Fault Lines
By the time the sun fully dropped, the conference room on Level Seven felt like a pressure cooker with glass walls.
Regan had colonized one end of the long table with printouts and a laptop full of legal nightmares. Noor's face glowed from the wall screen, backlit by monitors. Elena sat in the middle, pen in hand, triage sheet in front of her like a confession she refused to sign.
Krell occupied the head of the table without looking like he'd chosen it. He simply sat, and the room rearranged around him.
"We don't have the bandwidth to move six," Regan said. "Not without leaving a paper trail I can't sanitize if this goes sideways."
"Four, then," Krell said. "We agreed on four."
"You agreed on four," Elena said. "We didn't."
Krell's gaze slid to her.
"Morrow," he said. "Explain why your conscience thinks we can magically ship two extra subjects through a pipeline already at capacity."
"It's not my conscience that's worried," Elena said. "It's the numbers."
She pushed the triage sheet forward.
Noor expanded it on the wall.
Rows of codes and names and clinical summaries filled the screen. Some highlighted green, some yellow, some red. The top third bore a thin blue line: current extraction candidates.
"Mira Tran," Elena said, tapping her pen on the name. "Already flagged. High insight, high potential whistleblower, high chance of surviving a transfer. Non-negotiable."
"Agreed," Regan said. "She's a liability from the moment she realizes this isn't therapy. Removing her and placing her somewhere dull helps everyone."
"Next," Elena said. "Subject AT-072, age nineteen, referred by child protective services. History of being bounced between homes. No criminal record. Moderate trauma, low aggression, high attachment response. If Arden goes under the spotlight, she'll take whatever narrative the loudest person gives her. That could be us. Or it could be a lawyer with a microphone."
"Her profile says she's compliant," Regan said. "Compliant people don't cause trouble."
"Compliant people do what they're told," Elena said. "You want to bet the future of Forge on her only ever being told things by our side?"
Regan pinched the bridge of her nose.
"Fine," she said. "That's two."
"Proctor, Damian," Noor said quietly.
His row glowed on the screen.
"Absolutely not," Regan said immediately. "He's a walking headline if we put him in the wrong place. Prior assaults. Court records. If anyone digs into his history after we move him, they'll scream 'they dumped volatile cases into the general population to hide evidence.'"
"Keep him where he is and he's a walking incident," Elena said. "He's already suspicious. Brant is poking him like a lab rat. If something cracks at Arden, Brant will push him until he explodes and say it was an unavoidable outcome. Then we get 'violent patient attacks caring staff' as the headline instead of 'experimental program manipulates aggression.'"
Noor's cursor hovered.
"I've modeled both scenarios," Noor said. "Neither is pretty. If he stays and something happens during the media window, the narrative is messy but containable. If we move him and he detonates later under less controlled circumstances, we lose control completely. Different press, different regulators, different countries, maybe."
"So we're sentencing him to being their favorite test case," Elena said.
"We're delaying his worst outcomes until we can actually guide them," Noor said. "Moving him right now is like tossing a lit match out the window and trusting the wind."
Silence settled for a moment.
"For what it's worth," Noor added, "I flagged him as 'watch closely.' I did not flag him as 'move now.'"
"Three," Elena said, forcing herself on. "Subject CL-019, mid-thirties, veteran with PTSD, signed into Arden by a desperate spouse. He has enough prior connection to official systems that if he ever learns the full extent of these experiments, he is very likely to pursue formal complaints. He knows how to use the word 'appeal.'"
Regan's eyes flicked over the summary.
"Veterans are bad optics," she said. "Fine. He joins the list."
"That's three," Krell said. "One more, if you make it convincing."
Elena didn't look at the fourth name.
She knew it by heart.
"Holcomb tie-in," she said. "Subject HM-033. Late twenties. Bounced through youth programs that share lineage with Holcomb's paperwork. Arden classified her as 'highly adaptive, high dissociation, poor self-reporting.'"
"Hm-033 is stable," Noor said. "For now."
