Chapter 2: The Evidence

Daniel turned off the engine and sat in the driveway. The dashboard clock read 1:04 AM. He stared at the dark windows of the house through the windshield and gripped the flash drive in his right hand. The plastic pressed against his palm. He squeezed it tighter and watched the porch light cast long shadows across the lawn.

A car passed on the street behind him. Daniel watched the headlights sweep across his rearview mirror and disappear around the corner. He counted to ten. Then twenty. Then thirty. Nobody else drove past. The neighborhood slept around him. He opened his hand and looked at the flash drive resting in his palm. Such a small object. Such ordinary plastic and circuits.

Daniel closed his hand around it again and pushed open the car door. The dome light came on and made him blink. He climbed out and closed the door quietly behind him. The night air smelled of cut grass and the neighbor's sprinkler system running on a timer. Daniel walked up the driveway to his front door and pulled out his keys. He unlocked the door and stepped inside, turning to lock it behind him before flipping on the hall light.

The house stood empty and silent. Daniel had lived here alone for two years since the divorce. Sarah had taken most of the furniture when she left. Daniel kept meaning to buy new things but never got around to it. He walked through the living room where a couch and a television sat facing each other like strangers. The kitchen light glowed at the end of the hall.

Daniel went to the kitchen and set the flash drive on the table. He opened the refrigerator and stared at the shelves. A carton of milk. Some leftover Chinese food from three days ago. A six-pack of beer with two bottles missing. He grabbed a beer and twisted off the cap, then closed the refrigerator and leaned against the counter.

He drank half the bottle in three long swallows and set it down on the counter. The beer tasted flat and bitter. Daniel rubbed his face with both hands and looked at the flash drive sitting on the kitchen table. He needed to examine the files properly. He needed to understand what he had actually seen in those satellite images.

Daniel walked to the bedroom and retrieved his laptop from the nightstand. He carried it back to the kitchen and set it on the table next to the flash drive. The laptop hummed to life when he opened it. The screen glowed blue and asked for his password. Daniel typed it in and waited for the desktop to load.

He picked up the flash drive and turned it over in his hand. The plastic felt warm from being in his pocket. Daniel plugged it into the USB port on the side of the laptop. The computer made a soft chime and opened a window showing the thirty files he had copied from the server.

Daniel opened his encryption software and created a new folder on the laptop's hard drive. He named it BACKUP-77 and set it to require a password for access. The software asked him to enter a password twice. Daniel typed in a random string of numbers and letters, something he could remember but nobody else would guess.

He selected all thirty files from the flash drive and dragged them into the encrypted folder. The transfer took about ninety seconds. Daniel watched the progress bar fill from left to right. When it completed, he ejected the flash drive and set it aside. The files now existed in two places. The flash drive and the encrypted folder on his laptop. Two copies of evidence he shouldn't have.

Daniel double-clicked the encrypted folder and entered his password. The folder opened and displayed the thirty satellite image files in a grid. He clicked on the first one and waited for it to open. The image viewer loaded and showed the same scene he had examined at work. Antarctica. Ice and snow. Geometric patterns in the lower right quadrant.

He zoomed in on the rectangular shapes. Buildings. Had to be buildings. No natural formation created perfectly straight lines and right angles. Daniel measured the largest rectangle using the image viewer's built-in tools. Approximately fifty meters by twenty meters. The size of a warehouse or a large office building.

Daniel closed the first image and opened the second one. Different coordinates. Same geometric patterns. He counted twelve rectangular structures arranged in a grid formation. Three rows of four buildings each. Streets or pathways connected them in straight lines.

He opened the third image. The terraced hillside. Daniel zoomed in and examined the edges of each terrace. Too precise to be natural erosion. Someone had cut these into the rock or ice. Someone had built something here.

Daniel sat back in his chair and took another drink from his beer bottle. The kitchen clock read 1:42 AM. He should sleep. He had work tomorrow evening for another shift monitoring the migration. But sleep seemed impossible now. Daniel leaned forward again and opened the next image file.

