tablet and opened the master directory for the Horizon program. As I scrolled through the corporate registry connected to Hawthorne’s logistics tier, another file caught my eye—a sub-contractor agreement dated three years ago, right around the time I was finishing my flight-test certification.
It wasn't a pilot file. It was an engineering allocation report.
I tapped it open.
My name was listed as the lead systems verifier for Hawthorne’s flight-control interface—except I had never worked on that interface. My signature had been digitally appended to the technical clearance review before the aircraft even entered wind-tunnel testing.
I stared at the screen, the room around me suddenly feeling very small.
“Dad,” I whispered.
He didn't look up.
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“Did Robert use my name, too?”
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