Thane’s mouth tightens as if he’s trying not to smile.
Vol’s counsel looks satisfied.
Drax’s eyes flick toward the officer, then to me, and for a heartbeat the room holds its breath.
I straighten. “High Arbiter, I am a tribunal staff member acting under Transparency Reform contextual authority and expanded inquiry authorization. Detaining me mid-session is intimidation.”
The officer’s jaw tightens. “You will comply.”
He reaches for my elbow.
Before his fingers touch me, the Civilian Oversight Board members rise as one, a sudden wall of bodies in formal robes moving into the aisle like a barrier.
“Absolutely not,” the older woman says, her voice ringing.
The officer hesitates, not because he respects her, but because dragging an Oversight Board member aside on live broadcast is a different kind of disaster.
“This Board,” she continues, voice fierce and shaking with adrenaline, “formally intervenes. Liaison Ardent cannot be removed from the chamber pending investigation while active evidentiary review is underway. You will not silence a witness by calling her a breach.”
“I’m not a witness,” I snap before I can stop myself, then steady my tone. “I’m an archival liaison.”
“You’re the only one in this damn room willing to show the math,” another Board member says, eyes bright with fury. “So yes, you’re a witness.”
Drax’s voice cuts in, sharp. “Security. Stand down.”
The officer freezes, hand still half-raised.
“High Arbiter—” Thane begins.
“Stand down,” Drax repeats, louder, and the command in her voice leaves no room for argument.
The officer steps back, stiff.
Drax’s gaze lands on me. “Liaison Ardent. You will remain in chamber custody under tribunal supervision pending inquiry, but you will not be removed during active session.”
Chamber custody.
A cage with better optics.
I nod once, controlled. “Understood.”
Outside, the feed monitors flicker with protest footage—more bodies, louder chants—and the wordscivilian casualty thresholdsflash again across a banner in bright text. The encrypted threat message from earlier seems to echo in my head—remember who dies when peace collapses—and I feel my hand drift, unconsciously, toward my abdomen again, protective and furious.
Rhyx steps closer under guard, the same deliberate alignment he offered earlier, placing his body in visible solidarity again, not as romance, not as drama, but as a signal to every camera: if they touch her, they do it in full view, and they do it with the accused watching.
Drax strikes the gavel, voice taut. “This tribunal will adjourn for emergency drafting of scope parameters and evidentiary disclosure orders. Security inquiry proceeds under Oversight Board observation. All parties will refrain from unauthorized public dissemination.”
The gavel falls, but the room doesn’t exhale. It seethes.
As the chamber begins to break into motion, the Oversight Board remains half-standing, eyes on security, daring them to try again. Thane confers in furious whispers with his team. Vol’s counsel moves toward Vol with the controlled urgency of someone used to putting out fires in silk gloves. Vol himself remains composed, but I see now that his calm is no longer effortless; it is something he must hold, like a heavy object that wants to fall.
And me—I stand there under tribunal lights, the taste of bile still at the back of my throat, my compad heavy in my hand, my skin cold with the knowledge that they tried to remove me on camera and will try again off camera if they can.
But they didn’t get me.
Not today.
Not with the Oversight Board between us and the drones still watching.
