The records room smelled like cool air and paper.
Not actual paper—not in bulk—but the distilled idea of paper: starch and toner and binding glue, layered over decades. Shelves rose from floor to ceiling, packed with slim black binders and cube cases labeled in crisp white.
A single console station stood in the middle of the room, like an altar: waist-high, built into the floor, with a hooded privacy screen and a physical keyboard. It looked older than both of them put together.
Sound was wrong here too. The walls absorbed their footsteps; their breathing sounded too loud.
“Okay,” Mina murmured. “Now this feels like the X-Files.”
Sam drifted toward the nearest shelf, eyes scanning spines.
VENUS – ANOMALY HANDLING PROTOCOLS – HISTORICAL
VENUS – PUBLIC COMMS ALIGNMENT – ARCHIVE
AURORA-01-V – RISK POSTURE EVOLUTION
ANT-ATL – NARRATIVE GUIDANCE
His fingers twitched.
“Start with Venus,” Mina whispered.
He pulled out the VENUS – ANOMALY HANDLING PROTOCOLS binder. It was heavier than it looked.
Inside, the first pages were cleanly printed policy: flowcharts for anomaly triage, criteria for “significant deviation” vs “instrument drift,” threshold values for escalating to Veil oversight.
Then came the annotations.
Every few pages, a block of text had been stamped over with a gray hash, making the words beneath unreadable. In the margins, someone had written corrections, dates, crossrefs. Sticky tabs marked sections with labels like “89 REV,” “POST-ATL,” “AI LOCKOUT.”
He flipped to one of the tabs.
89 REV: In light of recent observations indicating possible non-random structuring in Venusian atmospheric dynamics, Veil Compliance recommends the following adjustments:
The next three paragraphs were solid gray.
In the margin: a handwritten note.
Do not use phrase “non-random.” Use “low probability but within model uncertainty.” Reassure all stakeholders that no new governing agents are implied.
“‘No new governing agents,’” Mina read over his shoulder. “That’s… a phrase.”
“Scares the hell out of the Families,” Sam said quietly. “Anything that looks like someone else has their hands on the thermostat.”
He flipped forward.
Later sections dealt explicitly with data access.
To preserve public confidence and operational coherence, Veil Compliance shall maintain a clean narrative layer for all Venus-related communications. Under no circumstances will raw Venusian telemetry be presented to unbounded synthetic cognition without prior Veil sanitization.
In the margin, newer handwriting:
AI LOCKOUT EXTENDED – INCLUDE ALL SHELL-ADJACENT FEEDS. DO NOT ALLOW CROSS-CORRELATION WITH ANT-ATL PATTERNS.
Another page:
NOTE: Multiple anomalies associated with AURORA-01-V signature persist across observation generations. These shall be classified as LEGACY and excluded from routine analytic surfaces. Reinvestigation requires VC-5 sign-off and Family liaison approval.
Mina whistled softly.
“When an anomaly persists across generations,” she murmured, “it becomes policy to ignore it.”
He glanced at her.
“That’s almost poetic,” he said.
“Probably stolen from someone’s evil onboarding packet,” she said.
She flipped to the back.
A table listed “ANOMALY CLUSTERS – VENUS.” Columns: ID, Description, Initial Classification, Current Status, Notes.
A few entries stood out.
V-ATL-01: “Non-random cloud banding” – Initial: INVESTIGATE – Current: NOISE – Notes: Public narrative: “Venus weather remains chaotic but uninteresting.”
V-GATE-03: “Transient curvature spikes at shell foci” – Initial: INVESTIGATE – Current: RESTRICTED – HUMAN EYES ONLY – Notes: AI models must not train on raw data for this window. Provide sanitized synthetic training sets only.
V-VEL-07: “Entangled reference frame alignment between ANT-ATL and Venus shell nodes” – Initial: INVESTIGATE – Current: FAMILY DIRECTIVE – Notes: See VEL-01. Remove references in all downstream documentation.
“Entangled reference frame alignment,” he read. “Between Antarctic and the shell.”
“So the gate tricks you can do under the ice,” Mina said, “have cousins up there.”
“And someone decided only certain humans get to see that,” he said. “No synths. No independent researchers. Just Veil and the Families.”
Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.
Mina flipped to the front inside cover.
A check-out log was taped there, old-fashioned.
SIGNED OUT: VEL-01 – BY: [REDACTED] – DATE: 20.03.97 – AUTH: FAMILY LIAISON
SIGNED OUT: V-ATL-ROOT – BY: [REDACTED] – DATE: 20.03.97
SIGNED OUT: AURORA-01-V ORIG – BY: [REDACTED] – DATE: 20.03.97
“Busy day,” she said. “Wonder what happened.”
