CHAPTER 44: THE MOONFALL SURVIVOR
LUCIEN'S POV
The name in the Moonfall report had been scratched out.
Not redacted through official channels — scratched. Someone had taken a hard implement to the ink after the document was already dry, gouging at the paper itself in a way that left physical damage rather than a clean administrative removal. Which meant the erasure had been done outside the official process, by someone either without access to it or deliberately avoiding a paper trail. Either way it was sloppy, and sloppy meant panicked, and panicked meant the name underneath mattered enough that standard erasure wasn't considered safe enough.
I had been working at it for two days. Lamp light at different angles, careful pressure on the damaged fiber, building up the impression letter by letter. First letter V. Then what was probably an A. Then the paper was too damaged to give me anything clean.
