“Hey.” Lyric’s voice came through, tight, focused. Not casual. Not checking in. “I’ve got something for you.”
My focus shifted immediately.
“What kind of something?”
“I’ve sent it over,” he said.
I straightened, already reaching for the laptop I’d left on the table. “What am I looking at?” I asked, already pulling up the file transfer.
“The collars,” Lyric said. “And the kids. Something’s not right. Cave meeting in sixty, okay?”
“Yeah,” I said automatically. “Okay.”
The call ended.
“Cave?” Novak said, finally turning.
“Yeah, Lyric has new intel,” I met his gaze. “Cave meeting in sixty.”
“Then we eat fast,” he said.
The screen filledwith windows as the call connected.
Killian appeared first, suit still on, tie loosened a fraction, at his desk in the Cave. “Sorry, I’ve only got thirty before I’m due down in a meeting,” he said. “You’ll need to make this count.”
Jamie was at his side, tipping back in a chair on two legs, restless energy bleeding off him until Killian set a hand on his knee. The chair thumped down flat. Jamie stilled, not happy about it, but compliant.
In another window, Sonya was at her desk, glasses low on her nose, fingers already moving over a keyboard. “Recording. Go.”
Levi and Doc were together in the kitchen of their new place—stove behind them, lights on, coffee machine humming. Doc leaned on the counter, arms folded. Levi stood, shoulders tight, focus locked.
Lyric took the lead. “Intel first. I’ve pushed the files—pull them up.”
I brought the feed onto the main screen, satellite scans of the compound, plus extra views he’d found.
I cut in. “We’ve got visual confirmation on Noah. He’s collared, but he’s testing the perimeter. Looks as if it’s distance-triggered, and we saw a pain response when he crosses an invisible boundary.”
Sonya glanced up. “Signal-based?”
“Has to be,” I said. “Central relay. We think we can spoof it—feed a constant in-bounds position, give us a window.”
“Risk?” Killian asked.
“We can?—”
“No,” Novak stepped into frame beside me, voice level. “They won’t allow a clean exit for anyone. Not with that system.”
Killian’s gaze sharpened. “Why do you say that?”
Novak didn’t turn away from the feed. “Because the collar we saw isn’t just containment,” he said. “It’s control. You don’t build a distance-triggered pain response without layering it—thresholds, escalation, redundancy. It teaches compliance first, then enforces it. Which means at least that boy, but maybe other guards are not there willingly.”
He paused, just a fraction.
“And if they’ve invested that much into control, they’ll have a failsafe for when it breaks—kill-switch protocols, lock-downs, maybe remote override on the collars. If anything goes wrong, they don’t lose assets.” His tone didn’t change. “They neutralize them.”
Doc straightened. “What about the other guards? Do they all have these collars? Are the kids in there collared? What about the sister, Eden?”
“We haven’t had eyes on her, or any other juveniles,” I said. “As to the guards, we’ve seen at least twelve on rotation, possibly more off-shift. I’ve collated images, and at least three are young and collared.” I answered. “Guard rotations are thin overnight. We counted?—”
