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“What is it?” Daven turned.
Yure’s hands were already moving across the controls. “They’re fucking doing it again.”
The wall of feeds stuttered. For a second, the cameras flickered so fast the room filled with fractured images. Rain-slick streets. Empty intersections. The hospital perimeter. Then the Concordant tower again, but from the wrong side this time, the angle shifted far enough that Kylix and his team were nowhere in sight. Just glass, reflections, and the sealed lower levels. Then another feed flashed beside it. A dark road cut through mist and stone under harsh floodlights.
“What the fuck is that?” Moargan snapped.
The images jumped again. Hospital. Tower. That same unknown road. Then half the screens went black while the others kept running, the timestamps skipping so hard they looked broken.
Helianth was already off the stool. “They’re not glitching. They’re feeding us this.”
Yure dragged two more windows open, jaw tight. “I know.”
The screens kept stuttering across the wall. The hospital. The tower. That unknown road. Over and over, fast enough to feel deliberate, slow enough that none of them could ignore it.
For one fractured second, the far corner feed flashed something else entirely. Lightning tore across black clouds. Metal glinted in the storm. The silhouette of some massive industrial structure hung in the sky before the image vanished again.
Moargan pushed off the wall. “What the fuck was that?”
Yure’s voice went flat. “I don’t know.”
Daven kept staring at the wall, pulse hammering now. “They’re not just hiding. They’re steering us somewhere.”
“If only we knew where.” Yure leaned back in his chair, eyes still locked on the screens. “Some of it’s real. Some of it isn’t.”
Daven frowned. “So what are we actually looking at?”
“Enough truth to keep us chasing the wrong thing.”
Aviel slid the pan off the stove and leaned on the counter. “So they flood the system with bullshit, then wait to see who bites.”
Moargan looked down at the multi-slate in his hand, thumb moving once across the screen before his mouth hardened. “Father says the same thing he said thirty minutes ago. Officially, Concordant is still a delegation. They haven’t broken Helion law on paper.”
Daven’s eyes snapped to him. “So we let them sit in the tower?”
Moargan’s grip tightened on the slate. “Father wants them watched. Not touched. Concordant promised they’d draw Attica out if we let this play long enough.”
Helianth’s voice went quieter. “And if we breach that tower before they give us cause…” He didn’t finish right away. Then his gaze flicked back to the feed. “That’s a declaration of war.”
The room went still for a moment.
Aviel gave a low whistle. “So we let them play.”
Moargan exhaled hard through his nose, jaw tight. “And in exchange, we’re supposed to trust they’ll flush Attica out.”
No one looked convinced.
Yure switched the main feed back to the tower plaza.
Kylix was still there, still standing in front of the tower doors with his hands behind his back, his team spread through the plaza around him like statues.
Waiting.
Daven stared at the screen, something ugly tightening low in his chest. “They’re not coming out.”
“No,” Yure said. “And that’s the point.”
The wall glitched again. The hospital flashed up, vanished, then came back hard enough that Daven’s attention caught on it before the tower could drag the room elsewhere. The same dark road cut through the feed beneath it. Kylix flickered out of one angle and reappeared in another.
