Chapter 249: A Necessary Delay.
"So how did you know he’s an ability user?" I asked, back pressed against the cool metal wall of the elevator, boots planted wide on the scuffed floor.
"He just appeared out of nowhere." Daphne’s voice stayed controlled on the line, the way it always did when she was managing chaos. "And he had blue hair."
I was alone in the ascending car, the soft mechanical hum vibrating through my spine. This was my narrow window—between floors, between Sinn’s demands and whatever came next.
"You said blue?"
"Yes."
Ernesto. The portal creation fit perfectly. Becky and Sherry had just left the building to search for him.
"Nobody here wanted to report it," Daphne continued. "They’re afraid that if an ability user turns up dead in a stray town, the government pulls the offer and they all lose out. That’s why I called you."
"Okay." I exhaled slowly, watching the floor numbers climb. "Have you confirmed he’s dead?"
"Yes." No hesitation. "He’d lost too much blood by the time he came through the portal."
"Alright."
I hadn’t known Ernesto well. Just a few quiet conversations with a blue-haired kid who never quite fit in any room and seemed perfectly fine with that. He’d deserved better than bleeding out on a bar floor in a stray town.
"So what do we do?" Daphne asked. "People are already talking about hiding the body."
"Tell them not to worry." The elevator slowed with a gentle chime. The doors slid open onto the administrative floor. "They didn’t kill him. Someone’s coming to handle it—her name is Becky. Cooperate with her when she arrives."
"Okay."
I stepped out into the corridor, the brighter lights washing over me as the doors whispered shut behind my back. "Alright. I love you."
"Love you too."
The words landed warm, but something else crossed my mind in the same breath.
The strays trusted her. Not the government. Not CGI. Not whatever came next. Just Daphne.
"Wait, Daph."
"Okay." She breathed out. "I’m here."
"Can you do something for me?"
"Mhm."
"Can you convince the people there not to take the abilities?"
A pause stretched across the line. "Bram... why?"
She didn’t doubt me. That was the thing about Daphne. The question was only for information.
"I can’t explain properly right now. Just tell them to wait. To really think it through before they accept anything."
"I don’t know if they’ll listen to me."
"They will." I started down the corridor, footsteps quiet on the tiled floor, eyes fixed on Sinn’s office door at the far end. "I just need them to slow down."
"I get it," she said, and the subtle shift in her tone told me she’d already been circling the same worry. "I was concerned about side effects anyway. Nobody’s asking what it costs. They’re all just celebrating."
"Try, Daph. Those are your people. If anything goes wrong out there, you know exactly what it looks like."
"Okay." Another pause, heavier this time. "Okay."
"Love you."
I hung up.
I didn’t know how fast the awakening was truly moving. But if the strays hesitated, that was a few thousand bodies the primordials couldn’t count on yet. Not a solution. Just a delay. And delays mattered.
I kept walking, mind already sliding back to Brahim Nadez.
I’ll be visiting you soon.
It wasn’t a threat. It wasn’t even a greeting. It was the calm statement of someone who had known me far longer than I’d known him, and had simply chosen the moment.
Sinn’s office door stood open.
"Do you have any other name, if it’s not his?"
His voice reached me before I crossed the threshold. Sinn sat perched on the edge of the heavy oak desk, feet planted firmly on the floor, facing Mercury, who was sunk deep into one of the leather chairs like she’d been there for sometime.
The meeting had already started without me.
"That guy is fucking crazy," Mercury said. Her eyes snapped to me the instant I stepped into the room.
"Morning." I gave them both a nod and dropped into a chair, deliberately leaving an empty seat between Mercury and me.
Sinn straightened, reading the shift in the room the way he always did. He adjusted without missing a beat.
"Good. You’re here." He settled back against the desk, the old wood creaking faintly under his weight. "We were building the team. Mercury thinks we only need three more. Each of us throws in a name."
"That’s fine," I said.
"I had Code in mind."
Of course he did. Code had been sitting at the top of my list since yesterday.
"Code," I echoed. "Code’s good. Code’s also insane."
"That’s exactly my point," Mercury said, leaning forward, elbows on her knees.
"I’ve already spoken to him," Sinn said. "He’s willing."
"Okay."
Working with Code inside these walls was going to be an entirely different beast than out on the open plain, where his brand of crazy had been an asset.
"Mercury suggested the probability girl," Sinn continued.
"May?" The pace was fast, but they weren’t wrong. "Yeah. She’s good."
"She’s fucking excellent," Mercury corrected.
Sinn looked at me. "You got a name?"
Two people sat on my private list. Becky and Celestine. I couldn’t offer either without talking to them first—and one of them I couldn’t offer at all without explanations I wasn’t ready to give.
"I need more time," I said.
"Okay." Sinn’s comms buzzed against the desk. "One second. Let me take this."
He answered and stepped toward the tall window, turning his back to us.
Mercury pivoted toward me instantly, voice dropping low.
"I don’t see a single difference between Owen and Code." Her face had gone dead serious, eyes narrowed. "Those two idiots are the same person."
"Code’s better," I replied quietly.
She dragged her chair closer with a sharp scrape of wood on tile, closing the distance. "No. If Owen was the asshole, Code is the balls. That motherfucker killed Major and left us trapped in a building full of starving people who’d just lost their leader."
"I think it was an order," I said, keeping my voice low.
"So how the hell is he any different from the bald bastard?" Her whisper was fraying at the edges, growing sharper. "God rest his soul."
"That’s good," Sinn said into the phone behind us, voice calm and decisive. "Very good."
He disconnected.
Mercury swallowed whatever else she’d been ready to fire off. We both turned toward Sinn.
"That was Melissa," he said. "Mrs. Rivers has agreed to meet with you."
"Alright."
"So this is it." He set the comms down with a soft click. "Our first mission."