Seven Hours to Die

The holding wing was silent but sterile — all glass partitions and soft yellow lights meant to look humane, but never quite warm. Kale sat alone on the far side of the booth, hands clasped in front of him on the table, still in the same synth-streaked jacket he'd been wearing when they found him.

Adrian entered slowly. No guards inside. Just him, Kale, and the hum of recycled air.

Kale looked up. His eyes were bloodshot but clear.

"Didn't think you'd come back," he said quietly.

Adrian sat across from him. "I need to ask you about your disruptor."

Kale blinked. "My what?"

"The microfield unit issued to you. Gen 4-A. Serial MFD-2019473."

There was a pause. Adrian watched his face closely — not just the words, but the way his jaw tensed, the way his fingers flexed.

"I've got one," Kale said. "Tool of the trade. Every tech in my field has something like it."

"You logged a maintenance ping six days ago," Adrian said. "But the next sync wasn't from your sector. It was from Sector Eleven."

Kale frowned. "That… doesn't make sense. I've never even been to Eleven. I don't have clearance for anything over there."

"Is there anyone who does have access to your tools?"

He shook his head slowly. "I live alone. Keep my gear locked up."

"You ever loan anything out?"

"No."

"What about two years ago?" Adrian asked. "You were arrested for improper use of a frequency disruptor."

Kale flinched.

"I was cleared," he said flatly. "It was a misread from a signal array I was repairing. They threw it on my record anyway. Said I was 'suspicious.' I appealed, and I won. Eventually."

"You think that's what this is?" Adrian asked. "Someone stacking old charges until they look like patterns?"

"I don't know," Kale said. He rubbed his hands over his face. "But I didn't kill that man."

"Do you know who he was?"

"No." Then, softer: "But I think he knew who I was."

Adrian froze.

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know. It's just a feeling. He didn't act like a stranger. He never looked lost. He just… watched. Like he was waiting for me to do something."

Adrian stared at him.

"And then he was dead."

Kale sat with his hands folded in front of him, not speaking. Not fidgeting. Just... still. Not defiant. Not scared. Just tired.

Adrian studied him.

"You know," he said quietly, "you're not what I expected."

Kale looked up. "That supposed to mean something?"

Adrian gave a small shrug. "You're on trial for murder. Everyone talks like you're unstable. Angry. Violent. But here you are. Calm. Clear. Confused, but not desperate."

Kale snorted faintly. "You want desperate? Try waking up in a locked room, watching everyone around you decide whether you're a killer."

Adrian leaned back. "I've read your file twice. The arrest from two years ago. The flagged behavior. Half your work history is marked as 'noncompliant.'"

"I fix things," Kale muttered. "Systems, grids, drones. I don't make friends in management."

"I get that."

Another beat of quiet.

"I didn't kill him," Kale said again, quieter now. "But I think someone wanted me to. Or wanted it to look like I did."

Adrian looked at him carefully. "You think you were being set up."

"I think…" He trailed off, then shook his head. "I don't know what I think. Just that everything feels placed. Like I stepped into someone else's story and forgot my lines."

That hit something in Adrian — a cold thrum in his chest he couldn't place.

He stood to leave, but paused.

"I don't know what the prosecution's going to throw at us tomorrow," Adrian said. "But I'm not interested in cleaning up a mess. I'm here to find the truth. Whatever it is."

Kale looked up at him — eyes clearer than they had been all day.

"Then I'm glad it's you."

Adrian nodded once, quietly, and walked out.

Infrastructure Administration was a concrete wedge of a building buried two levels below the commercial districts, where the Odyssey's back-end systems were kept out of sight — thermal regulation, ventilation balancing, and grid maintenance. A place everyone relied on and no one thought about.

Adrian had to pass two checkpoints just to reach the front desk.

The woman there barely looked up. Her badge read MORA, A.

"Judiciary access," he said. "I'm following up on a logged maintenance ping involving a Gen 4-A disruptor. Serial number ends in 9473."

Mora frowned slightly, but keyed something into her console.

"You're not with Security?"

"Legal observer."

She scanned the file, then nodded toward a hallway behind her. "Sync happened two days ago at Terminal C4. Not logged to a specific user — just a system handshake. Could've been an automated re-calibration."

"Could it have been triggered by someone nearby?"

"Possibly," she said. "If they were running diagnostics or transmitting close-range. That gear isn't precision-locked."

He paused. "Do you keep logs of personnel who accessed that terminal?"

"Not from that time window. System was offline for routine firmware updates. Came back up fifteen minutes after the sync you mentioned."

"How convenient."