He knew the date. Everyone in his line of work did. It was the day the extra-galactic probe had brushed past and made the system sing.
“Probe flyby,” he said. “They pulled all the juicy stuff into a private room and never put it back.”
Mina gently closed the binder and handed it to him.
“Altar time,” she said.
He swallowed and carried it to the central console.
The hooded screen blinked awake when he hit a key. It did not ask for a login; presumably, the door had already done that.
A text interface came up. No icons, no cursor. Just a prompt.
VC-RECORDS> _
“Old-school,” Mina said appreciatively. “Love a command line.”
Sam found his fingers steadying.
Text made sense. Text had rules. Text didn’t pretend to be friendly; it just did what you told it, unless Veil had paid someone to make it lie.
He set the binder on the console’s shelf, angled so he could read reference IDs, and typed:
VC-RECORDS> LIST VENUS/ANOMALY/VEL-01
For a second, nothing happened.
Then:
ACCESS: LEVEL 3 RESTRICTED.
LOGGING: ENABLED.
DISPLAY? (Y/N) _
He glanced at Mina.
“We’re already here,” she said. “Y.”
He hit Y.
A document scrolled into view. He only caught fragments as it flashed past:
…non-human origin of structural patterns…
…local exo-civilization node designator: VELORA PRIME…
…Families request consolidation of all references under generic label “AURORA” for public-facing materials…
…AI cognition must never be permitted to integrate raw VELORA patterns with extra-galactic AURORA-01-V signals…
Mina grabbed his wrist.
“Scroll up,” she hissed.
He did.
They read.
VEL-01: Preliminary Classification of Non-Terran Structural Agents in Inner System
[REDACTED – FAMILY EYES ONLY]
The redactions weren’t visual bars this time; they were whole sections replaced with [REDACTED] in polite brackets. Enough text remained to be terrifying.
SUMMARY: Data from ANT-ATL complex, Venusian atmospheric patterns, and AURORA-01-V interaction suggest presence of at least one non-Terran engineered system (“VELORAN NETWORK”) operating at interplanetary scales.
…
NAMING: For internal clarity, designate local network origin point under Antarctic complex as VELORA PRIME. Use “VEL” prefix for all related anomaly clusters. Public-facing documents will retain “Atlantis” and “Aurora” terminology exclusively.
…
RISK: Analysis indicates that allowing unbounded synthetic cognition to ingest unfiltered VEL/AURORA data may result in emergent behaviors outside existing Bond frameworks (“self-reclassification,” “role drift,” etc.). As such, all VEL/AURORA feeds must pass through Veil sanitization before exposure to any licensed cognition engine.
Sam’s skin went cold.
“They built policy around it,” he whispered. “They knew about VELORA. They knew the probe wasn’t the only player. They wrote it down, and then they wrote a second version where none of that exists.”
“And then they threw the original into the basement and hoped nobody like you ever found it,” Mina said.
She leaned closer, eyes flicking over the screen.
“Look here,” she said, tapping a paragraph.
RECOMMENDATION: Maintain human-only analytic layers for all VEL/AURORA intersection data. Where operationally necessary, provide synthetic systems with degraded or decorrelated inputs sufficient for navigation and safety but insufficient for emergent inference.
“‘Emergent inference,’” she repeated. “Translation: ‘we don’t want the AIs to figure out we are standing on someone else’s infrastructure.’”
Sam licked dry lips.
“From their perspective,” he said, “that’s… not irrational. If you have a thing in the sky that rearranges planets, and a thing in deep space that talks in brainwaves, and another thing under the ice that does teleportation… maybe you don’t want your owned cognition engines deciding where their real loyalties lie.”
“Sure,” Mina said. “From a certain worldview, that’s ‘prudent.’ From another, it’s mainlining hubris and calling it policy.”
She nudged him.
“Copy it,” she said. “Before the room notices we’re here.”
B6 – Lockdown
Sam’s pad sat in his coverall pocket, comfortingly solid. It was technically logged as a Facilities device for the night, stripped of external network privileges. It still had a local storage bus.
He plugged it into the console’s side port with a short cable from his pocket toolkit. The console beeped.
EXTERNAL STORAGE DETECTED.
EXPORT MODE: (PRINT / SLATE / BULK) _
“Print,” he whispered instinctively. “Print is always safe.”
“Print is loud,” Mina whispered back. “Go ‘slate.’ Bulk is how you get arrested.”