"She's a living link between the old Orchard networks and the current programs," Elena said. "If anything comes out about Holcomb…and it will, eventually…her file becomes a pathway for investigators. We can either have her in a place we influence or leave her as a surprise witness with no supervision."
Regan flipped pages.
"Her metrics don't justify priority," Regan said. "She's not as high-risk as some others."
Elena swallowed.
"She reminds me of Lena," she said quietly.
Krell's eyes sharpened.
"That's not an argument," he said.
"It is," Elena said. "If we're going to keep pretending we're making choices based on 'least harm,' then some of those choices can't be purely tactical. HM-033 is the kind of person who gets crushed between systems because she doesn't yell loud enough. She goes in the truck, or I stop pretending this is triage and start calling it what it is."
"What is it?" Krell asked.
"Selection," she said. "The same thing they did in Holcomb. The same thing the Orchard was built on. We're just using spreadsheets instead of clipboards."
Regan shifted uncomfortably.
Noor, on the screen, didn't look away.
Krell studied Elena.
"You're very dramatic today," he said. "Is this about Holt?"
"This is about all of them," she said. "Holt included."
"No," Krell said. "Holt is different. He chose."
"Did he?" she asked.
"Enough," Regan cut in. "We don't have time for philosophical autopsies. We have a clinic under incoming media fire and a finite number of extraction slots."
Krell leaned back.
"Four," he said. "Tran. AT-072. The veteran. HM-033. Noor will adjust the model. Regan will build the paperwork. I want them moved or reclassified before publication hits."
"And Damian?" Elena asked.
"Stays," Krell said. "Under observation. He may be useful."
"Useful," Elena repeated.
Krell ignored the edge in her voice.
"Elena," he said, tone flattening into something almost kind, "you're not going to win every skirmish. Choose the ones where the numbers actually change. Today, they did."
She wanted to throw the pen at him.
Instead, she nodded once.
Noor added the fourth highlighted row.
"Transfers initiated," Noor said. "I'll start constructing pretexts. Two will be 'graduated to community care.' One 'requires specialized trauma programming' elsewhere. HM-033 can be moved under the Holcomb umbrella, actually. 'Consolidation of services.'"
Regan's fingers flew across the keyboard.
"You'll have your forms in an hour," she said. "Sign them fast. After Raj's piece hits, every signature becomes a liability."
"Elena," Krell said as the meeting disintegrated into logistics. "Tell Holt."
"I will," she said.
"And remind him," Krell added, "that he asked for this."
She met his gaze.
"So did you," she said.
---
Kieran sat on the edge of his bed, holster on the floor, shirt half-unbuttoned, when the call came.
Elena didn't bother with preliminaries.
"We got four," she said.
He sat up straighter.
"Mira?" he asked.
"Yes," she said. "Tran is on the list. So are three others. They'll be moved or reclassified within forty-eight hours. Maybe sooner if Regan's team can strong-arm Arlington into fast signatures."
"And Damian?" he asked.
Silence for half a second.
"Stays," she said. "For now."
His fingers tightened on the phone.
"Why?" he asked.
"Because we're not magicians," she said. "We can't pull every fuse without blowing the building."
"That's not why," he said.
She sighed.
"No," she admitted. "It's because people like him are what these programs were built to test. He's too central to the templates. If we yank him without a robust plan, someone else will plug a different Damian into the same slot. At least this one is watched by people who aren't fully dead inside."
"That's a low bar," he said.
"Welcome to our standards," she said.
He stared at the wall.
"You weighed him against the others," he said.
"Yes," she said.
"And he lost," he said.
"You knew that was going to happen when you started this," she said. "You can't pretend otherwise. You are one of the outcomes of those same calculations."
"That doesn't make them easier to accept," he said.
"It's not about 'accept,'" she said. "It's about 'act anyway.' You wanted erosion. This is how it looks: messy, compromised, unsatisfying."
He closed his eyes for a beat.
"Can we at least adjust how Brant uses him?" he asked. "Limit exposure to certain protocols. Flag him as 'non-optimal' for their worst scripts."
"We can try," she said. "We can nudge. Noor's good at subtle sabotage. But if Brant decides Damian is his pet project, there's only so much we can do without breaking character."
