The word 'CORRUPTED' blinked in red across a year's worth of work, and Zoe felt the floor drop out from under her.
Her breath caught in her throat. She clicked again. And again. Nothing. A wasteland of broken file icons stared back at her. Her notes on the Thompson vote. The blurry photo of the mystery woman. Her leads on Nile Strategic Solutions. Gone.
But it wasn't just that. Everything was gone. Her article on the water rights dispute. Her source list. Even a half-finished personal essay she'd been writing. It was all digital dust.
"No, no, no," she whispered, her heart hammering against her ribs.
She grabbed her laptop and stormed out of her cubicle. "Frank!"
Her editor looked up from his desk, his expression already annoyed. "What now, Barnes?"
"My files are gone. All of them." Her voice was tight with a rising panic.
He walked over to her desk, his heavy footsteps echoing in the quiet newsroom. He took one look at the screen, at the blinking red word of doom. His face hardened.
"IT will have a look," he said, his voice cold. "This is what happens when you work off-network, Zoe. I warned you about chasing stories on your own time using unsecured channels."
He wasn't sympathetic. He was angry. It looked like her screw-up. It looked like she was a reckless reporter who had just cost the company a massive amount of data.
A wave of cold fury washed over her. This wasn't an accident. This was an attack. This was targeted. Someone had reached into her life and ripped it apart.
But she had no proof. She was isolated, and now, she looked incompetent. The stakes were no longer just the story. They were her career.
The IT department was a sterile room in the basement that smelled of burnt plastic and apathy. The tech, a kid with a wispy beard and vacant eyes, typed for a few minutes before delivering the verdict.
"Looks like user error, Ms. Barnes. You must have downloaded something you shouldn't have." He didn't meet her eyes. "Standard procedure. We have to lock you out of the system pending a full security review."
They weren't just erasing her work. They were taking her tools.
Zoe walked out of the building in a daze. The city felt hostile, alien. They thought they could stop her. They thought taking her computer was like taking a warrior's sword. They were wrong.
Back in her apartment, which now felt less like a home and more like a bunker, she grabbed a legal pad and a pen. Her digital notes were gone, but the image was burned into her mind. The woman's regal walk. The impossible confidence. The turn of her head.
And the car.
She closed her eyes, replaying the grainy footage in her head. It was a custom job. A new Maybach, but modified. The glint of the hubcaps… they were unique. Not stock.
She started scribbling furiously, the cheap pen her only weapon. The page filled with frantic notes, a desperate attempt to reconstruct a year of work from memory. She would not be erased.
She picked up her phone and dialed a number she kept for emergencies.
"Sal's Scrapyard."
"Sal, it's Zoe Barnes."
There was a heavy sigh on the other end of the line. "What do you want, Zoe? I'm busy."
"I need a favor. For that story I didn't write about your kid and the stolen catalytic converters."
The line went quiet. "What kind of favor?"
"A car," Zoe said, her voice steady. "It was a dark grey Maybach, new model, but the rims were custom. Spoked, I think. And the windows were illegally dark. Seen anything like it?"
She could hear the sound of Sal typing on an old keyboard. "That's a rich man's ride, Zoe. Could be anyone."
"It's not just anyone," she pressed. "This car belongs to someone who can make senators flip their votes overnight."
Another long pause. "Okay, wait. There's a flag on a plate matching that description. It's a ghost. Belongs to a holding company." He cleared his throat. "A company called 'Serapis Holdings'."
Serapis. The name Senator Thompson's office had used for the mystery woman in the meeting. Ms. Serapis. It was another dead end, a corporate wall. "Damn it, Sal. That's a shell."
"I know," he said. "Can't give you the owner, but I can give you the driver. Name's Hector Reyes. Ex-Secret Service. Clean record. His chauffeur license was renewed last month. He's the only one authorized for that vehicle."
Zoe's felt a surge of adrenaline. A name. A real name. "Sal, you're a lifesaver."
"Just keep my kid's name out of the paper," he grumbled, and hung up.
Hector Reyes was a mountain of a man in a crisp, black suit. He was sitting alone in a booth at a downtown coffee shop, a place Zoe knew was a hub for D.C.'s professional drivers. His face was an unreadable mask of professionalism.
Zoe slid into the booth opposite him. "Hector Reyes?"
He didn't look surprised to see her. He simply took a slow sip of his black coffee and stared at her with calm, assessing eyes. "You're the reporter."
It wasn't a question.
She laid a hundred-dollar bill on the table. "I want to know who you drive for."
He looked at the money and let out a short, humorless laugh. He didn't touch it.
She tried a different tactic. "Your employer is involved in something big. Something that could get very messy. A story is going to come out. Wouldn't you rather I had the facts straight?"
He didn't blink. He was a stone wall. He was a professional.
Zoe leaned forward, dropping the act. "Look," she said, her voice low and intense. "Someone just wiped out a year of my life's work to stop me from asking questions about your boss. They think that's going to make me stop. It won't." She met his gaze. "A woman like her doesn't just appear out of nowhere and start making senators dance. She's a shark in a pond full of minnows. I just want to know her name."
Hector watched her for a long, silent moment. He finished his coffee, placing the cup down with a quiet click. He stood up, towering over the booth. For a second, Zoe thought he was just going to walk away.
Then he spoke. "My client respects professionalism. And persistence." He paused, a flicker of something—maybe respect—in his eyes. "She will be attending the St. Jude's Gala at the National Portrait Gallery tomorrow night. The hostess, Ms. Meredith Vance, invited her personally."
He turned to leave, then stopped. "If you want to know who she is," he said over his shoulder, "watch who she talks to. And who listens."
A cold smile touched Zoe's lips. She had a place, a time, and a face to find in the crowd. "Game on," she whispered to the empty booth.