The rearview mirror offered a clear reflection of the backseat. There, shadows danced across haggard features, obscuring all but a glint of the Zeevonk's eyes. They locked with Sergeant Verloren's in the warm light of the dome lamp. Clearing her throat, the cop spoke in an official tone, “So, what’s your name?”

“You really don’t remember me?” The woman asks back, completely ignoring her question.

A flicker of confusion crosses Anna’s features before she retorts, “I’m asking the questions here, young lady.”

“I’m not much younger than you, Anna,” she corrects her with a chuckle. “You used to call me Elm when we were kids.”

Anna’s eyes widened slightly, her mind racing to place an Elm from her past. She comes up empty, which irritated her more than she cared to admit. “You might have me confused with someone else,” she says anyway.

“Oh, I’d recognize you anywhere, gorgeous.”

Anna rolls her green eyes at Emily through the rearview mirror.

"You used to come down from that fancy house on the hill," Elm continued, her voice infused with a mix of nostalgia and bitterness. "You'd play with us at the beach, fascinated by the sea sparkles. You weren't like the others who looked down on us from up high."

 The words stung Anna with their truth, leading her thoughts momentarily to the shimmering beach in Villamar. Her family owned one of the vacation homes on the elevated bluffs — a stark contrast to the ramshackle community Emily must have hailed from, just a boat ride across. How could she forget having seen the night waters turn into a star-studded sky in real life? How could she forget the weirdly dressed kids bringing them to life? She didn’t even know she had that memory.

Is that why she trusts me? Anna wonders. What else did I lose during the operation?

It doesn’t matter, the sergeant reminds herself. The past only distracts from the now.

“Assuming what you say is true, those days are long gone.” She switches gears, slowing down at the intersection. “Whatever friendship we might have had on that beach doesn’t change the fact that you’ve been causing disturbances all over Kether.”

“I’m not your enemy, Sarge,” Elm says, almost pleading. “None of us are. I’m just trying to push back against a system by retrieving what’s rightfully ours.”

The cop halts at the stoplight and meets her suspects eyes through the mirror, ears keenly listening for any tells in Elm’s voice, pulse, and breathing. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“A dead city can’t declare ownership even if its citizens are still very much alive. The Linthayms took advantage of that.”

She’s not lying. Whether it’s true or just something she believes to be true, Anna wasn’t sure yet. At least Billy and Simon will have something to work with after hours.

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

The stoplight switches to green, and Anna trains her eyes back on the road.

“But what do you expect me to do about it?”

“An audience with your mother would be nice. Or your friend. Whichever’s doable. Or better. What do you think, Verloren? Which of them actually cares more?”

Elm’s question sounded like a genuine request for advice but felt more like a pointed jab to Anna for she knew Simon and her mother genuinely cared, one proving it through his innovations and the other through her humanitarian efforts.

“I hit a nerve, didn’t I? I’m sorry. I should’ve phrased it better. It’s just, I really don’t know eith—”

“It’s alright, Elm.”

“Emily,” she corrects her as they pull over in front of the precinct. “Emily Ladrón.”

~

Sergeant Verloren found Officer Magtanggol alone by the Zeevonks' truck, the silence of the deserted parking lot amplifying the tension in the air. The white light glinting off the truck did little to dispel the sense of grim purpose that clung to the vehicle.

With practiced efficiency, he began his search, his keen eyes scanning every inch of the truck's interior.

Unlike the gleaming exterior, it was a utilitarian mess. A heavy-duty shelf on the passenger side groaned under the weight of industrial cleaning supplies – gallon jugs of disinfectant in eye-watering hues, enzymatic digesters with cautionary skull and crossbones symbols, and an array of color-coded spray bottles whose labels were obscured by grime. A powerful industrial air freshener hung precariously from the rearview mirror, its pine scent failing to mask the underlying odor of bleach and decay. In one thorough sweep, with the supervision of a Methuselian, he found nothing out of the ordinary. Not a single Zeevonk mask, no hidden compartments, and certainly no stolen item. It was as if the truck had been scrubbed clean of any incriminating evidence on the way here.

But that’s what the Methuselian was there for. Behind the driver's seat, a locked metal cabinet hinted at a more specialized cargo. Through the ventilation slots, Verloren could just make out the faint glint of chrome – restraints, perhaps? Or maybe the specialized tools used for the gruesome task of biohazard removal.

Frowning, Billy turned his attention to the vehicle's navigation system. With nimble fingers, he hacked into the system, accessing its location history. However, his hopes were quickly dashed as he scrolled through a list of mundane locations – nothing remotely suspicious.

Meanwhile, a single, misshapen glove, its rubber crinkled and stained a sickly brown, lay wedged beneath the same seat. Her eyes, a gift from the CyberNova labs, caught a near-microscopic smear of what could be blood – a smear only visible because it was partially obscured by a single, incongruous gold glitter speck clinging to the rubber. It was a detail so insignificant it would likely be missed by a cursory glance, but to Anna, it was a glittering anomaly in a world of bleach and despair. And she never even entered the vehicle!

The silence of the truck pressed in on her, broken only by the rasp of her most loyal colleague’s breath. It was a sanitized battlefield, a space dedicated to the aftermath of violence, a sterile tomb on wheels.

Exhaling heavily, she leaned back against the truck, defeated. The signs were too loud and too subtle, neither enough to for her to ignore nor for her peers to take as evidence. She honed in on the faintest of sounds, searching for any hint of hidden compartments or concealed rooms within the truck, but all she heard was the faint hum of an engine in the distance and the chirping of crickets outside.

Billy swings the doors shut and waddles past her in his disposable coveralls, the evidence bag in his hand sounding mockingly empty.

~

The interrogation room swings open, and Lieutenant Yalanci emerges with an expression Verloren had never received from him in her life: disappointment.

"I'm sorry," he says, his voice heavy with regret. "There's no evidence against them."

"But —"

"We let them go."

The words hit her like a physical blow. She was so sure. By the goddess she doesn't believe in, she still is. She knows the truth. Emily let her in on it.

Anna pushes past him, hoping against hope that she’s still there for her to question herself, for him to catch a word in their conversation that will make him realize he’s wrong. She practically threw himself against the door, the metallic clang a desperate plea. But the room was empty, the harsh fluorescent light illuminating nothing but a single, discarded coffee cup – the only evidence a conversation had ever taken place. The air hung heavy with a silence far more damning than any words could have been.