"I hate him," Kieran said.
"Brant?" Elena asked.
"Yes," he said.
"Get in line," she said.
He almost smiled.
"Forty-eight hours," he said. "That's not much time."
"It's all we have," she said. "Which brings us to your least favorite word."
"Coordination," he guessed.
"Close," she said. "Journalist."
He rubbed his forehead.
"I already gave her Arden," he said. "I can't keep feeding her without turning her into a conduit we don't control."
"Too late," Elena said. "She sent her questions. Aegis is drafting lies. Krell wants you to 'manage her expectations' so she doesn't sprint ahead of our capacity to move people."
"Translation?" he asked.
"Call her," Elena said. "Tell her what you can. Keep her focused on Arden, not Holcomb, not Forge. At least until the transfers are done."
"She hates being handled," he said.
"So do you," Elena said. "Which is why I'm asking you, not some polished comms puppet."
He let out a slow breath.
"I'll call her," he said.
"Good," Elena said. "And Holt?"
"What," he said.
"Don't try to save everyone," she said. "It'll make you useless to the ones we actually can."
He didn't answer.
She didn't expect him to.
---
Amelia was halfway through drafting her first paragraph when her phone lit up with a number she'd labeled:
> OPERATOR ?
She stared at it just long enough to decide she wasn't going to pick up.
Then she picked up.
"Journalist hotline," she said. "You're on the air."
"Raj must love you in staff meetings," Kieran said.
"He drinks more now," she said. "But I'm sure that's unrelated. Did you call to critique my lede or to meddle with my schedule?"
"Arden will start moving people," he said. "Soon. You need to time your piece accordingly."
"Oh, good," she said. "A man with no name wants to negotiate my publication date. Definitely not creepy."
"They have a list," he said. "Four subjects they'll try to extract or reclassify before your story hits. If they succeed, you reduce the immediate harm to those individuals. If you publish too early, the transfers stall and those names stay inside while the walls close."
She paused, fingers hovering over the keyboard.
"Names," she said. "You're telling me you have names."
"Yes," he said.
"You're going to give me those names," she said.
"No," he said.
She laughed once, harsh.
"Then this is just guilt-flavored air, Operator," she said. "You can't call a reporter and say 'people will get hurt' without giving her anything to weigh."
"I'm asking you to trust that not publishing for forty-eight hours reduces collateral," he said.
"Trust," she repeated. "What a funny word coming from you."
"It's the right one," he said.
She leaned back in her chair.
On the screen, her draft stared back. The first line read:
> Arden Clinical calls itself a place of recovery. The people who leave often call it something else.
"Forty-eight hours," she said. "That's an eternity in news."
"It's two days," he said.
"In two days, they can shred logs, 'lose' files, transfer staff, coach patients, scrub everything that proves systemic abuse," she said. "You're asking me to give the people I'm trying to expose extra time to hide the evidence."
"I'm asking you to give us time to get four people out before the building catches fire," he said.
"Us," she said. "You keep using that word like I'm on your team."
"You're not," he said. "You're the storm. I'm asking you to hit a specific coastline first."
She chewed the inside of her cheek.
"You sound very sure those four people matter," she said.
"They do," he said.
"You should know by now that I don't like making decisions in the dark," she said. "Names or nothing."
He hesitated.
Elena's voice was still in his head: Don't try to save everyone.
"Tran, Mira," he said finally. "Proctor, Damian. HM-033, Holcomb-linked subject. One veteran from their trauma cohort. That's all I'm giving you."
Her hand tightened on the phone.
"You just broke your own rules," she said quietly.
"Yes," he said.
"You realize I can call Arden pretending to be a family member and ask about them now," she said.
"You won't," he said.
"You seem extremely confident about my choices for someone who has only seen me under fluorescent lighting," she said.
"You're not going to risk spooking them," he said. "You're too good at your job."
She hated that his reasoning made sense.
"What are you actually asking?" she said.
"Delay your first publication by forty-eight hours," he said. "Send the questions. Keep pushing. But hold the story until I confirm the transfers are underway."
