Mira
I sit at the corner table in the faculty lounge, my laptop a barricade between me and the rest of the world, trying to make sense of the latest flare-sickness data from District Six.
The numbers don't move like standard energy surges.
They have a jagged, recursive quality, like a problem folding back in on itself.
A shadow falls across my screen.
It isn't the erratic flicker of the overhead fluorescent lights. It's heavy, deliberate, and smells faintly of expensive laundry starch and clinical antiseptic. I don't need to look up to know who it is.
"Dr. Solenne," Mercer Holt says. "I hope I'm not interrupting anything vital."
I look up, keeping my face as flat as I can make it. Mercer stands there in a charcoal suit that probably costs more than my car, his hands clasped loosely in front of him.
"Just the usual collapse of urban infrastructure," I say, leaning back and letting the lid of my laptop drop just enough to signal my annoyance. "To what do I owe the pleasure, Director? I assumed you’d be busy at the Stabilization Center, given the morning’s reports."
Mercer doesn't flinch. He pulls out the chair opposite me with a quiet scrape that feels like a threat. "The reports are exactly why I'm here. We’re looking for patterns, Mira. Stability isn’t just about nodes and suppression fields; it’s about the people who maintain the balance.
Specifically, the ones who seem to be doing it better than the models predicted. "
He doesn't mention Asa. He doesn't have to. The air between us is already thick with the name he isn't saying. I feel a cold prickle of protectiveness tighten my chest, the instinctual snarl of an Omega who knows exactly where the predator is looking.
"I'm a researcher, Mercer," I say, my voice dropping an octave. "If you want patterns, I can send you the District Six spreadsheets. If you want something else, you’re in the wrong department."
Mercer tilts his head, a small, terrifyingly reasonable movement.
"I'm interested in Professor Renwick. You’ve been his partner, professionally speaking, for quite some time. You’ve seen his Guide history.
The F-Class classification. It’s... curious, isn’t it?
That someone with such a negligible rating would be assigned to a graduate program that sits directly over the city’s primary suppression junction. "
He isn't asking. He’s verifying.
I keep my hands under the table, gripping my knees so he won't see the slight tremor in my fingers.
"Asa is a brilliant mathematician," I say, clipped and cold. "The ESA labeled him F-Class because his energy output is low. That’s how the system works, isn't it? If you can't power a city block, you're a footnote. His appointment here was based on his brain, not his designation."
"And yet," Mercer says, leaning in, his eyes tracking my every blink, "his recent symptoms suggest otherwise. The lethargy, the sensory spikes. We’ve noticed a shift since Jorak Thorn entered his orbit.
A synchronization that shouldn't be possible between an S-Class Enigma and an F-Class Guide.
Have you noticed any irregularities? Strange reactions around powerful Espers?
Moments where he seemed to possess a clarity that doesn't align with his files? "
I can hear the file being built under every word.
"Asa is stressed," I say, my voice like a serrated blade. "Most people are when the city they live in starts bleeding stray power. If you’re looking for a medical miracle, Mercer, check the water supply. If you’re looking for a reason to turn my friend into a government asset, you’re going to find me very uncooperative. "
Mercer sighs, a sound of genuine, weary disappointment. It’s his best trick, making you feel like the unreasonable one for wanting to keep your soul. He stands, smoothing the front of his jacket with a slow, rhythmic motion that sets my teeth on edge.
"The city is sick, Mira. We have flare-sick clusters in the North End that are doubling every forty-eight hours. We have Guides burning out, actually dying, trying to hold back the tide while the suppression network fractures. We cannot afford private secrets anymore. Right now, we’re just trying to survive. "
He turns to leave, but stops, looking back over his shoulder. "If Asa is what we think he is, he isn't simply a man anymore. He’s a solution. I suggest you decide which side of that equation you want to be on before the math gets harder for everyone involved."
He walks away, his footsteps silent on the industrial carpet.
I sit there for a long time, the espresso in my cup stone cold, watching the door. The lounge feels smaller now. Mercer hasn't asked a single question he doesn't already have half an answer to. He’s checking to see if I’ll lie.
I reach out and flip my laptop open. My heart is a frantic, irregular drum against my ribs, but my mind is sharpening. Mercer wants patterns? Fine. I’ll find patterns. But not the ones that lead to Asa being strapped to a gurney in the Stabilization Center.
I start with Silas.
The Unbound leader is a thorn in the ESA’s side, a man who talks about the suppression nodes like they’re ticking time bombs.
I pull up his public manifestos, filtering out the revolutionary rhetoric and looking for the technical data underneath.
He mentioned an erased classification in a broadcast three weeks ago.
At the time, I dismissed it as conspiracy theory, the desperate reach of a man looking for a ghost in the machine.
Now, I’m not so sure.
I dive into the university’s restricted archives, using the B-Class clearance the ESA hasn't bothered to revoke yet.
I search for Guide subtypes, the ones the modern manuals don't mention.
I scroll through pages of energy-drainers, stabilizers, and amplifiers until the text begins to blur into a gray haze of medical jargon.
The first thing I find isn't an answer. It’s an absence.
Whole sections are missing from the late-nineties manuals. Classification charts jump from one terminology set to another with no transitional notes, no errata, no revision explanation. Early suppression-node records refer to Guide structures that the modern ESA database doesn't acknowledge at all.
Structural synchronization.
Origin-point stabilization.
Low active output with high catastrophic compatibility.
I stare at the phrases until the words stop looking like words.
Asa's file has always been strange. Not broken, exactly.
Empty in the wrong places. Every test labeled him negligible because the system measured output, not structure.
Power, not resonance. It asked whether he could feed energy into a machine, not whether he could stop the machine from tearing itself apart.
I dig deeper, my fingers flying across the keys. The more I find, the worse it gets. These records haven't been forgotten. They’ve been buried. The language gets thinner after the ESA takes full control of the city’s power grid, then disappears almost completely.
I don't have enough to name what Asa is.
Not yet.
But I have enough to know the F-Class label is wrong.
I look at the clock. It’s nearly five. Outside the window, the Redbrook sky is turning a bruised, sickly purple, the color of a storm that refuses to break. Mercer isn't just interested in Asa. Everything he’s doing with Asa… they’re tests.
And Asa, bless his brilliant, stubborn heart, keeps passing them.
I pull my phone from my pocket, my thumb hovering over Asa’s name. I hesitate. If I call him, he’ll hear the panic in my voice. If I text, maybe I can keep him moving before Mercer does.
I don't call.
I text.
Library. Back tables. Now.
Then I send another before I can talk myself out of it.
I think I know why they want you.