A foot in two worlds, belonging fully to neither.
"They've been studying the anomaly for decades," he says. "Long before Malachar discovered it, long before the Veridian drift became contested territory. The 7 Protocol is a shadow faction. Not government, not syndicate. Something older. Something patient."
"What do they want with it?"
"They believe something is on the other side. Something valuable enough to justify any cost." His mouth curves, but there's nothing amused in it. "Your father found out about them. That's why he ran. Not from the Consortium, not from his enemies here. From the Protocol. They wanted what he knew, and he decided he'd rather go through the anomaly himself than let them have it."
The room absorbs this. Dexter's fingers tap a slowrhythm against the table surface, the only tell he ever offers.
"And St. Laurent?" I ask.
"A courier. One of several that Malachar used to move assets and information. St. Laurent was carrying research data. Readings. Analysis of the anomaly's behavior over a six-year observation period. And something else." Ethan pauses, choosing his words with the precision of a man who knows that information is the only currency keeping him alive. "Biological samples. From the anomaly's edge. Material that doesn't match anything in known databases."
"You're very well informed for someone who claims to have left their employment."
"I didn't claim to have left. I said I'm willing to share what I know. Those aren't the same thing."
Dexter stops tapping. The silence that follows has a particular quality, like the moment between a trigger pull and a muzzle flash.
"So you're still working for them," Dexter says.
"I'm surviving. Same as everyone at this table." Ethan meets Dexter's gaze with the calm of someone who has already accepted the worst possible outcome and found it tolerable. "The Protocol sent me to assess Veridian-7's vulnerabilities. The Vex attack was a test, partly. To see how the station responded. To see if Torrence control was as solid as it appears."
"And your assessment?"
"That the Torrence syndicate is more resilient than the 7 Protocol anticipated. That the anomaly is better guarded than they expected. And that this station has assets they didn't account for." His eyes flicker toward the door, briefly, in the direction Talia went. Then back to me. "I'm willing toprovide what I know about their operations, their infrastructure, their timeline. In exchange for protection and a position here."
"A truce."
"An arrangement."
I study him across the table. The bond pulses at the edges of my awareness, and even at this distance I can feel Talia in the command center, her grief a low steady ache that I carry in my own chest like a bruise against my ribs. Ethan is dangerous. His Empri abilities make him a weapon in ways that are difficult to fully quantify. And his loyalties are a question I may never fully answer.
But he has information I need. And the thing that's coming, the thing Dexter has been warning about, is bigger than the grudges in this room.
"You'll be watched," I say. "Every moment. Every communication monitored. You step wrong once and Astra will make you wish the Protocol had killed you first."
Astra's expression suggests she'd enjoy that assignment.
"Understood," Ethan says.
"Then we have an arrangement. Not a truce. Not trust. An arrangement."
He nods, and something in his posture eases by a fraction that most people wouldn't notice. I notice everything. It's the only reason I'm still alive.
Dexter catches me in the corridor after, matching my stride with that longer gait of his, hands clasped behind his back in the posture he adopts when delivering news he knows I won't like.
"They'll come for the anomaly," he says without preamble. "Not today. Not next month. But soon. And whenthey do, they won't send proxies like the Vex. They'll come themselves."
"I know."
"Do you? Because you just gave harbor to a man who may still be reporting to them."
"Better to have him where I can see him than operating blind on my station."
Dexter makes a sound that lives somewhere between acknowledgment and disagreement. We walk in silence for a beat, the corridor stretching ahead in its clean, institutional lines, the overhead lights humming at a frequency I've stopped consciously hearing after a lifetime on this station.
"There's something else," he says. "Communication from the Zalt Consortium. Came in during the briefing."
