The city was still loud below.

  Screens. Voices. The distant sound of crowds that hadn’t finished deciding what they felt yet.

  I had slipped away from it quietly — no announcement, no direction given. One moment I was walking with Bke Rogers, and the next I was airborne, Paradox Alpha carrying me upward through the dark above the city’s noise until the rooftop found me.

  I nded without sound.

  Stood for a moment at the edge, looking out over the lights.

  Then I simply — stopped.

  Not strategically.

  Not deliberately.

  My body made the decision before my mind did.

  I had been moving since the travel port.

  Through the fight. Through Stage Five. Through the entity. Through the portal. Through the broadcast. Through the square. Through Bke’s questions and the weight of everything that had been said and witnessed and decided.

  I had not stopped once.

  And now, for the first time since all of it began—

  There was nothing immediately requiring my attention.

  The city hummed below.

  The wind moved across the rooftop.

  And I stood at the edge of it all and let the silence arrive.

  After a moment I spoke quietly.

  “W.I.S.D.O.M.”

  <*“Yes.”*>

  “Remove the suit.”

  A brief pause.

  <*“Paradox Alpha deactivation confirmed. Initiating retrieval sequence.”*>

  The armor responded immediately — panels separating, retracting, folding inward with the precise efficiency of something that had been built to obey without ceremony. The golden light dimmed section by section. The visor retracted st.

  The suit colpsed inward and was gone, returned to its domain in a breath of dispced air.

  And I—

  I was just a person standing on a rooftop.

  No armor.

  No sovereign field.

  No stage five luminescence.

  Just me.

  The wind hit differently without the suit.

  I felt it properly for the first time in hours — cold, real, indifferent to what I was or what I’d done.

  I took one breath.

  Then my legs gave out.

  Not dramatically.

  Not with warning.

  I simply went down — knees first, then sideways, and the rooftop caught me without apology.

  I eyes closed before I finished falling.

  <*“Vital signs critical,”*> W.I.S.D.O.M noted quietly into the empty air.

  <*“Neo unconscious.”*>

  <*“Recommend immediate medical attention.”*>

  There was no one to hear it.

  For exactly four seconds.

  ?

  (Command Center — simultaneous)

  The room had reorganized itself around urgency.

  Screens that had been showing energy signatures and battlefield data now dispyed national response metrics — crowd movement, network traffic, broadcast reach, the spread of footage from the square moving faster than anything the communications team could counter.

  Director Hale stood at the head of the table.

  His composure had returned.

  That was the most dangerous thing about him — the way fear, in Hale, did not stay fear for long. It metabolized into something colder. More deliberate.

  More willing.

  “Close the doors,” he said.

  They closed.

  The remaining officials settled.

  Harrow stood to the side, watching.

  “We have a narrow window,” Hale began. “The broadcast bought us time — not as much as we needed, but enough. The public is divided. Some are afraid. Some are already being pulled toward him.” His jaw tightened. “We cannot allow that division to resolve in his favor.”

  “The footage from the square is already—” an analyst started.

  “I know what it’s doing,” Hale said. “Which is why the next move cannot be a broadcast. It cannot be political. It has to be direct.”

  The room understood what that meant.

  “Bke Rogers,” Hale said. “And the Apex Saints. I want them recalled. All of them. Tonight.”

  A communications officer nodded and moved immediately.

  “There’s a complication,” Harrow said from the side.

  Hale looked at him.

  “Crown.” Harrow’s voice was even. Careful. “He was in that chamber. He saw what happened. What the entity did. What Neo did.” A pause. “Crown is not a man who ignores evidence.”

  “Crown serves the program,” Hale said.

  “Crown serves what he believes in,” Harrow said. “Those have been the same thing until today.”

  The silence in the room was brief but heavy.

  Hale moved past it.

  “Recall them regardless. If Crown has doubts, I’ll address them personally.” He looked around the table. “We also need to discuss containment options. Neo is exposed now. No secrecy. No subtlety — he made that choice himself.” His eyes were ft. “Which means we respond in kind.”

  “Deploying against Neo after all we’ve seen—” someone began.

  “Is not ideal,” Hale said. “I’m aware. Which is why we don’t deploy blindly.” He straightened. “We study the footage. We study the portal event. We find the gaps.” His voice dropped slightly. “Every Saint has them.”

  Harrow watched him from across the room.

  Said nothing.

  But his hands, csped behind his back, tightened once.

  ?

  (The Rooftop)

  Lina reached me first.

