The funeral home smelled like lilies and floor polish.
Yuko stood in the back, watching strangers file past her father's casket. S-Corp Logistics people, mostly. Off-the-rack suits, condolences recited in the exact phrasing from HR's memo.
Her mother sat in the front row, shoulders trembling. Rin had been crying for three days—quiet tears she tried to hide, but Yuko heard her through the wall at night. Twenty-three years of marriage. Gone.
The casket was closed. But Yuko had insisted on seeing him one last time, alone, before they sealed it.
The funeral director had left her in a small room with gray carpet and a single window. The casket lid, unlatched. Her father's face, waxen under the overhead light. She'd reached out to smooth his hair—the way he used to do for her when she was small, when she couldn't sleep.
His face was peaceful. But her fingers found a crater at the back of his skull. The occipital bone, crushed inward.
The back of his head.
A frontal crash shatters forward. Dashboard. Steering wheel. Windshield. This was the back.
Something had hit him from behind. Something inside the cabin.
That wound haunted her. Three days of paperwork, phone calls, arrangements—and that wrongness she couldn't explain.
A hand landed on her shoulder. She turned.
Mid-fifties, heavyset, S-Corp badge tucked in his pocket. "You're Joel's daughter? The engineer?"
"Yes."
"Frank Reeves. Dispatch. Worked with your dad six years." He lowered his voice. "Listen—something's off. That cargo wasn't supposed to be on his truck."
Yuko's pulse quickened. "What do you mean?"
"The cargo manifest was altered an hour before shift. Joel's run was scheduled weeks ago—Zendan hardware, heavy security, all the usual clearances. But that morning, someone added a unit to his load. One crate. No paperwork." Frank's jaw tightened. "High-security shipments are locked down tight. You don't just drop in an extra unit same-day."
"Who authorized it?"
"System says automatic. Inventory rebalancing." He shook his head. "But manifest changes on a Zendan run require a human approver. There's no ticket, no sign-off—just 'AUTO-INV' in the audit trail. Fifteen years in dispatch. Never seen that happen. Not once." He squeezed her shoulder. "Your dad didn't screw up. Whatever they're saying—it's bullshit."
He pressed a folded slip into her palm—manifest revision ID, timestamp. "Pull the record before they purge it." He glanced toward the S-Corp cluster. "Don't call me."
He walked away before she could respond.
Yuko froze, the slip warm in her fist. Questions crowded her throat—who changed it, why him, what do you know—but Frank had already disappeared into the crowd near the door.
The service blurred past. A priest who'd never met her father. Generic verses.
Then Rin stood up.
She made it two sentences before her voice broke. "Joel was—" She pressed the handkerchief to her mouth. "He was the best man I ever knew."
She talked about how they met—a college party, both too shy to dance. The Sunday pancakes. The off-key singing in the car. The eight-hour drive to AIT for Yuko's admission interview because he didn't trust video calls for something that important.
By the end, half the room was crying.
Yuko didn't speak. Couldn't. Her mother had said it all.
Afterward, people lingered. Coffee and finger sandwiches. More condolences.
Near the door, a young woman in a black dress with the size sticker still peeking from the collar was being cornered by a man in a crisp suit—HR, Yuko recognized the badge. The woman couldn't have been more than twenty-two. An intern, maybe. Her eyes were red, and she kept shaking her head.
"—need to understand, the manifest discrepancy puts liability on—"
Yuko walked over. "Excuse me."
The HR man turned, annoyed. "Please give us a moment; there are liability questions."
"It's my father's funeral." Yuko's voice was flat. "And she looks like she needs to sit down." She touched the young woman's arm. "Come on. There's water by the window."
The HR man opened his mouth, closed it. Decided this wasn't the moment to push.
Yuko guided the intern away. At the window, she handed her a cup of water.
"Thank you," the young woman whispered. "They're saying—the manifest change—they're saying someone in Dispatch made an error, and I was on shift that morning, but I didn't—I didn't—"
"I know." Yuko squeezed her shoulder. "It wasn't you. Someone altered the cargo from above. System level. There's nothing you could have done."
The intern stared at her. "How do you know?"
"Because I'm going to find out who really did it." Yuko handed her a napkin for her tears. "Don't let them make you a scapegoat. If they push, tell them to talk to me."
She slid her card over. "Call me if anyone pressures you about Dispatch."
Then she walked away, before the woman could respond.
Near the coffee, the Logistics team clustered in low conversation. Every few minutes, one would glance at her, then look away.
