chapter_01_Ashfall_section_01.txt

Chapter 1 Ashfall


[Seven months earlier -- March 2098]


Three encrypted pads. Waterproof case. Transit pass with two fake traces loaded. Liana Rios moved through Pike Place like she belonged; head down, shoulders angled against the rain, another worker heading home after swing shift.

Except she wasn't going home.

Ana Khatri. Third floor. Investigative journalist who actually read source materials instead of farming them out to AI scrapers. Two prior meetings, both careful. This one different. Tonight Liana brought everything.

Her pocket buzzed. Tomas. She didn't answer. Couldn't. He'd ask her to be safe, and she'd have to lie.

The crowd thickened ahead. Something wrong. She slowed, reading the movement. People accelerating. Others backing away. Enforcement sirens echoed between towers; not close, not yet. Buzzers hummed overhead, red lights cutting through the rain like angry fireflies.

The custody processing center sat two blocks west. Protest had been building all week. Parents demanding transparency. Androids staging peaceful shutdown. The crowd's signs called them everything from "conscious beings" to worse slurs (skinjobs, chromebitches, fucking replicrap). Everyone knew the fuse burned short. Nobody knew when it'd blow.

Keep moving.

Ana's building: right there. Forty meters. Liana adjusted her grip on the case. Her palms slick with rain and sweat.

Someone screamed. Not fear; fury. The sound ignited the crowd like thrown spark.

Twenty meters.

Enforcement drones appeared. Sleek black forms cutting through rain. Light bars flashing red. Audio warnings boomed: "Disperse immediately. Unlawful assembly; "

A bottle shattered against concrete. Then another. Glass exploding into wet spray. The crowd surge hit her sideways. Bodies pressing. Voices rising into single roar. An elbow caught her ribs; she gasped, stumbled, kept moving.

Fifteen meters.

She wedged through, case tight against ribs. Couldn't drop it. Seven months of work. Correlation maps. Custody placement patterns. Labor contracts. Everything proving they were farming children through legal channels; shipping them to peripheral work zones where surveillance glitched and accountability died.

The evidence had to reach Ana. Had to.

Ten meters.

Enforcement line formed. Shields up. Projectors humming. The crowd pushed back. Someone threw a data brick. It struck a shield and exploded into angry static. The air smelled like ozone and fear.

Liana reached the door.

Slapped her palm against the reader. It blinked red. Denied.

No. No, no. Fuck.

She hit the emergency call. "Ana. It's me. I'm downstairs. Let me up."

Silence. Then: "Too dangerous. Come back tomorrow; "

"There won't be a tomorrow!" Liana's voice cracked. "They know. I'm being followed. It's now or fucking never, Ana."

Three seconds. Five. The longest span of Liana's life.

The door clicked. Green.

She shoved through, stumbled into the stairwell. Behind her, the crowd's roar became something animal.

Three flights. Her legs burned. The case weighed nothing and everything. At the top, Ana stood in the doorway. Sharp eyes. Practical jacket. Zero patience for bullshit.

"Inside. Fast."

Liana handed over the case. "Everything's here. Raw data, correlation analyses, testimony transcripts. I verified every source twice."

Ana's fingers moved across the encrypted reader. Her expression shifted; skepticism to focus to something harder. "This is... Liana, if this is accurate; "

"It is."

". you just torched your whole goddamn life."

"I know."

Outside, glass shattered. Multiple impacts. Screams rose. Enforcement audio warnings escalated to threats. Then weapons discharge; non-lethal at first, sharp cracks that meant pain compliance rounds.

Liana moved to the window. Below, the crowd boiled. Enforcement advanced. Protesters scattered and regrouped. It wasn't a protest anymore. It was ignition.

"You need to leave," Ana said. "Back door. Service exit to the transit tunnel; "

"Will you publish it?"

"Liana; "

"Will you publish it?"

Ana met her eyes. Journalist to source. Professional to desperate. "Yes. But only if you survive to verify. Get out. Now."

Liana nodded. Started for the door.

Her pocket buzzed again. Tomas. This time she answered.

"Where are you?" His voice; steady, careful, but underneath: terrified.

"Pike Place. Ana's building. I'm leaving now; "

"Don't." Abrupt. Not like him. "Enforcement is boxing the district. West and south locked down. They're funneling the crowd east toward the waterfront."

"How do you know?"

"I'm watching the grid. Power routing, surveillance feeds; they're creating a kill box, Liana. Standard containment protocol."

Her chest tightened. "Where are you?"

"Municipal hub. Twenty minutes out if I use the service tunnels." Pause. "Stay inside. I'm coming to you."

"Tomas, no. It's too dangerous; "

"I know those tunnels better than enforcement does. I'll get you out."

The line went dead.

Below, the violence metastasized. Fire bloomed; trash ignition, then something chemical. Smoke poured. The enforcement line held, but barely. Someone would make a choice soon. Someone always did. And then pain compliance became lethal response.

Ana appeared beside her, coat on, small pack secured. "I'm going out the back. You should; "

"Wait five minutes. My partner's coming. He knows the tunnels."

"Liana; "

"Five minutes. Please."

Ana's jaw worked. Then: "Five. Not six."