Nate reached the Royal Circuit Ward with a dull ache beneath his right shoulder.
The numbness had left his hand before he departed the academy, but two fingers still tingled whenever he closed them. He kept the arm close to his side while the receptionist checked his identification.
"Fourth floor."
A guard led him through two security doors and into a lift.
The ward was quieter than the academy medical centre. There were no cadets waiting with swollen joints or training burns. Through one open doorway, Nate saw a patient suspended inside a frame of rotating metal rings. Conductive lines ran into the man’s chest and legs, pulsing with the machines around him.
The guard stopped outside Room Forty-Seven.
Iris sat on the bench opposite the door.
She wore academy medical grey now. Her hair had been cut shorter, and a narrow Pulse Medic badge rested beneath her name.
"You came fast," she said.
"They marked it urgent."
"They mark everything urgent here."
Nate looked toward the closed door.
"She awake?"
"She was ten minutes ago."
"How bad is it?"
Iris leaned back against the wall.
"The brace is carrying part of her circulation. They reduce the support, see what fails, then raise it again."
"That bad, then."
"She’s alive."
Her tone made it clear that was the only answer she had been given.
Nate sat beside her. His shoulder pulled when his weight shifted.
Iris noticed.
"What happened?"
"Combat training."
"You’re holding it against your ribs."
"It hurts less that way."
"That doesn’t make it combat training."
He flexed his fingers beneath his sleeve.
"It’ll pass."
Iris watched him for another moment, then let it go.
"How many times did they question you?" Nate asked.
"Three."
"Same questions?"
"Mostly."
"And now?"
"They needed Holt awake."
"She didn’t see Milo die."
"I told them that."
The door opened.
A man in a dark administrative uniform stepped into the corridor with a terminal beneath one arm.
"Calder. Morn."
Iris stood.
The man held the door for them.
Holt looked smaller in the hospital bed.
A Class 1 suspension brace enclosed her torso. Curved supports held her shoulders in place while Conductive lines disappeared beneath the blanket. The dark damage Nate remembered had faded, leaving pale scars that climbed from her collarbone to the side of her neck.
Her eyes moved between them.
"Still alive."
Nate took the chair beside the bed.
"You too."
"Less comfortably."
Iris sat on the other side.
The investigator remained near the foot of the bed.
"I’ve read both statements," he said. "I don’t need the whole story again."
Holt closed her eyes.
"Then don’t ask for it."
"I need two points clarified."
He opened the first file.
"Kern."
Iris’s hands tightened in her lap.
The investigator looked at her.
"You examined him."
"Yes."
"Could you have removed the strand?"
"No."
"Could he have survived until recovery?"
Iris stared at the brace around Holt’s chest.
"I don’t know how long he would’ve stayed conscious."
"That wasn’t the question."
"He wasn’t reaching recovery."
The investigator waited.
Iris looked at him.
"The strand was already above his knee. It was feeding on his Core. Every pulse was stronger than the last."
"And the pulse would attract another Hound?"
"It already had."
Holt shifted beneath the brace.
"The young one found him through it," she said. "The adult was still somewhere near the rail."
The investigator entered something into his terminal.
Then he looked at Nate.
"Kern asked you to kill him."
"Yes."
"What did he say?"
Nate remembered Milo’s hand around the handle of the black case.
"He didn’t want to feel it reach his Core."
"Anything else?"
"He told me to do it before he changed his mind."
The investigator turned toward Iris.
"You heard him?"
"I heard."
"You objected."
"I said no."
"Did you try to stop Calder?"
Iris did not answer immediately.
"No."
"Why?"
She looked at Nate for the first time since they entered the room.
"I didn’t want to watch."
The investigator lowered the terminal slightly.
"That isn’t what I asked."
"It’s the answer I have."
Holt opened her eyes.
The investigator studied Iris, then continued.
"Was Kern lucid?"
"He knew where he was. He knew we’d used the dose on Holt. He knew what the strand was doing."
Iris swallowed.
"He knew what he was asking."
The investigator turned back to Nate.
"One shot."
"Yes."
"You left him in the coach."
"We had Holt on the cart."
"And Kern’s cargo?"
"We took it."
"Both cases were recovered under his registration. His employer issued the delivery credit. His family received the compensation."
Holt’s eyes closed again.
"Good," she said quietly.
The investigator changed files.
"The man at Marker Seventeen."
Nate shifted in the chair.
"You wounded him in the shoulder. Morn disabled his hand. His firearm was out of reach."
"He had a knife."
"Inside his coat."
"Yes."
"You told him to stop?"
"Once."
"And then?"
"He kept reaching."
The investigator glanced at Iris.
She nodded.
"Could you have restrained him?" he asked Nate.
"Maybe."
Iris turned toward him.
Nate continued before she could speak.
"I wasn’t going to test it with her behind me and someone cutting through the door."
The investigator held his gaze.
"You fired twice."
"Yes."
"Why twice?"
"The first didn’t stop him."
The room went quiet.
The investigator entered another note.
Holt watched him from the bed.