"And if you don't confirm?" she asked.
"Publish anyway," he said. "I won't have anything left to bargain with."
"You're assuming I care about your bargaining position," she said.
"You care about outcomes," he said. "So do I. That's the only overlap that matters."
She looked at the draft again.
"In forty-eight hours," she said, "someone else could beat us. A leak. A blog. A half-baked rant with screenshots. The story could spin out of our hands."
"It will spin regardless," he said. "You're just choosing which direction first."
She pinched the bridge of her nose.
"Forty-eight," she said at last. "And if I find out you used that window for anything other than getting those people somewhere safer, I will make you the story."
"Please don't," he said. "I photograph terribly."
She almost smiled.
"Don't call me again without more than numbers," she said, and hung up.
Her heart was beating too fast.
She stared at the screen.
Then, slowly, she changed the document name.
> ARDEN_DRAFT_V1_HOLD.
She opened a new file.
> ARDEN_BACKGROUND_NOTES – TRANSFERS.
At the top, she typed the four names he'd given her.
She added, underneath:
> If they vanish, this isn't a delay. It's evidence.
Then she went back to work.
---
Holcomb slept badly even on good nights.
The bar emptied earlier than usual. News of an upcoming inspection had drifted in from a city clerk who liked to gossip when he drank.
"Health and safety," he'd said. "Random. You know how it is. New guidelines. They're checking everyone."
Lena knew how it wasn't.
Random was a word bureaucrats used to pretend they weren't following someone else's list.
By the time she flipped the stools onto the tables, her shoulders ached.
She was wiping a ring of dried beer from the counter when the knock came.
Three sharp raps. Too measured to be a drunk, too polite to be a friend.
She slid the rag aside and reached under the bar.
Her fingers brushed cold metal.
She didn't pull it.
Yet.
The knock came again.
"Bar's closed," she called.
"City inspection," a voice replied. Male. Somewhere in that vague mid-range that could sound friendly or threatening depending on the script. "We left a notice last week."
"You left it in the wrong bin, then," she said. "Come back in daylight."
"Can't," the voice said. "Schedule's booked. We can be in and out in fifteen minutes."
Lena's teeth clenched.
Fifteen minutes was enough to plant anything they wanted.
She thumbed her phone under the counter, screen lighting up. One tap. Two. A message, pre-written days ago, sent to a contact with no name assigned.
> Come downstairs. Suits.
She walked to the door and cracked it open two inches, chain still on.
Two men stood on the step.
Clipboards. Reflective vests. Badges that looked real enough if you didn't stare too long.
Their shoes were wrong.
City inspectors didn't wear good leather in this part of town.
"Evening, ma'am," the taller one said. "We're just—"
"Dying to come in, yeah, I heard," she said. "Show me the notice."
He lifted the clipboard.
On it, a printed form with the city's logo.
It looked right. Too right. No coffee stain, no bent edges.
"You get that laminated at home?" she asked.
The shorter one snorted despite himself.
The tall one glared at him.
"Ma'am," Tall said, "we really don't want to have to mark you as 'non-cooperative.' It gets complicated from there."
"Complicated is my love language," she said.
Behind them, at the far end of the alley, a shadow detached itself from the brick.
Kieran walked toward the door with the calm inevitability of gravity.
The shorter man noticed him first.
"Place is closed, sir," Short said.
"I live here," Kieran said. "Problem?"
Tall shifted.
"Nothing a quick inspection won't fix," he said. "City regs. New code requirements. You know how it is."
"I do," Kieran said. "Usually, inspectors wear city-issue boots, not bespoke oxfords."
Short looked down reflexively.
Tall's jaw hardened.
"We have ID," Tall said. "You need to move aside."
Kieran smiled.
It didn't reach his eyes.
"Show me," he said.
Tall held up his badge.
Kieran leaned in, but not close enough to give them his center of gravity.
He took in the crest, the lamination, the microprint, the serial number.
Noor whispered in his ear, having piggybacked off a quick snapshot from his contact lens.
"Serial doesn't exist," she said. "Template does. Someone printed a blank and filled it in."