He worked through all thirty images over the next forty minutes. Each one showed the same thing. Evidence of human infrastructure in places where no infrastructure should exist. Buildings. Roads. Ports. Airfields. All of it in Antarctica. All of it beyond the official maps and research stations.

Daniel opened mapping software on his laptop. He used a free program that aggregated data from multiple public sources. Government surveys, satellite imagery, topographic maps. He zoomed to Antarctica and found the continent displayed in white and blue. The software showed research stations marked with small red dots. McMurdo Station on Ross Island. Amundsen-Scott at the South Pole. Several others scattered along the coast.

Daniel pulled up the first satellite image again and checked the coordinates. Eighty-two degrees south, one hundred and fifteen degrees east. He entered those coordinates into the mapping software and waited for it to center on that location.

The map showed nothing but blank white space. No markers. No labels. No indication that anything existed there. The software labeled it as "Antarctic Ice Shelf - Unexplored Territory."

Daniel checked the second image. Eighty-three degrees south, ninety-eight degrees east. He entered those coordinates into the mapping software. Same result. Blank white space. No acknowledgment that anything existed at those coordinates except ice.

He worked through all thirty images, cross-referencing each set of coordinates with the public mapping data. Every single location showed the same thing. Empty ice shelf. No structures. No infrastructure. No human presence of any kind according to official sources.

Daniel closed the mapping software and opened the satellite images again. He arranged them on his screen in order from north to south based on their coordinates. The northernmost image showed coordinates at eighty degrees south. The southernmost reached eighty-seven degrees south.

He studied the pattern. The structures appeared to follow the coastline of Antarctica at first, then extended further inland as the coordinates progressed south. Daniel opened another browser window and searched for information about Antarctic geography. He read about the ice shelf, the mountain ranges, the research stations.

Nothing he found explained what he saw in the satellite images. Nothing mentioned large-scale development or hidden infrastructure. Every article, every map, every official document treated Antarctica as pristine wilderness reserved for scientific research and environmental protection.

Daniel checked the time. 2:47 AM. He rubbed his eyes and blinked at the screen. The laptop's backlight made his eyes water. He needed to focus on the thermal imagery files. Those had shown something he hadn't fully processed at work.

He opened the first thermal image and zoomed to full size. The false color processing showed temperature gradients across the landscape. Deep blue for extreme cold. Green for moderate cold. Yellow and orange for above-freezing temperatures. Red for significant heat sources.

Daniel scanned across the image looking for the heat signatures he remembered seeing. He found them clustered in the eastern quadrant of the frame. Three distinct red shapes arranged in a triangle formation. Each shape appeared roughly circular. Daniel zoomed in further and used the measurement tools to calculate their diameter.

Approximately two hundred meters across. Daniel stopped and recalculated to make sure he had the scale right. The measurement held. Each of these heat sources measured two hundred meters in diameter. That made them massive. Larger than any building Daniel had ever seen.

He examined the shape more carefully. Not perfectly circular. Slightly irregular along the edges, but maintaining a generally dome-like outline. The heat signature showed brightest at the center and gradually cooled toward the perimeter. The temperature gradient suggested these structures maintained controlled internal environments.

Daniel checked the temperature scale on the image. The center of each dome registered at approximately fifteen degrees Celsius. Above freezing. Warm enough for human habitation. The surrounding Antarctic ice shelf showed temperatures at negative forty-five degrees Celsius.

Someone had built structures capable of maintaining seventy-degree temperature differences from the outside environment. In one of the harshest climates on Earth. Daniel tried to imagine the engineering required for that. The insulation. The heating systems. The power generation needed to run it all.

He opened the second thermal image. More heat signatures. These ones showed a different pattern. Instead of three domes in a triangle, this image displayed five domes arranged in a rough pentagon. Each dome measured approximately the same size as the ones in the first image. Two hundred meters across. Internal temperatures hovering around fifteen degrees.

