The Craliuk District had been built for workers who were supposed to leave once the projects were finished.
Then the first invasion broke supply lines, the companies pulled out, and the workers stayed because leaving cost more than starving slowly. Half-built towers rusted beside patched apartment blocks. Old cranes stood over the streets like dead machinery nobody had bothered to bury.
Vincent reached the abandoned construction site through an alley that smelled of oil, rainwater, and bad wiring.
He stopped at a rusted side door and tapped a pattern into a steel plate that looked too ruined to matter.
The plate blinked green, a concealed panel slid open, and the building stopped pretending to be abandoned.
Clean white panels covered the walls. Cable lines ran along the ceiling in tight bundles. Screens tracked city feeds, military traffic, and signal maps. Vincent left blood on the floor despite trying not to.
Silas turned from the central console before the hidden door finished closing.
He was narrow, sharp-faced, and too awake for a man who lived under broken concrete. His hair stuck out in several directions like sleep had lost a fight with him. The amusement on his face vanished when he saw Vincent.
"You look like you argued with an armored vehicle and lost politely."
Vincent dropped into the nearest chair. "The intel was good enough to find a shard bearer. You forgot to mention military escorts, Elara Cross, and a bus full of witnesses."
"I gave you a route, not permission to attack the route alone. Hand over the recording chip before you bleed on the expensive floor."
Vincent pulled the chip from his pocket and tossed it onto the desk.
Silas caught it with a cloth, wiped the blood away, and slotted it into the console.
"Tell me Nosey is still attached to you," Silas said.
A dark shimmer formed near Vincent's shoulder, just enough for a narrow head and too many watchful angles.
"Still attached and deeply disappointed, but attached," Nosey said.
Silas pointed toward the medical door. "Good, because nurses come first and explanations come second."
Two women in white stepped out from the side room. They did not gasp. That was one of the reasons Vincent trusted this place. People here had seen enough damage to move instead of react.
One took his weight under the shoulder. The other looked at his side and clicked her tongue.
"Mister Vincent, you are leaving a trail I do not want to mop twice. Come with us before you make this political."
Vincent let them pull him up.
"Do not get lost in the footage, Silas. There was more happening around that boy than the military knows."
"There is always more happening than the military knows," Silas said. "Go survive the nurses before arguing."
The door closed behind Vincent.
Silas waited until the medical lock engaged, then started the recording.
The feed opened with shaky forest movement and Vincent's rough breathing. Silas skipped past the escape, stopped at the road attack, and watched the black armor grow around Vincent's body. Nosey's fusion pattern crawled frame by frame across the screen.
He copied the image to the whiteboard.
Nosey, animal-based Ikona.
Fusion shell. Strength and speed boost. Signal tracking. Weapon interface.
He watched the fight again, slower.
When Vincent grabbed the fallen rifle, Nosey's energy did not only brace his hand. It entered the weapon for less than a second. The plasma discharge changed color at the edge, tightened, and hit harder than the rifle's listed output allowed.
Silas rewound the footage, played it again, and then played it a third time.
"Not armor only after all, apparently," he said. "Adaptive transfer through carried tools, and maybe the missing hand makes the channel cleaner or maybe the injury forced it."
A dark butterfly unfolded from the shard under his own shoulder. Four segmented wings shifted in the console light. Its voice entered the room low and careful.
"You are admiring the part where he nearly died."
"I am admiring the part where nearly dying produced useful data."
"That is why people call you comforting after they leave the room."
Silas smiled without looking away from the feed. "No one has ever called me comforting."
"Correct, but I wanted you to hear why."
He switched the console to base surveillance. Three military channels were already tightening around the forest. Vincent's explosion had confused the trail but not erased it. Good enough for an hour. Maybe two.
Silas opened a secure file labeled RECRUITMENT RISKS.
Elias Kael's image appeared beside a capture from the road. Civilian. Protected intake. Dorian Kael's son. Shard active. Ikona awake.
"So that is the boy from the road," Silas said as the butterfly settled on the edge of the monitor.
"He does not look like a weapon."
"That is what makes him useful to Geras. People listen differently when a scared civilian repeats the military's offer."
"Then what is our answer to Geras?"
Silas activated the disruptors built into the walls. Green indicators moved across the room one by one.
"We do not let Geras collect every shard bearer before they know they have another choice. We offer shelter, information, and the truth that the alien threat is not the only threat wearing a uniform."
The butterfly flexed its wings.
"And what do we do about Vincent?"
"Vincent heals while Nosey learns restraint, and then we decide whether Elias Kael is a target, a recruit, or bait."
On the screen, Elias blinded Vincent with a cheap flashlight.
Silas paused the frame and laughed once under his breath.
"Preferably before the chef embarrasses another one of our field assets."