Kikaru caught him again before Oliver returned.
She had a towel over one shoulder and the expression of someone deciding whether a new tool belonged in the right drawer. Elias was beginning to suspect that was simply her resting face.
"You asked about the training regimen," she said. "Three of us follow the full plan: Paul, Faye, and I. Tid avoids anything that sounds like effort unless it wins him a visible prize, and Colby does enough to claim he tried."
"And what about the others here?"
"Watching, waiting, and complaining in whatever order you prefer."
Elias nodded toward the training mats. "Tid called you a military brat, so was your father in service?"
The question landed wrong, and Kikaru looked away for the first time.
"My grandfather served in the military," she said. "My father died three years ago."
Elias felt the easy response die before it reached his mouth.
"I am sorry for assuming that."
"Do not be sorry at me, and be on time if you train, because we start at 5:30 sharp."
She walked back to her pod and sealed the door.
Dot floated beside Elias, quieter than usual. "That was sad in a compact way."
"People here keep doing that lately."
Oliver entered A Block before Elias could think of anything useful.
"Kael, you are ready enough, and medical is waiting."
"Ready enough is becoming the theme of my day," Elias said.
"Then appreciate the consistency and move."
The door sealed behind them, and the corridor outside A Block brought back the controlled quiet of Cube X. Screens tracked vitals, security routes, and block statuses. Elias walked beside Oliver in the green outfit, feeling less dressed than labeled.
"Where are we going this time?"
"Room 3-A for the Shard Impact Scan. It measures how the shard is seated, how your body is responding, and whether your Ikona can be detected through standard equipment, and you do not discuss results outside authorized areas."
"That is the second version of that warning today."
"Expect more versions before dinner today."
Room 3-A opened into a medical testing chamber. A metal table sat in the center under a circular scanner mounted on a track. Monitors lined the walls with skeletal diagrams, heat maps, and layered body models. A man in a lab coat stood near the main console, turning an empty vial between his fingers.
He looked at Elias, then at Dot, and when Dot lifted a hand, the doctor's eyes followed the movement.
Elias stopped. "You can see her moving beside me?"
"Not clearly enough for certainty yet," the doctor said. "Enough to know something waved in my direction. I am Doctor Halden, and you are here because your shard refuses to behave like a quiet piece of foreign material."
Dot drifted closer to him. "I like him already, because he noticed me first."
Halden smiled at the empty air near her, then pointed toward the table.
"Climb up onto the table, Elias. The scan is painless unless you are emotionally attached to privacy."
"I have lost too much today to defend that last part."
Elias lay flat on the table. The scanner lowered until it hovered above his chest. Small nodes lit one after another, and a vibration moved through him from throat to ribs to stomach. It was not pain. It was pressure, like the machine was asking his bones a question.
Dot hovered near his shoulder, watching the scanner with open suspicion.
"If it steals my shape, I am blaming the doctor."
"Reasonable enough for this testing room," Halden said, making a note. "Paranoid, but reasonable enough for today."
The scan passed over Elias twice before the machine chimed.
Halden pulled the first image onto a glass panel and then raised a second beside it.
"Left side is a normal scan, mine actually, because I was available and vain enough to compare well, while the right side is yours."
Elias sat up.
The difference was immediate.
The normal image showed bone, tissue, and ordinary shadows. His own scan carried thin blue-white lines through the body, threading around veins, organs, and bone like a second circulatory map. The shard sat below the sternum, tucked into him with a precision that made surgery seem too crude a word.
It did not look stuck. It looked installed.
Elias touched the center of his chest. "That is inside me right now."
"Very much inside you at the moment," Halden said. "Integrated better than most, and I have only seen this level of connection in two others so far: Kikaru and Gavlin."
"Gavlin is from another block, right?"
"Correct, with different expression and similar depth. Do not compare personalities based on scans, because the universe enjoys making doctors look stupid."
Dot moved closer to the image and, for once, did not joke.
"Elias, that line reaches where I sleep," she said.
He looked at the web again, and the room felt colder than before.