When the mourners left, the funeral director handed Yuko a cardboard box.
"Personal effects from the vehicle," he said. "The company retained anything work-related."
Yuko took the box without a word.
In the car, Rin drove in silence, occasionally wiping her eyes. The Bay glittered outside, oblivious.
Rin's phone buzzed. She glanced at it, then pulled over.
"Mrs. Smith? This is claims processing at—"
"I know who you are." Rin's voice went flat, professional. "You're calling to tell me the life insurance is being contested because of the accident investigation. You're going to cite clause 14.3 regarding workplace negligence."
Silence on the other end.
"Here's what's going to happen. You're going to process the claim as filed. Because clause 14.3 requires proven negligence, not alleged negligence. And because your company's own underwriting documents—a neighbor at Bay Mutual sent me the filings—show that S-Corp's fleet safety record was flagged eighteen months ago and your actuaries recommended policy cancellation. You didn't cancel. You kept taking premiums. That's called ratification."
More silence.
"I'll expect the check within ten business days. Have a good afternoon."
She hung up. Resumed driving. Her hands were steady on the wheel.
Yuko stared at her mother. She'd never seen Rin like this—cold, precise, cutting through bureaucracy like a blade.
"Mom—"
"Twenty-three years of marriage," Rin said quietly. "They don't get to steal from him too."
They drove on. After a moment, Rin spoke again.
"I keep thinking I hear him." She swallowed. "This morning I woke up and thought I smelled coffee. He always made coffee first thing." Her voice cracked. "I went to the kitchen and it was empty."
Yuko squeezed her mother's hand.
"I don't know how to do this," Rin whispered. "I don't know how to be without him."
They drove the rest of the way in silence.
In her childhood bedroom, Yuko opened the box.
His wallet. Cracked leather. Inside: a photo of her at six, missing her front teeth.
His watch. Cheap digital, the one she'd bought him for Father's Day in high school. He'd worn it every day since.
The screen was cracked. Frozen at 8:31.
The same timestamp from the logs.
She kept digging. A pack of gum. Receipts. A pen from a motel in Fresnia.
That was it.
No dashcam. No cargo logs. No work phone. The funeral director had said "the company retained anything work-related." Policy—next of kin got the rest. They'd taken everything that might tell her what really happened.
Of course they had.
Her father had been sitting in the driver's seat, facing forward, when something behind him—
The cargo.
He'd been hauling robots. Zendan units, crated and supposedly dormant. Transport mode. Restraints locked. Firewall active.
But what if one of them hadn't been dormant?
She heard footsteps in the hallway. Rin, passing by.
"Dinner in an hour," her mother called through the door. "I ordered Thai."
"Okay."
Yuko stared at the box. A whole life, and S-Corp had stripped it down to a wallet, a watch, and some receipts. Anything useful—gone.
She pulled out her phone and opened a new encrypted note. Started typing:
Facts:
- Dad's cargo manifest was altered same-day. Someone added an extra unit.
- He was hauling robots in transport mode.
- Wound on the BACK of his head. Not consistent with collision.
- Something hit him from behind. From the cargo area.
- Telemetry logs show "MINERVA_THROUGHPUT: OVERRIDE TEST" at 8:31.
- CSV says firewall active. Notes say interlock bypass. Both can't be true.
- S-Corp took all work-related items. They're hiding something.
Questions:
1. Who added the extra unit to his cargo?
2. What is MINERVA?
3. Did a robot activate and attack him?
4. How do I get evidence they're trying to bury?
She looked at the list. The pieces were starting to form a picture—and it was uglier than she'd imagined.
Her father hadn't died in an accident. He'd been killed by something in his own truck. And someone at S-Corp had made it happen.
They'd taken everything. But they couldn't take what she'd already found—the telemetry logs. And they couldn't take what she'd seen with her own eyes—the wound.
From the kitchen—her mother crying. Raw, private grief.
Yuko almost went to her. Her hand was on the doorknob. She could hear Rin trying to muffle the sound, failing.
Later, she told herself. I'll be there later.
She sat back down.
Outside, the sun set over the Bay. Cargo ships crawled toward the port. The same port her father had been driving toward when he died.
She promised herself the truth, however ugly.
She was going to find out who killed him. She was going to expose Minerva. And when she found the people responsible—the ones who'd turned her father into a test subject and smeared his name—she was going to make them pay.
She strapped the cracked watch to her wrist. It bit into her skin, cold and still.
Whatever it cost.