Julian looked down at the second line of his father’s typed amendment on the contract folio.
The letters were stamped in heavy blue-black carbon:
LINE 02: RECIPIENT ROLL PURGED. NAMES ‘VANCE, J.’ AND ‘VANCE, C.’ REMOVED FROM HARVEST QUEUE BY SUBSTITUTION OF COLLATERAL ASSET #00.
Julian’s fingers tightened on the lined yellow legal pad.
He didn’t need Dr. Corvo to explain what that line meant. He already knew.
The legal sheet in his hand wasn’t just a letter. It was an affidavit written in pencil by a man who had two minutes to save his children before the world ended.
Julian unfolded the yellow paper.
The graphite was dark, sharp, and clean. It was written with a zero-point-five millimeter drafting lead, the kind his father used when drafting cross-sections of steam boilers and beam scales. The strokes were disciplined, with no shaky lines and no trailing loops.
