Nina opened her laptop in the café, breathing slowly. Three weeks had reduced to nineteen days; the vote had been moved earlier “for efficiency.” She arranged her notes into a timeline. Her screen glowed with numbers, but the story still lacked one necessary thing—solid evidence.
That night, an email arrived from an unfamiliar address. “You are not wrong,” it said. “But you are not seeing all of it.” Attached were blurred photos of internal memos titled “Prolonged Placement Review.” A final line in plain text: “Look at the annex. That is where they hide the real purpose.”