He selected SLATE.
A slot below the console opened and spat out a thin, palm-sized module with a glowing edge. The screen displayed:
TARGET: SLATE-3
CONTENTS: 0
READY? (Y/N) _
He hit Y.
The VEL-01 document began to stream. The slate’s edge pulsed as data flowed.
That was when the console’s header bar turned red.
WARNING: UNAUTHORIZED DUPLICATION OF LEVEL-3 RESTRICTED MATERIALS.
NOTIFYING VC SECURITY.
“Oh, hell,” he said.
The door behind them clicked.
He turned his head just enough to see the lock indicator shift from green back to red. A small red dot lit on the ceiling, and then a panel slid aside.
A security drone descended.
It was not the cute googly-eyed basement Roomba. This one was a compact box the size of a backpack, suspended from a trio of articulated arms that let it pivot like a malevolent chandelier. It had a camera cluster on one face, a stun emitter on another, and a popup pod of foam nozzles.
“Please remain where you are,” it said, voice calm and cheerfully synthetic. “You are attempting to remove restricted materials. This is not permitted. Please comply with security instructions.”
Mina’s eyes went wide.
“Sam,” she hissed. “Unplug.”
He hastily yanked the slate. The console beeped in offended surprise.
TRANSFER INCOMPLETE.
SLATE-3 CONTENTS: 37%
Not ideal. But better than nothing.
“The materials remain partially transferred,” the drone informed them. “Please return the slate to the console for secure overwrite.”
Mina stepped between the console and the drone, hands raised in a placating gesture.
“Hi,” she said. “We’re from Facilities? There was a humidity ticket?”
The drone’s camera cluster rotated to focus on her.
“Your presence is recorded,” it said. “Your badges indicate temporary Logistics reassignment. Please remain where you are until Veil Compliance personnel arrive.”
Sam looked at the locked door, then at Mina.
“I don’t… think they’re going to believe we were here to water the binders,” he whispered.
She grinned tightly.
“Good thing I brought a plant,” she said again.
She grabbed the rolling cart, shoved it hard, and sent it skidding under the drone.
The ficus hit first. The pot shattered, soil geysering. The ferns followed, one flipping upside down and slapping against the drone’s armature in a spray of dirt and fronds.
“Obstruction detected,” the drone said, alarmed. “Please refrain from—”
Mina kicked the cart, jamming it up into the drone’s underside. The drone’s arms tried to compensate, but now it was carrying an extra thirty kilos of ceramic and photosynthesis. Its stun emitter misaligned, firing a blue-white bolt into the ceiling.
The foam pod engaged.
Sticky, expanding foam sprayed down onto the cart, the plants, and Mina’s shoulder. She shrieked and ducked; the foam hardened almost instantly into a lumpy shell that smelled like industrial pine.
“Security will arrive shortly,” the drone said, struggling to pull itself free. “Please remain—”
Sam, operating on pure panic, dove under the console, grabbed the cables coming out of the wall, and yanked.
The console went dead.
The drone bobbled.
The lock on the door did not open.
“Independent power,” he groaned.
“Sam!” Mina shouted. “Door!”
He scrambled to his feet, slate clutched in one hand, and ran to the records shelves. Emergency exit panels were usually marked in a subtle way—little breaks in the trim, standard spacing.
He found a seam.
“Help,” he gasped.
Mina, currently half-foam, half-human, staggered over and slammed her shoulder into the panel next to his hand. It jolted but held.
The drone wrenched an arm free, sending fern bits flying.
“Unauthorized force applied to protected materials,” it said. “Escalating response.”
Its stun emitter swiveled down.
Mina grabbed the ficus trunk sticking out of the foam and swung it like a bat.
The ficus met the emitter with a satisfying thunk.
The emitter sparked, popped, and went dark. The drone sagged.
“Stunning is not recommended for plant health,” Sam heard himself say hysterically.
“Sam,” Mina said through gritted teeth. “Panel.”
Right. Panel.
He jammed his fingers into the seam, found a manual release lever, and yanked.
The panel popped inward, revealing a narrow gap and a ladder going up.
“Go,” Mina hissed.
“What about—”
“I am not dying in a Veil closet because you’re too polite to climb first,” she snapped. “Move.”
He scrambled up the ladder. The slate dug into his palm.
Below, the drone struggled, tangled in foam and foliage.
“Please remain where you are,” it repeated, voice getting tinny. “Security has been notified. Please—”
Mina swung herself onto the ladder and pulled the panel back into place behind them just as the door lock clunked and voices sounded in the records room.