“A pre-Alliance registry shard,” I reply. “Black vault classification. Reaper transit infrastructure. Subterraneanconvergence hub. Node designation F-17. Location: Fierson District.”
His face drains of color.
I slide the tablet toward him.
He doesn’t touch it.
“Cross-checked against zoning exemptions,” I continue. “Municipal blackout periods. Infrastructure repair records that don’t line up with anything public. It’s all there. Decades of deliberate camouflage.”
He closes his eyes.
Just for a second.
“Show me,” he says.
I do.
He scrolls.
Slow.
Controlled.
His jaw tightens so hard I think he might crack a molar.
“They sealed it,” he murmurs. “Not destroyed it. Sealed it.”
My chest hurts.
“They didn’t just protect my restaurant,” I say hoarsely. “They were hiding a Reaper-era transit node under my family’s floor for three generations.”
“Yes,” he says.
“And they parked you here to sit on top of it like a guard dog.”
“Yes.”
“And now the Nine are trying to dig it up.”
“Yes.”
My breath stutters.
“They don’t want my restaurant,” I whisper. “They want what’s buried under it.”
The word lands like a gunshot.
Escape collapses from a theoretical option into a fantasy in the span of one heartbeat.
There is no running from this.
There is no quietly relocating and opening another grill on another block and pretending this was just a bad year.
They will follow that node to the ends of the fucking galaxy.
I sink into a chair.
“I am not doing this again,” I say quietly.
