"We need someone in tech services who can handle the electronic systems. And we need someone who can manage the guard situation without raising alarms." It was Davis voice which cut the rising tension in Evan's mind
"Li Chen," Evan said immediately. "From tech services. She's good, and she's been vocal about questioning Command's methods."
Davis nodded slowly. "Chen's solid. Came here from private sector, still thinks like a civilian. She might go for it." He paused. "And for the guards... Carlos Rodriguez. He's got the right rotation tonight, and he's been getting increasingly uncomfortable with the whole program."
"Rodriguez lost his sister to an elf raid," Evan said carefully. "Will he help?"
"That's exactly why he might." Davis's expression was grim. "He told me last week that he joined this fight to protect people, not to torture children. Said it was making him question everything he thought he knew."
"Can we trust them?"
"With this? I don't know. But we don't have a lot of options." Davis grabbed his phone. "I'll reach out. Carefully. See if they're willing to even have the conversation."
"We have until tonight."
"Yeah." Davis looked at him, really looked at him. "You've changed, Cross. Three days with that kid and you've completely changed."
"Maybe I'm just seeing clearly for the first time," Evan said.
"Or maybe you're having a breakdown. Hard to tell the difference sometimes." But Davis clasped his shoulder. "Give me two hours. I'll set up a meeting. Somewhere off-compound, somewhere Morrison's eyes don't reach."
Two hours later, Evan found himself in a dingy diner three miles from the compound, sitting in a back booth with three people who were about to become either his co-conspirators or the reason he spent the rest of his life in prison.
Li Chen arrived first. She was thirty-six, brilliant, with an engineering degree and a career in civilian tech before the government had recruited her with a substantial paycheck. She slid into the booth next to Davis, her sharp eyes immediately assessing Evan.
"Davis said this was urgent," she said without preamble. "And potentially career-ending. I'm listening."
Carlos Rodriguez came in five minutes later, still in his uniform, looking exhausted from the end of his shift. At twenty-eight, he was the youngest of them, with haunted eyes that spoke of too much violence seen too young. He sat across from Evan, his posture tense.
"This better be good," he said. "I've got four hours before I need to be back."
Evan looked at each of them in turn, then made his decision. "They're torturing a five-year-old elf girl at the compound. I want to break her out tonight. I need your help to do it."
The silence that followed was deafening.
Chen broke it first. "Define torture."
"Medical experimentation. Psychological manipulation. Invasive testing of her telepathic abilities." Evan's voice was flat, clinical. "She comes back from each session terrified and in pain. Yesterday she told me they were 'tearing her apart from the inside.' She's five years old."
Rodriguez's jaw clenched. "Elves killed my sister."
"But not this kid." Evan said quietly.
Rodriguez looked away, his hands fisting on the table.
Chen leaned forward. "What's the plan?"
Evan pulled out a hand-drawn map of the compound, spreading it on the table. "Tonight, 0200 hours. Davis, you'll be on security monitoring. You'll create systematic camera glitches along our escape route—make it look like a power fluctuation, nothing that raises immediate alarms."
"I can do that," Chen said, studying the map. "Power grid for the security system has three redundancies, but if I create a cascade failure in sectors C through F, it'll look like an equipment malfunction."
"Exactly." Evan pointed to another section. "Rodriguez, you'll be on patrol in the east wing. Around 0145, you report a maintenance issue—water leak, gas smell, something that requires immediate attention from the guards stationed at the exits. Keep them distracted for ten minutes."
Rodriguez was silent, but he was studying the map now, engaged despite himself.
"I'll get Anaya out of interrogation room two," Evan continued. "We go through the east wing—Davis, that's where I need the cameras down—and out through the equipment yard. Over the fence and into the forest before anyone realizes we're gone."
"They'll realize within minutes," Chen said. "Morrison has motion sensors on the kid's room. The second that door opens outside of scheduled times, alarms will trigger."
"Can you disable them?"
Chen bit her lip, thinking. "Maybe. If I can access the system thirty seconds before you move, I can create a loop in the feed. Make it look like the door never opened. But I'd need to be physically present in the server room, and I'd need perfect timing."
"0200 hours exactly," Evan said. "Can you do it?"
She met his eyes. "If I get caught, I'll spend the rest of my life in a military prison."
"I know. I'm not going to lie and say there's no risk. There's massive risk. For all of us." Evan looked at each of them. "But that little girl is going to die in there. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but eventually. Morrison sees her as an experiment, a weapon to be studied. When they're done with her..." He trailed off.
"They'll dispose of her," Davis finished quietly. "Like they've disposed of the others."
