Before the City Burns

The printer hums once, then dies.

Outside, dawn curls through the blinds, pale and uncertain, like it knows what’s happened here. On the desk, beside the cold dregs of a diner coffee, a single page cools under the ceiling fan’s rhythm. Ink still wet. Headline in bold: “Senator Holt and the Virex Network: An Investigation.”

Mara doesn’t move. Not at first. Not when the sirens flare two blocks down. Not even when the power in the building flickers and goes out entirely—her laptop screen winking dark, the backup drive still blinking weakly beside it. She's been waiting for this moment too long to meet it with panic.

The flash drive is in her shoe. The copy—the copy—is here.

And Michael is late.

That, more than anything, tells her what she already suspects.

She gets up slowly, stretching legs stiff from hours of stillness. She doesn’t bother with her coat. The room’s already been swept, she’s sure of it—cameras removed, bugs smashed. But not before she gave them what they wanted. Just enough to make them think she didn’t have it all.

She did. She does.

It’s the first lie she ever told them.

She picks up the paper, folds it once, twice, tucks it into her back pocket like it’s just another receipt. The envelope of photos, the names, the wire transfers, the meeting transcripts—they’re gone. Left in hotel rooms and laundromats across the city, each with their own dead-drop timer, each with instructions to release if they don’t hear from her by noon.

It's 6:17.

Plenty of time, if she moves fast.

The hallway smells like smoke and something chemical. Maybe they’ve started burning things below. Or maybe that’s just the city today. It doesn’t matter. She walks quickly, deliberately, like she belongs. Past the office where Michael always left his coat. Past the elevator that never stopped on this floor unless you knew how to talk to it.

Down the stairwell, three flights. Her boots echo like gunshots. Or maybe that’s just in her head. Maybe she’s just thinking of the way Michael laughed when he showed her the first file, the way his eyes never stopped looking over her shoulder even then.

She steps out into the morning, into a world that’s about to change.

And across the street, under the awning of the pawn shop, someone waits.

Not Michael.

But someone holding a briefcase that looks like hers. Someone who nods once when they see her and turns without a word, walking away.

She follows.

No one will believe it, not at first. But someone always does. That’s how stories work. The true ones, anyway.

Mara reaches into her pocket, touches the folded paper, the last line of her article still clear in her mind.

Truth doesn't win by being shouted. It wins by surviving.

She keeps walking.

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