The morning light through the high window was thin and grey, catching the dust that drifted across Senior Proctor Vance's desk. She had been at this since before dawn.
Three folders lay open in front of her. She kept circling back to the same one.
Valen's patrol log. Clean handwriting. Precise observations. Three waypoints secured, drainage cleared, survey line verified.
The methodology column was empty.
Vance turned the page. Valen's signature was there — crisp, unhesitating. Beside it, the space for secondary sign-off was blank. She had seen the report four times now. Each time, she expected the methodology column to have filled itself in. Each time, it hadn't.
She set the folder down and picked up the next one.
This was newer. A discrepancy report from the Eastern Spur, filed by a Master Surveyor named Vane. The cover sheet was clean. The formatting was standard. The language was professional.
The content wasn't.
Marker E-17. Archived distance: 412 yards. Current verified distance: 449 yards. Instrument calibration verified. Anchor displacement none. Terrain displacement none. Secondary bearing consistent with current measurement. Historical marker inscription: 449.
Classification: Pending Review.
Vance closed the folder. The Eastern Spur was outside her jurisdiction. It should have been routed to the Survey Corps, not to her. But the report had come through Central Records because of that classification. Someone had decided she needed to see it.
She reached for the third folder.
The Annex records. She had reviewed them before — the Unassigned filing, the timber-hound report, the property discrepancy form. They kept returning to her desk. Each time with more documentation attached. Each time the same problem: nothing fit.
The Annex was a decommissioned sector. It wasn't supposed to generate new records. It was supposed to sit quietly until the next budget cycle, when someone would decide whether to demolish it or repurpose it. Instead, it had produced a squad of cadets that the system couldn't classify, a ledger entry that didn't belong to any existing category, and a timber-hound that had walked back into the woods after being declared an unclassified biological asset.
Vance had been a proctor for eleven years. She had seen anomalies before. But anomalies usually resolved. You filed them, cross-referenced them, and eventually they fit somewhere.
These weren't fitting.
She was still reading when Finch arrived.
He didn't knock. Just walked in, carrying a single leather folder under his arm. His face was composed, his movements unhurried. He set the folder on the edge of her desk.
"The Annex audit is still on the schedule," he said.
Vance looked up. "I'm aware."
"I was asked to review the records before it proceeds."
He didn't sit. He stood at the edge of the desk, hands loose at his sides, waiting.
Vance gestured at the open folders. "Valen's report came in three weeks ago. The Eastern Spur discrepancy arrived yesterday."
Finch glanced at the stack. He didn't ask to see them. He just waited.
She pushed Valen's report toward him. He picked it up, read the methodology column, and set it down without comment. Then he opened his own folder.
Inside were copies of the Annex ledgers. The Unassigned filing. The timber-hound report. The property discrepancy form James had signed. Finch read through them in silence, the way a man reads something he has read before and is checking for changes.
He closed the folder.
"The audit is still scheduled," he said. "The Board expects a formal review of the North Annex sector, as well as any related matters that have arisen since."
"Related matters."
"The survey report is now one of them."
Vance looked at the stack of folders. Valen's report. The Eastern Spur discrepancy. The Annex ledger. Three different files. Three different departments. Three different sets of paperwork that didn't fit anywhere.
She picked up the Eastern Spur folder and placed it on top of the stack.
"The audit will proceed," she said.
She reached for her pen. The ink was dark. Her handwriting was precise. She wrote the order in full — the date, the sector, the scope, the authorization — and set the pen aside. When she finished, she slid the order across the desk.
Finch picked it up. He read it once, then nodded.
"I'll see that it's filed."
He turned and left. The door clicked shut behind him.
Vance sat alone.
The morning light had shifted, casting longer shadows across the stack of reports. Outside, the courtyard bell rang the first call to practicals. Students would be crossing the quad now, heading to their training rotations, unaware that a formal audit had just been authorized for a decommissioned sector that was supposed to be empty.
She didn't know what category of problem this was. Neither did Finch.
But she'd signed the order. And it would enter the system.