Daniel counted the dome structures across all the thermal images. Thirty-seven in total. All of them grouped in clusters of three to five. All of them maintaining internal temperatures suitable for human occupation. All of them in locations where official maps showed nothing but ice.

He zoomed out on one of the thermal images and looked at the broader context. The dome structures sat connected by thin orange lines. Heated pathways maybe. Enclosed corridors linking the domes together. Daniel traced the pathways with his cursor and saw they formed a network connecting all the domes in each cluster.

Daniel saved the thermal image and opened the next one. This image showed a different kind of heat signature. Instead of domes, he saw a long rectangular shape approximately one kilometer in length. The heat pattern suggested it might be underground or covered. Only the exhaust vents showed as bright red spots along its length.

He counted the vents. Twelve of them spaced evenly along the rectangular shape. Each vent registered temperatures above one hundred degrees Celsius. Daniel tried to think what could produce that much heat. Power plants maybe. Industrial furnaces. Something operating at very high temperatures.

The laptop's battery warning appeared in the corner of the screen. Daniel grabbed the power cord from his bag and plugged it in. The warning disappeared. He went back to examining the thermal images and tried to make sense of what he saw.

Dome structures maintaining room temperature in Antarctica. Underground facilities venting superheated exhaust. Networks of heated corridors connecting everything together. All of it invisible on public maps. All of it classified and hidden from general knowledge.

Daniel opened the image showing the port facility again. He zoomed in on the vessels moored at the docks. The thermal signature showed them as active and occupied. Heat poured from their exhaust stacks. Lights glowed along their decks. These weren't abandoned ships or derelict hulks. These were operational vessels with crews aboard.

He measured the largest vessel. Four hundred meters long. That made it bigger than most aircraft carriers. Daniel zoomed in on the deck configuration and saw what appeared to be cargo cranes and loading equipment. A container ship then. But what could anyone possibly be shipping to Antarctica?

Daniel closed the port image and returned to the files showing what he had initially thought were roads. He opened the first one and zoomed in on the parallel lines cutting through the snow. At lower magnification, they had appeared smooth and uniform. But now, examining them at maximum resolution, Daniel saw texture and detail he had missed before.

The lines weren't roads. They were tracks. Vehicle tracks pressed into the snow and ice. Daniel zoomed in further until individual patterns became visible in the compressed snow. Tread marks. Deep grooves left by massive tires or treads. He measured the width of one track. Approximately four meters across. Whatever had made these tracks operated on an enormous scale.

Daniel traced one set of tracks across the image from west to east. The vehicle had traveled in a straight line for several kilometers before the tracks disappeared at the edge of the frame. He opened the adjacent image file, hoping to see where the tracks led. The next image showed the tracks continuing eastward, still perfectly straight, still pressing deep into the snow.

He followed the tracks through five consecutive images, watching them maintain their eastward trajectory without deviation. On the sixth image, the tracks curved slightly south and continued toward a coordinate Daniel hadn't examined closely yet. He checked the location. Eighty-six degrees south, one hundred and forty-two degrees east.

Daniel opened the image file corresponding to those coordinates and waited for it to load. When it appeared on screen, he sat forward in his chair and stared at what he saw.

A wall. A massive wall of ice rising from the landscape. Daniel zoomed out to get perspective on the scale. The wall appeared to stretch across the entire width of the image frame. He checked the image dimensions. Twenty kilometers from edge to edge. The wall continued beyond both edges of the frame, extending further than the satellite had captured.

Daniel zoomed back in and examined the wall itself. The surface showed smooth and vertical, rising approximately one hundred meters above the surrounding ice shelf based on the shadow measurements. Too smooth to be a natural formation. Too vertical and uniform. Someone had built this. Or shaped it. Or maintained it.

The vehicle tracks led directly to the base of the wall and stopped. Daniel scanned along the wall's base looking for any opening or gate where the tracks might continue through. He found nothing. The wall presented a solid barrier with no visible breaks.

