Page 63 of Dose

“Thank you.”

Darius points his spoon at me. “If you ever offer private instruction⁠—”

“No,” Theon says.

“I didn’t even finish.”

“You weren’t going to improve it.”

Darius considers this, then returns to his sauce. “Fair.”

Theon’s knee rests against mine while we eat. He does not move it once.

After lunch, we go to the Archive.

Ezra has the Phoenix plans spread across three screens, with the route and staffing data from Atlanta layered over the old facility records. My process annotations have been integrated into the working model. The hand-drawn pages I brought him now sit in a clear sleeve beside the console, covered in his cramped notes.

“The breach window has changed,” he says before we sit down. “The current dosing schedule puts the lowest staff density in the medical wing between two and three thirty in the morning. Tactical entry begins first. You and Raphael do not cross the threshold until the wing is called secure.”

He enlarges the environmental-control plan.

“I need your confidence level on the scrubber branch.”

I study the screen. The original blueprint shows a single exhaust run from the verification laboratory. The pressure data copied in Atlanta says there are two.

“Eighty percent,” I say. “Korte used the same retrofit at Site Nine. I signed off on the performance tests. The second branch should run behind this service wall and join the main exhaust above the eastern stairwell.”

I trace the likely route without touching the screen.

“Should?” Ezra asks.

“I reviewed Phoenix’s deviation reports, not its construction. The pressure behavior fits, but I won’t call it certain without current thermal imaging.”

“Good.” He adds the qualification to the model. “Marcus requested another pass tonight.”

Theon comes to stand behind me. His right hand settles at the base of my back, warm and familiar. I lean into it without thinking. His fingers press once in answer.

Ezra notices. He has eyes. He does not comment, because unlike Darius, he also has restraint.

For twenty minutes, Ezra and I work through the pharmaceutical schedule. Phoenix holds sixty-three confirmed children, each with an individualized dosing history that must leave with them. Raphael’s team needs the physical records and enough verified stock to continue treatment during transport. The access copied in Atlanta gets us through the digital archive. It does not tell us which undocumented storage changes Korte made after the last inspection.

That is why Nikolai accepted my case. Not because eight days of training can turn me into Damon. It cannot. I am going in as a technical specialist after the entry team clears the medical wing, attached to someone qualified to keep me alive.

No one has tried to pretend that cleared means safe.

I reach for the stylus. The heel of my hand lands on the active screen, catches a selected airflow node, and drags it directly into the east stairwell.

Ezra goes still.

On the model, the laboratory exhaust now empties into an evacuation route.

“I can fix that,” I say.

“Don’t.”

He taps twice. The node returns to its correct position. Then he locks the editing layer and slides the stylus toward me.

“You now have annotation privileges.”