Page 121 of Dose

His jaw tightens.

“Unless I’m needed elsewhere,” he agrees.

Marcus changes the display before the meeting ends.

The final image shows a property in rural Montana identified in Vale’s ledger as a training and storage site. Recent deliveries include structural steel, medical gases, backup generators, fire-suppression equipment and enough network hardware to build a second command center.

“Assessment, not confirmed intelligence,” Marcus says. “The property is being fortified. Some personnel linked to Korte have moved there instead of joining the Chicago search.”

“A relocation site?” Raphael asks.

“Possibly. A decoy, a command post or a prepared battlefield are also possible.”

Not certainty. Branches.

“Korte knows how we enter facilities,” Damon says. “Fifteen years of incidents have given her data even where she did not write the original protocols.”

“Then we do not enter the way she expects,” Nikolai replies.

He assigns Marcus and me to model the Montana site’s supply dependencies and structural changes. Damon and Darius will build adversarial entry scenarios. No approach is authorized.

The meeting ends.

Darius stops beside me long enough to say, “Rotten trade. Correct decision for today.”

“I know.”

“I still resent Damon for being right.”

That almost earns a smile.

The secure level is sixty feet below the building.

I know the route. I know the biometric elevator, the hydraulic pause before the blast door releases and the rear suite built for one person that somehow held two of us for forty-eight hours after Ashford.

This is where I first chose Theon with my whole body.

It is also where I learned how easily protection can resemble confinement.

The door opens onto white walls, twenty-degree air and the laboratory annex Theon requested years before he knew I existed. The bed is still too narrow. The communications panel has been upgraded since our first lockdown.

My lungs tighten anyway.

Theon notices before I speak.

“Four?” he asks.

I nod.

He breathes with me until the room returns to its actual dimensions.

“I want to test the release,” I say.

“Do it.”

I press my palm to the interior reader.

The system accepts my print. An alert warns that opening the protected level will notify command and summon an escort. I confirm.