He opened the thermal imagery file for the same coordinates. The wall showed bright blue. Solid ice at ambient temperature. But along the top edge, Daniel saw a thin line of yellow. Heat signatures spaced at regular intervals. He zoomed in and counted them. Guard posts maybe. Observation towers. Something manned and heated positioned along the top of the wall every five hundred meters.

Daniel traced the wall's path across multiple satellite images. It curved gradually, following what appeared to be a massive circle or arc. He tried to calculate the diameter based on the curvature, but the wall extended beyond the available images. Too large to measure from the limited sample he had.

He sat back and drank the last of his beer. The bottle had gone warm in his hand. Daniel set it down and rubbed his face. A perimeter wall in Antarctica. Hundreds of meters tall. Kilometers long. Possibly forming a complete circle around something. Around what? What could possibly require that kind of barrier?

Daniel checked the time on his laptop. 3:12 AM. He needed to document this. He needed physical copies of these images. Digital files could be deleted remotely if someone discovered what he had taken. But printed copies would exist independent of any network or system.

He opened the screenshot utility on his laptop and began capturing the most important images. The dome structures first. He took screenshots showing the thermal signatures and the size measurements he had calculated. Then the vehicle tracks. Then the wall. Then the port facility with the massive ships moored at the docks.

Daniel saved each screenshot as a separate file and added them to a new folder on his desktop. When he had collected twenty of the most compelling images, he connected his laptop to the wireless printer sitting on the counter near the refrigerator.

The printer hummed to life and began pulling sheets of paper from its tray. Daniel stood and walked to the counter to watch the first image emerge. The thermal signature of the three dome structures appeared in full color on the glossy photo paper. The red and orange heat signatures stood out clearly against the blue background of frozen landscape.

The printer continued working through the queue. Each image took about forty seconds to print. Daniel collected them as they emerged and set them on the kitchen table in a growing stack. The dome structures. The vehicle tracks. The wall. The port facility. The terraced hillside. The underground facility with the exhaust vents.

By the time the printer finished, Daniel had twenty-three physical copies spread across his counter. He gathered them and carried them to the kitchen table. Then he began arranging them in order based on their coordinates, starting with the northernmost images at eighty degrees south and working down to the southernmost at eighty-seven degrees.

The pattern became clearer when he saw them laid out in sequence. The structures formed a progression from north to south. Small installations near the coast. Larger complexes further inland. The dome clusters increasing in size and number as the coordinates moved south. All of it leading toward the wall.

Daniel stepped back from the table and looked at the arrangement. Twenty-three satellite images showing infrastructure that officially didn't exist. Evidence of development on a massive scale in one of the most remote places on Earth. Hidden from public knowledge. Classified and buried in government files that Daniel had only seen because of a routing error.

He pulled out his phone and checked the time. 3:34 AM. Too late to call anyone. Too early to show up at someone's house. Daniel stood in his kitchen staring at the printed images and tried to decide what to do next.

He needed to talk to someone. Someone he could trust. Someone who might understand what he had found. Daniel scrolled through his phone's contact list and stopped at Marcus Webb. His brother-in-law. Former military intelligence. Eight years at Fort Meade before he left the service and started working as a security consultant.

Marcus had always been careful about what he said regarding his time in the military. Non-disclosure agreements prevented him from discussing most of what he had done. But Daniel remembered conversations at family dinners where Marcus would hint at things. Classifications above top secret. Projects that officially didn't exist. Operations conducted without congressional oversight.

If anyone could help Daniel understand what he had found, it would be Marcus. But contacting him at three in the morning would require explanation. Daniel couldn't just call and ask to meet without giving a reason. Marcus would ask questions. Want to know what was so urgent it couldn't wait until morning.

Daniel opened his text messaging app and typed a message to Marcus. "You awake?" He stared at the words for several seconds before hitting send. The message showed as delivered. Daniel set his phone on the table and waited.

Thirty seconds passed. A minute. Daniel picked up the printed images and shuffled through them again. The phone buzzed. He grabbed it and saw Marcus's reply. "Yeah. What's wrong?"

Daniel typed back. "Need to show you something. Can I come over?"