The others. Evan had heard rumors—elves who'd been captured for study, who'd simply disappeared from the facility records. He'd never wanted to know what had happened to them.
Now he knew he'd been complicit through his silence.
Rodriguez finally spoke. "My sister—Maria—she was a teacher. Elementary school. She used to say that every child deserved protection, no matter where they came from." His voice was rough with emotion. "I've been trying to honor her memory by fighting elves. But maybe... maybe I've been honoring her all wrong."
"So you'll help?" Evan asked.
Rodriguez nodded slowly. "Yeah. Yeah, I'll help. But Cross—if this goes sideways, if that kid turns out to be dangerous, if she hurts anyone—"
"She won't," Evan said with absolute certainty. "She's the least dangerous person I've ever met."
Chen was still studying the map, her analytical mind working through the logistics. "We need a contingency plan. If the alarms go off early, if Morrison figures it out before you're clear—"
"Then you all abort," Evan said firmly. "Destroy any evidence of your involvement and claim ignorance. I'll take full responsibility."
"Like hell," Davis said. "We're in this together. All of us."
"Davis—"
"All of us," he repeated, and Chen and Rodriguez nodded in agreement.
Something loosened in Evan's chest. He wasn't alone in this. For the first time since Anaya had wrapped her small arms around his neck and called him Papa, he wasn't alone.
"Okay," he said. "Then let's go over the details. We have one shot at this, and we need to get it right."
They spent the next hour planning, refining, anticipating every possible complication. Chen made notes on her phone about the technical specifications she'd need to bypass. Rodriguez memorized the guard positions and timing. Davis calculated the exact sequence of camera failures that would seem most natural.
By the time they finished, Evan's watch read 1330 hours. He had thirty minutes to get back to the compound before Morrison sent someone looking for him.
"Tonight," he said, standing. "0200 hours. No communication after we leave here—Morrison monitors everything. If anyone gets cold feet, if anyone decides this is too risky... I understand. But after this moment, there's no backing out."
"We're not backing out," Chen said firmly. She stood, offering her hand. "That little girl deserves better than what they're doing to her. We all know it."
Rodriguez and Davis stood as well, and for a moment, the four of them stood there in the dingy diner, united by a shared purpose that would either save a child or destroy them all.
"0200 hours," Davis confirmed. "We'll be ready. Kid, your mother would be proud of you if she could see that."
Yes. His mother. "Yeah . Maybe."
As Evan left the diner and headed back to the compound, he didn't know why he was remembering this. Where was this memory before....
"Mama, you have to knock. This is a magic fort. Only people who believe in magic can come in." He was too little.
His mother, Helena Cross, stood outside the elaborate construction of blankets, pillows, and chairs that had taken over living room. She knocked solemnly on the sheet that served as a door.
"Who goes there?" Evan's voice called from inside, trying to sound deep and important.
"It's me. Your mother. I believe in magic."
A pause. Then the blanket lifted and Evan's face appeared, suspicious. "What kind of magic?"
"The kind where cookies appear when children are hungry. The kind where scraped knees heal with kisses. The kind where a mother always knows when her son needs a hug."
Evan considered this seriously. Then he nodded. "Okay. You can come in."
She crawled into the fort—cramped and dim, lit by a flashlight Evan had propped in the corner. He'd brought in his favorite books, his stuffed bear, and a plate of cookies he'd clearly stolen from the kitchen.
"This is nice," she said, settling in beside him.
"It's my thinking place," he explained. "When things are too loud or too big, I come here and everything gets small and safe again."
"That's very wise."
They sat in comfortable silence for a while, sharing cookies.
"Mama?" Evan said eventually. "Why do people say elves are bad?"
"What do you think?" she asked carefully.
"I think..." He frowned, working through it. "I think they're probably just different. Like how Tommy is scared of dogs but I like them. Dogs aren't bad. Tommy just doesn't understand them."
"That's very smart thinking, Evan."
"So are elves bad?"
She looked at her four-year-old son, this small person who believed in magic forts and the power of kindness.
"No, baby. They're not bad. They're just different from us. And sometimes people are scared of different."
"That's silly."
"It is silly. But it's also how the world works sometimes."
Evan nodded slowly. Then: "If I ever met an elf, I'd be nice to them. Because being different isn't the same as being bad."
His mother pulled him close, kissing the top of his head.
"Don't ever forget that, Evan. No matter what anyone tells you. Promise me."
"I promise, Mama."
She held him in that blanket fort, in that small safe space he'd created, and wished she could keep him there forever.
Keep him safe from a world that would try to teach him to hate.
....." I am sorry, I forgot." Evan whispered. "But I'll try now. To be what you wanted."