Mora didn't respond. She just stared at him.

He nodded slowly. "Can I see the terminal?"

She hesitated. Then: "You've got five minutes. Then I'll need to explain why I let you in."

Terminal C4 was housed in a narrow chamber full of blinking consoles and ventilation tubes. It didn't look like a place for espionage — but Adrian wasn't expecting spies in black coats. He was expecting quiet omissions.

He walked around the console. Nothing unusual.

Except—

Near the base of the terminal, tucked beside a heat exchanger panel, something was scratched into the paint. A small triangle, etched by hand. Sharp corners, broken base.

He'd seen that symbol before.

On the victim's collar — half-hidden under blood and torn fabric. The same triangle.

Not a symbol the public would recognize. Not anymore.

He took a photo. Didn't touch anything else.

Someone had been here. Someone connected to that man. Someone who wasn't Kale.

The hum of the apartment was the only sound.

Adrian sat at his desk, lights dimmed to a low gold. The skyline outside shifted gently as the Odyssey's sector lighting rotated toward evening. His desk was cluttered now — diagrams, annotated logs, hand-drawn timelines. Half a cup of coffee had gone cold beside his hand.

He didn't notice.

A schematic glowed on his screen: a map of the grid. Alley. Substation. Infrastructure Administration — Terminal C4. A red line tracked the last known ping from Kale's disruptor: Sector 11, two days before the murder. Kale had sworn he'd never been there.

And now Adrian believed him.

He tapped open the device specs again. It came back to him — a detail from training: disruptors like this auto-sync to nearby systems if improperly shut down, even when not in use. A safety feature. It left a trace — not of the user, just of the tool.

Someone had used Kale's gear.

Not to break anything. Not to destroy.

To access something.

Like Terminal C4. A black-ops terminal marked with a symbol from the old regime. Same one the victim had stitched into his collar. Someone had been there — someone who used Kale's tool to get in without being seen. And when it left that trace, it made Kale look like the one who did it.

Not a weapon.

A footprint.

And then… the same disruptor was found hidden near the murder scene.

Adrian stared at the screen, his thoughts sharpening like glass.

"Someone used Kale's tool to move unseen. Access something. And when it left a trace, they made sure it pointed back to him."

It wasn't sloppiness. It wasn't panic.

It was surgical.

And Kale — paranoid, isolated, with a minor record — made a perfect scapegoat.

A pulse of static snapped behind Adrian's eyes. He winced, then froze.

Clarity followed — too sharp, too clean. His thoughts spun into place before he could catch them. His fatigue vanished like mist.

Time to see what the prosecution actually knew.

The waiting room felt like a staging area for something worse.

Adrian sat stiffly on the edge of a low bench, elbows on knees, palms pressed together. The lights were warm, the air filtered, but none of it settled him. Everything in this place had the feel of controlled anticipation — as if even the architecture was waiting to pass judgment.

He was in uniform. Black suit, slate undershirt, silver pin on the collar. Provisional defense status — not even full certification yet.

The door opened behind him.

Selena Veyla stepped in, silent as breath. No robes, no insignia — just clean-lined formalwear in deep navy, tailored and precise. Her presence alone shifted the room's gravity.

Adrian stood automatically. "Ma'am."

She raised one brow. "I told you not to call me that in court."

"This isn't court," he said.

"Close enough."

She didn't sit, just crossed the room to stand near him, arms folded, eyes on the closed chamber doors ahead.

"You've reviewed the case files?"

"Twice."

"Memorized the chain-of-custody tags?"

"Yes."

"Constructed your theory of the crime?"

"I have a theory."

She glanced at him.

"And are you prepared to stake your credibility on it?"

Adrian didn't answer right away.

"I'm prepared," he said finally.

Selene's expression didn't change. "That's not the same thing."

She turned to face him more fully. "This courtroom will not slow down for you. The prosecutor will not hold back. The judge won't explain what you missed if you fail to object in time."

"I know."

"You're walking in alone. No team. No precedent on your side. Just a man with a failing record, a missing weapon, and a trail of evidence with his name on it."

"I know."

Selene watched him for a long moment.

"Then the only thing left to ask," she said quietly, "is whether you're walking in there to win… or just to prove you belong."

Adrian met her eyes. He looked exhausted, wired, and more certain than he should have been.

"I don't care if I belong," he said. "I care if the wrong man dies."

A pause. Then the faintest nod.

"Good," she said. "That's the only reason I showed up."

The door panel chimed green. 19:29.

Courtroom 1A was waiting.

Selena followed him in, though for now, he was much more prepared than she was.