The bus did not stop with the other recruits.
Marcus noticed before Elias did. He had been watching the training fields through the thick window while the rest of the intake group gathered their bags.
"You are not getting off with us," Marcus said.
"Apparently I have upgraded from cargo to paperwork."
Marcus glanced at the card in Elias's hand. "Warden paperwork is usually worse than cargo."
The bus doors opened near a wide concrete yard. Officers shouted intake numbers. Recruits stepped into ranks with the frightened speed of people trying not to be remembered for the wrong reason.
Marcus stood carefully, one hand over his wrapped chest.
"Try not to die before I can ask you more questions about your weird invisible friend," he said.
"Try not to tear open Sergeant Rylen's work, because I do not want to testify on your behalf."
Marcus gave him a two-finger salute and stepped down.
The doors shut.
Elias watched him join the formation at the front, where an officer in a sharply angled campaign hat was already making people regret their posture.
The driver pulled away from the yard.
"Where are we going now, exactly?" Elias asked.
"Officer training deck is the next stop," the driver said. "Your clearance says Geras, and Geras does not receive surprise civilians in the general intake yard."
"I was not aware I counted as a surprise civilian."
"You arrived after a convoy attack, with a protected intake marker, carrying a card from a warden commander. That is the definition of surprise civilian."
Dot floated halfway out of Elias's chest and watched the yard slide past.
"Why do those recruits look rougher than the ones ahead of us?"
Elias followed her gaze.
The first yard was all noise and sweat. The candidates there moved under command, but many stumbled, overcorrected, or looked around too much. Farther in, through a set of reinforced gates, another group ran in tighter lines. Their uniforms fit. Their shoulders stayed square even when instructors yelled in their faces.
"General rank training starts wider than this," Elias said. "Officer tracks select earlier and punish differently, because some came through academies, some earned it in service, and either way they have been shaped longer."
Dot tilted her head. "So the polished ones were not born polished."
"Most people are born loud and helpless. The military just files the edges down."
The driver laughed once from the front.
They passed a firing range where targets were not paper but moving slabs of projected light. Recruits fired in pairs while instructors corrected them through headset commands. Beyond that, an exoskeleton frame moved inside a fenced square, its pilot walking slow circles while mechanics tracked each joint on tablets.
Dot moved closer to the window. "That machine looks like someone taught a building how to walk."
"That is almost a useful description."
"I am developing at a useful pace."
The bus curved along an inner road and left the loud yards behind. The officer deck rose ahead in cleaner geometry, all red brick, steel trim, and narrow windows. The building at the center had a broad archway and polished double doors that caught the base lights like brass.
Above the entrance, words had been carved into the stone.
ENTER ALONE. EXIT AS ONE.
Elias read it twice, and Dot did too.
"That feels less like encouragement and more like a warning," she said.
"Most old institutions use the same sentence for both."
The bus stopped at the curb.
The driver turned in his seat. He looked older from the front, with a scar cutting through one eyebrow and hands that rested near the wheel as if they had forgotten how not to be ready.
"This is your stop, Kael, so gather yourself."
Elias paused with his bag in hand. "I did not tell you my last name."
The driver nodded toward the clearance card. "The card did, and people who knew your father remember the shape of the face."
That took the air out of the bus.
Elias tightened his grip on the bag strap. "You knew my father, Dorian Kael?"
"Not well enough to claim friendship. Well enough to know people stood straighter when he entered a room."
Dot's voice was softer now. "That sounds important for both of us."
The driver opened the doors.
Elias stepped down, then turned back before the doors closed.
"What is your name, driver, since you know mine?"
"Mikey Vale is the name people use," the driver said. "Most people here call me Old Mikey because they lack imagination."
"Thanks for the gun, Old Mikey."
"Thank me by not making me explain why I armed a chef twice in one day."
The doors shut, and the transport rolled off toward the lower roads.
Elias stood alone in front of the officer building with his bag on one shoulder, his new clearance card in his palm, and the feeling that his father's ghost had arrived before him.
Footsteps approached from the archway.
A man in a clean officer's uniform came down the steps with the direct stride of someone who believed every delay had a culprit. Silver threaded his dark hair. His jacket sat perfectly on his shoulders. His eyes took in Elias, the bag, the dust on his sleeves, and the card before he spoke.
"You are either very lost right now," the officer said, "or someone important has created a serious problem for my schedule."
Elias straightened because the man made slouching feel illegal.
"Possibly both, sir, because I was told to report to Warden Commander Geras."