The reply came within seconds. "Now? It's almost 4 AM."

"I know. It's important."

Three dots appeared showing Marcus was typing. They disappeared. Appeared again. Disappeared. Finally the message came through. "How important?"

Daniel looked at the satellite images spread across his kitchen table. He thought about the wall. The dome structures. The ships at the port. "Very important. Need your opinion on something."

Another pause. Then Marcus replied. "Alright. Come over. Door's unlocked."

Daniel gathered the printed images and tapped them against the table to straighten them into a neat stack. He opened the drawer under the microwave and pulled out a manila folder he used for organizing bills. He slid the images inside the folder and closed it.

He walked to the front door and grabbed his jacket from the coat rack. The night had turned cold. Daniel put on the jacket and picked up his car keys from the small table by the door. He looked back at his laptop still open on the kitchen table, displaying the thermal imagery of the dome structures. Daniel crossed the room and closed the laptop, then unplugged it from the charger.

He carried the laptop to his bedroom and set it in the nightstand drawer. Then he returned to the kitchen and grabbed the manila folder containing the printed images. Daniel turned off the kitchen light and walked to the front door. He stepped outside and locked the door behind him with both the handle lock and the deadbolt.

The neighborhood remained dark and quiet. Daniel walked to his car and unlocked it. He climbed into the driver's seat and set the manila folder on the passenger seat. The car started with a soft rumble. Daniel backed out of the driveway and turned onto the street.

Marcus lived fifteen minutes away in a development on the north side of town. Daniel drove through empty intersections and past darkened houses. No other cars appeared on the road. The city slept around him while he carried evidence of something that shouldn't exist toward the one person who might believe him.

Daniel checked his rearview mirror at every intersection. No headlights followed him. No vehicles appeared behind him. He turned onto the main road leading north and accelerated to the speed limit. The streetlights passed overhead in steady rhythm.

At a red light, Daniel looked at the manila folder sitting on the passenger seat. He had crossed a line tonight. Stolen classified information. Copied files he had no authorization to access. Covered his tracks in the server logs. Any one of those actions could cost him his job and possibly his freedom if anyone discovered what he had done.

The light turned green. Daniel drove through the intersection and checked his mirror again. Still no one behind him. He turned onto Marcus's street and slowed down, counting house numbers until he found the right address. Daniel pulled to the curb across the street from Marcus's house instead of parking in the driveway. Some instinct made him want to keep his car less visible from the street.

He turned off the engine and sat for a moment. The house showed dark except for a single light glowing in what Daniel remembered was Marcus's home office on the first floor. Daniel grabbed the manila folder and opened his car door. The dome light came on and he climbed out, closing the door quietly behind him. The light clicked off.

Daniel crossed the street and walked up the driveway toward Marcus's front door. Before he reached it, the door opened and Marcus stood silhouetted against the light from inside.

Marcus wore sweatpants and a faded Army t-shirt. He stepped aside without saying anything and gestured for Daniel to come in. Daniel walked past him into the entrance hall. Marcus closed the door and locked it, leaving the porch light off. The house remained dim except for the light spilling from the office doorway down the hall.

"Office," Marcus said.

Daniel followed him down the hallway past family photos hanging on the walls. Marcus's wife and two kids smiled from picture frames. Daniel remembered they were visiting her parents in Ohio for the week. Marcus had mentioned it at the last family gathering. The timing meant they had the house to themselves.

Marcus led Daniel into the home office and closed the door behind them. The room measured about twelve feet square with a desk against one wall and bookshelves lining the others. A computer monitor sat dark on the desk next to a lamp that provided the only light in the room. Marcus gestured to the desk.

"Show me."

Daniel set the manila folder on the desk and opened it. He pulled out the stack of printed satellite images and began spreading them across the desk surface. Marcus stood with his arms crossed and watched without moving. Daniel arranged the images in coordinate order, north to south, the same way he had laid them out on his kitchen table.