"You already have the other two alive," she said.
"We do."
"The vehicle?"
"Recovered."
"Their communications?"
"Recovered."
"And the relay employee?"
"His statement was transmitted before his death."
Holt’s breathing had begun to shorten.
"Then what are we doing?"
The investigator closed the file.
"You were the ranking officer. I needed confirmation that the attack was still active when you lost consciousness."
"It was."
"And that you knew Calder was armed."
Holt looked toward Nate.
"He came out of the forest carrying a mercenary rifle."
"Did you tell him to surrender it?"
"No."
"Why?"
Holt stared at the investigator.
"Because people were trying to kill us."
The brace adjusted around her chest.
The investigator waited for the machinery to settle.
"You accepted him as part of your withdrawal group."
"I had a wounded porter, a medical candidate, a half-dead marshal and Calder. Call it whatever you like."
The investigator recorded the answer.
"That completes the account."
Nate leaned forward.
"So it’s closed?"
"I’ll submit it tonight."
"That isn’t what he asked," Holt said.
The man looked at her.
"Unless something contradicts the evidence, the review will close."
"Nothing will."
He passed Holt the terminal.
She read the statement slowly. Halfway through, she stopped and changed a line with her thumb.
"What did you change?" the investigator asked.
"You wrote that Calder accompanied the withdrawal."
"He did."
"He helped carry it."
The investigator said nothing.
Holt signed.
He took the terminal back and left the room.
Iris stood almost immediately.
"I need to get back."
Holt looked toward her.
"You saved me."
"Milo found the dose."
"He told you where to use it."
"He thought he was already dead."
"He was."
Iris’s face tightened.
"I know."
Holt did not try to soften it.
Iris pulled the strap of her bag over her shoulder.
Her eyes moved toward Nate.
"Tomorrow?"
He nodded.
"Tomorrow."
She left.
Nate listened to her footsteps fade through the corridor.
Holt adjusted her head against the pillow.
"You’re staring."
Nate looked back at her.
"Why me?"
"What?"
"Milo."
Holt took a slow breath.
"You had the rifle."
"Iris had it too by then."
"She still had her hands on him."
Nate remembered Iris kneeling beside Milo’s leg, pressing uselessly against the spreading black lines.
"And I didn’t."
"You’d stopped pretending there was another treatment."
Nate looked down at his hands.
Holt watched him.
"He was frightened. You were there. That might be all there was to it."
"He knew I’d do it."
"Maybe."
"You don’t think that means anything?"
"I think you want it to."
Nate raised his eyes.
Holt’s voice had weakened, but her expression had not.
"Don’t build your whole life around one frightened man asking for one bullet."
Nate said nothing.
The ache beneath his shoulder sharpened.
He moved his arm without thinking.
Holt noticed.
"Show me."
"What?"
"Move your right arm."
"It’s fine."
"You’ve said that twice."
Nate raised it halfway.
Pain caught beneath the shoulder and stopped him.
Holt’s eyes narrowed.
"Combat Four?"
"Yes."
"What exercise?"
"Weighted movement."
"You damage the pathways too?"
His hand became still.
Holt gave a tired breath that almost became a laugh.
"There it is."
"What?"
"The pause before the lie."
"My pathways aren’t damaged."
"You don’t know that."
"I do."
"How?"
Nate looked away.
Holt let the silence sit between them.
"Last Measure," he said eventually. "What did it feel like?"
She seemed to understand the change of subject but allowed it.
"Nothing at first."
"Nothing?"
"Deferred Collapse had already buried most of it. Pain, shock, fatigue. Last Measure used all of that to move me once."
"And afterward?"
"It came back."
"All of it?"
Holt glanced at the brace around her chest.
"What do you think?"
Nate studied the pale scars along her neck.
"Would you still do it?"
"The mercenary was going to kill us."
"That isn’t what I asked."
"I know."
The display beside her bed issued a warning tone.
A nurse entered and checked the brace.
"We’re done."
Holt closed her eyes.
Nate rose.
"Calder."
He stopped near the door.
"When the review clears, they’ll assign you."
"I know."
"You’ve already spent a month waiting."
"I wasn’t waiting."
Holt opened one eye and looked at his shoulder.
"No. I suppose you weren’t."
The decision reached Nate before he returned to the academy.
ADMINISTRATIVE REVIEW: CLOSED
NO DISCIPLINARY ACTION
Several minutes later, a second message appeared.
His operational assignment had been completed.
A note explained that Section Nineteen had been formed from candidates whose placements had been delayed or changed after the train attack and temporary border closures.
Nate opened the roster.
OPERATIONAL SECTION NINETEEN
COMBAT — NATE CALDER
RECONNAISSANCE — LEOR SENN
MEDICAL — IRIS MORN
Two unfamiliar names followed: one technical candidate and one logistics candidate.
His temporary housing assignment disappeared. A permanent section dormitory had already been selected.
At the bottom of the file waited their first order.
SECTION EVALUATION
REPORT: 0600 TOMORROW
SOUTHERN SIMULATION GROUNDS
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