Lisa’s stomach turned cold. She didn't need a supercomputer to upscale this data. She needed to connect two dots: Vell’s handshake and a biological weapon that, according to a separate, already-upscaled file she’d finished last month, had a delivery system that looked exactly like a methane pipeline safety valve.

She grabbed her encrypted phone and texted a single word to a contact at the CIA’s forgotten-tech division: Upscale.

Lisa wrote back: Photo. Face removal. Marker ink bleeds through paper over time. There’s an original image underneath. Use the 2022 spectral algorithm.

It was Harris. Her own boss. Smiling, younger, handing General Vell a briefcase.