When all twenty-three images covered the desk, Daniel stepped back. Marcus leaned forward and picked up the first image. The thermal signature of the three dome structures. He held it close to the lamp and examined it for several seconds. Then he set it down and picked up the next image. The vehicle tracks. He studied that one too.

Marcus worked through each image without speaking. He picked them up one at a time, examined them under the lamp, set them down, and moved to the next. Daniel stood near the bookshelves and waited. The clock on the wall read 3:34 AM. The house sat silent around them except for the soft sound of Marcus's breathing and the occasional rustle of photo paper.

After examining all the printed images, Marcus looked up at Daniel. "You have the digital files?"

"On my laptop. At home."

"Go get it."

Daniel hesitated. "I didn't want to bring it. If someone's tracking—"

"Go get it now." Marcus's voice carried a tone Daniel had never heard before. Flat and commanding. The voice of someone who had given orders in situations where hesitation cost lives.

Daniel nodded and left the office. He walked back down the hallway and out the front door, crossing the street to his car. The neighborhood remained dark and empty. Daniel unlocked his car and retrieved his laptop from where he had stashed it under the passenger seat after deciding at the last minute not to leave it at home. He locked the car again and returned to Marcus's house.

Marcus waited in the office doorway. Daniel handed him the laptop and Marcus carried it to the desk. He opened it and waited for it to boot up. The screen glowed to life and asked for a password. Daniel leaned over and typed it in. Marcus pulled the desk chair around and sat down.

"Show me the files."

Daniel navigated to the encrypted folder and entered the password. The folder opened and displayed the thirty satellite image files in grid view. Marcus clicked on the first one and opened it in full screen. He zoomed in on the geometric patterns and used the measurement tools to check their dimensions. Then he closed that image and opened the next one.

Daniel sat on a small couch against the wall and watched Marcus work through the files. Marcus opened each image, zoomed in on different sections, checked coordinates, measured structures, and examined details. He spent several minutes on the thermal imagery, studying the dome structures and their heat signatures. He zoomed in on the wall and traced its path across multiple image files.

Twenty minutes passed. Marcus said nothing. He clicked through images and typed notes into a text document he had opened in a second window. Daniel watched the clock on the wall tick forward. 3:42 AM. 3:47 AM. 3:53 AM.

Finally Marcus opened the image showing the port facility. He zoomed in on the vessels moored at the docks and measured their lengths. He checked the coordinates and cross-referenced them with something on his phone. Then he closed the laptop and sat back in his chair.

Daniel watched Marcus's face drain of color. The change happened quickly. Marcus's tan complexion turned pale gray. He stared at the closed laptop and didn't move. Daniel stood up from the couch.

"Marcus?"

Marcus didn't respond. He kept staring at the laptop. His jaw clenched and unclenched. He put his hand over his mouth and breathed slowly through his nose. Daniel took a step closer.

"Marcus, what is it?"

Marcus lowered his hand and turned to look at Daniel. "Where did you get these files?"

"I told you. Routing error during the migration. They came to my workstation instead of the backup server."

"What exactly were they labeled?"

"DHSC-CARTOGRAPHIC-77."

Marcus closed his eyes. He sat motionless for several seconds. Then he opened his eyes and looked at Daniel again. "Do you have any idea what you've done?"

"That's why I'm here. I need to understand what I found."

Marcus stood up from the chair and walked to the window. He pulled the curtain aside slightly and looked out at the dark street. Then he let the curtain fall back and turned to face Daniel.

"I spent eight years in military intelligence at Fort Meade," Marcus said. "Worked signals analysis. Satellite communications. Data processing. Most of what I did was routine. Monitoring foreign communications. Tracking vessel movements. Nothing exciting."

Daniel waited. Marcus walked back to the desk and sat on the edge of it.

"But during those eight years, I signed about forty different non-disclosure agreements. Most of them covered standard classified material. Typical military stuff. But five of those NDAs were different. They covered specific operations that I was never directly involved with. Operations I only heard about because they got discussed in briefings I attended for other reasons."

Marcus picked up one of the printed images showing the dome structures. He held it and stared at it.