  She had been tracking my suit’s signal since the square — not obviously, not in a way she’d announced — and when Paradox Alpha’s signature vanished from her peripheral awareness she had already started moving.

  She came over the rooftop edge and found me on the ground and her heart did something that had nothing to do with battlefield training.

  “Neo—”

  She was beside me before the word finished.

  Seraphine nded seconds ter, Eli a breath behind her.

  “What happened—” Eli started.

  “He deactivated the suit,” Lina said, her hands already checking me, turning me carefully. “He just — he deactivated it and—”

  “He’s been running on empty since the travel port,” Seraphine said, dropping to her knees on my other side. Her hands were already moving, the soft gold of her healing ability surfacing without preamble. “His body held on through Stage Five, through the entity, through all of it — but the suit was carrying part of the load.” She pressed two fingers to my chest. “The moment it came off—”

  “He crashed,” Eli finished.

  “He crashed,” Seraphine confirmed.

  The healing light moved through me steadily.

  Not urgently — Seraphine’s expression was focused but not panicked, which was the first thing that let Lina breathe.

  “He’s not in danger,” Seraphine said after a moment. “His body just — stopped. Forced the rest it wasn’t going to take on its own.”

  Lina exhaled.

  Her hand found mine without deciding to.

  My fingers were cold from the wind.

  She held them anyway.

  Eli watched her for a moment, then looked away.

  “We can’t leave him here,” he said.

  “No,” Lina agreed quietly.

  Eli crouched, assessed, and then simply gathered me up with the calm efficiency of someone who had carried people before — carefully, without making it a moment.

  “His house,” Seraphine said.

  Eli nodded.

  They moved.

  ?

  (Cole Residence)

  The lights were on.

  That was the first thing.

  My mother had not gone to bed.

  She was in the sitting room when the door opened — not pacing, not watching the screen that still cycled with news in the corner, just sitting in the particur stillness of a woman who had learned long ago that worry spent standing up was the same worry as worry spent sitting down, and sitting was at least honest about it.

  She looked up when they came in.

  Took in Eli carrying me.

  Took in Lina’s expression.

  Took in Seraphine’s careful watchfulness and the way all three of them were already composing expnations in their faces.

  “He’s alright,” Lina said quickly. “He just — it’s been an extraordinary few hours and his body—”

  “I know,” Mara said.

  She stood.

  Crossed the room.

  Looked at my face — sck, unguarded in the way sleep makes people young again — and something moved through her expression that wasn’t fear.

  “I saw the broadcast,” she said.

  Her voice was quiet. Even.

  “And then I saw the square.”

  She looked at Lina.

  “He was wearing the visor. They won’t know it was him.” A small pause. “But I knew.”

  The three of them were still.

  “I’ve always known,” My mother said simply. “Not the details. Not the Saints or the government or any of it.” She looked at me again. “But I knew he was carrying something rger than what this house could hold. Since he was small.” Her voice didn’t waver. “A mother knows.”

  No one spoke.

  She reached out and touched my face briefly — the back of her fingers against my cheek, there and gone, the kind of touch that doesn’t need an audience.

  Then she straightened.

  “His room,” she said. “He needs to be in his own bed.”

  Eli carried me down the hall.

  ?

  (Command Center)

  “The Apex Saints are being reached,” the communications officer reported. “Bke Rogers is not responding.”

  Hale absorbed that without visible reaction.

  “Keep trying.”

  “Sir.” A different analyst. “The footage from the square has passed forty million views across combined networks. The engagement pattern suggests—”

  “I don’t need the numbers,” Hale said. “I need options.”

  The room recalibrated.

  Harrow spoke.

  “There is one option no one has raised yet.”

  Hale looked at him.

  “the Saint of Justice.”

  The name shifted the air in the room.

  Several officials exchanged gnces.

  “The Darkshore Union is an enemy state,” someone said carefully.

  “The Saint of Justice was apparently Neo’s next destination before all of this started,” Harrow said. “Which means there was an arrangement. Which means The Saint of Justice had expectations.” He paused. “Neo cut him loose publicly today. In front of witnesses.”

  The implication settled.

  “the Saint of Justice will already know,” Harrow continued. “He’ll be watching. And he’ll be deciding what Neo’s decration means for him specifically.” He looked at Hale. “A common enemy creates uncommon alignments.”

  Hale was quiet for a moment.

  Thinking.

  “Draft a communication,” he said finally. “Discreet. Nothing official. Nothing that can be traced back to this office formally.” He straightened. “Exploratory only.”

  Harrow nodded once.

  And did not let his expression say what he was thinking.