The Copenhagen Protocol

Level three is empty except for two cars parked at opposite ends. A woman is leaning against one of them — forty, sharp-featured, wearing a coat that costs more than your monthly rent. She is alone, visibly. You scan the level twice before approaching.

"The drive," she says. No introduction.

"Who are you?"

"Someone who has been cleaning up this particular mess for fifteen years. The cache, the memo, the people who know about it." She holds out her hand. "The drive."

"You killed Holger Dahl."

"Holger Dahl died because he could not leave the past in the past." Her voice is flat and professional. "You are smarter than he was. You built a dead man's switch — I know, we found the server. Clever. It means I cannot simply take the drive. I have to make a deal."

"What kind of deal?"

"You give me the original. I give you a new identity, clean funding, and I make the people watching your building go away permanently. You disappear and the Copenhagen Protocol disappears with you."

She is offering you exactly what you want. Which is exactly why you do not trust her.