"Three of those five NDAs specifically mentioned Antarctic operations," Marcus continued. "I never saw any details. Never had clearance for the actual programs. But I heard them referenced. Code names mostly. Project classifications. Coordinate ranges that matched areas where certain satellite assets were focused."

He set the image down and looked at Daniel.

"The coordinates in these files match the ranges I remember from those briefings. Eighty to eighty-seven degrees south. The dome structures, the infrastructure, all of it lines up with what I heard discussed in classified settings."

Daniel sat back down on the couch. "So this is real. This is actual government infrastructure in Antarctica."

"I don't know what it is," Marcus said. "I never had clearance to know. But I know it exists. And I know that knowledge of its existence is protected at levels above top secret."

Marcus walked back to the window and checked the street again. He let the curtain fall and turned back to Daniel.

"In 2009, three analysts at my base accessed unauthorized Antarctic surveillance data. They weren't supposed to have access to those files, but they found a way into the system. I don't know what they saw. I don't know how they accessed it. But I know that within one week of the security breach being discovered, all three of them disappeared."

"Disappeared? What do you mean?"

"Gone. No transfers. No resignations. No explanations. One day they were at work, the next day their desks were empty and their security badges were deactivated. When anyone asked where they went, the answer was always the same. 'They're no longer with the agency.' That's it. No details. No forwarding information. Just gone."

Marcus walked to the desk and closed the laptop. He picked it up and handed it to Daniel.

"You need to assume someone already knows you copied these files."

"I covered my tracks. I deleted the access logs and—"

"It doesn't matter." Marcus cut him off. "These files are monitored at a level you can't imagine. The second they routed to your workstation, someone got an alert. Maybe not immediately, but soon. They have systems tracking this kind of data. Automated monitoring. Algorithms watching for unauthorized access."

Daniel stood up and took the laptop from Marcus. "So what do I do?"

Marcus looked at the printed images spread across his desk. "I don't know. If you delete everything and pretend this never happened, maybe they'll let it slide. Maybe they'll decide you saw the files but didn't understand what you were looking at. That you're not a threat."

"And if I don't delete everything?"

Marcus met Daniel's eyes. "Then you need to be very careful about who you trust and where you go. Because if they decide you're a security risk, you won't get a warning. You won't get a chance to explain. You'll just disappear."

Daniel looked down at the laptop in his hands. The smooth metal surface felt cold against his palms. He thought about the flash drive still in his jacket pocket. The encrypted folder on the laptop. The printed images on Marcus's desk. All of it evidence of something he wasn't supposed to know.

"I can't just delete it," Daniel said. "People need to know about this. If there's infrastructure in Antarctica on this scale, if there are things being hidden from the public, that's not right."

"Not right doesn't matter," Marcus said. "What matters is staying alive. What matters is not ending up like those analysts who disappeared."

Daniel gathered the printed images from the desk and put them back in the manila folder. Marcus watched him without saying anything. Daniel picked up the folder and held it against his chest.

"Thanks for looking at these," Daniel said. "I needed to know I wasn't crazy. That what I saw was real."

"It's real," Marcus replied. "That's the problem."

Daniel walked to the office door and opened it. Marcus followed him down the hallway to the front door. Daniel stepped outside into the cold pre-dawn air. Marcus stood in the doorway.

"Delete those files," Marcus said. "Destroy the flash drive. Burn the printed copies. Then forget you ever saw any of this."

Daniel nodded but didn't respond. He walked down the driveway to the street where his car waited. Marcus closed the door and the house went dark behind him. Daniel crossed the street and unlocked his car. He climbed inside and set the laptop and manila folder on the passenger seat.

The dashboard clock read 4:17 AM. Daniel started the engine and pulled away from the curb. He drove through the empty streets back toward his house, checking his rearview mirror at every turn. No headlights followed him. No cars appeared behind him. But Marcus's words echoed in his mind. Someone already knows. They're watching you right now.

Daniel gripped the steering wheel tighter and kept driving through the darkness.