"Looks almost real," Kieran said. "You should get a refund."
Tall's eyes narrowed.
"Who exactly are you?" he asked.
"Tenant," Kieran said. "Sometimes I pretend to be security when people knock after hours."
"This is official business," Tall said.
"Then you won't mind if we call your office," Kieran said.
He pulled his phone out, already dialing.
Short shifted, suddenly nervous.
Tall put a hand out.
"No need to escalate," Tall said. "We can reschedule."
"Already escalated," Kieran said, phone at his ear. "Don't worry. I'm sure the city will be thrilled to hear you're doing overtime."
Tall's gaze flicked to Lena.
For a second, she saw calculation there.
Not "we need to inspect this bar."
"Is this asset compromised?"
"We'll come back," Tall said abruptly. "Daytime. With more documentation."
"Bring cookies," Lena said sweetly. "Inspections are very draining."
Short almost laughed again.
Tall shot him a look that promised consequences.
They turned and walked away, pace controlled.
Once they'd rounded the corner, Kieran closed his phone.
"You didn't actually call them," Lena said.
"No," he said. "I called Elena and let it ring once. That's enough for Noor to know where to look."
"She'll trace them?" Lena asked.
"She'll trace whoever paid for their badges," he said.
Lena unhooked the chain and opened the door fully.
"You people send tests with nicer fonts than the ones I grew up with," she said.
"That wasn't us," he said. "Not directly. That was someone making sure Holcomb's quiet corner isn't harboring surprises."
"Bad news for them," she said. "We're full of surprises."
He stepped inside.
"For a second there," she added, "I thought you weren't coming."
"I was nearby," he said.
"Sure," she said. "You just happened to be in the alley when the fake city boys came knocking."
"I like this bar," he said.
She snorted.
"You don't even drink," she said.
"I like the owner," he said.
She looked at him sharply.
His face didn't change.
"You're terrible at sentiment, you know that?" she said.
"I try not to practice," he said.
She locked the door again.
"Orchard kids get good at spotting uniforms," she said. "Next time they knock, I won't wait for you."
"Next time they knock," he said, "you might already be gone."
"Moving me like one of your subjects?" she asked.
"Moving you before they turn you into leverage," he said.
She studied him.
"You think they care that much about a bartender?" she asked.
"They care about whoever Holt cares about," Noor said in his ear.
He didn't repeat it.
Instead, he said, "They care about Holcomb. You're part of that story, whether you want to be or not."
She leaned on the bar.
"Then I guess we better make it a good story," she said.
---
By midnight, Arden's lights had dimmed to their night setting.
The common rooms were mostly empty.
In Common Room B, Mira lay on a couch, facing the wall, pretending to sleep.
The cameras watched.
She counted the hums of the ventilation system, the footsteps in the hall, the soft squeak of nurse shoes.
At the one-hundred-twenty-third hum, she heard it.
Click.
The slight difference in sound when a door opened that wasn't supposed to.
She kept her eyes closed.
Footsteps.
Not the light, quick rhythm of the night nurse.
Heavier. Measured.
They stopped near her.
"Tran," Brant's voice said quietly.
She opened her eyes.
The room was dim enough that his face looked softer, but she knew better than to trust that.
"You're supposed to be asleep," he said.
"You're supposed to be home," she said.
He smiled.
"We both have trouble with 'supposed to,' it seems," he said. "Get up. Let's take a walk."
"It's not session time," she said.
"It is now," he said.
Her muscles resisted the command automatically.
She swung her legs off the couch anyway.
Bare feet on cool floor.
He led her out into the hallway.
No one stopped them.
The camera above the door blinked red.
In the security room, a tech glanced at the feed, saw Dr. Brant with a patient, and looked away.
On Noor's screen, the movement logged as:
> ROOM_B_EXIT – TRAN, M. – 00:03 – ESCORT: BRANT, I.
Noor frowned.
"Elena," she said. "He's moving Tran after hours."
Elena, halfway through yet another memo to yet another oversight body, looked up.
"Where?" she asked.
"Downward," Noor said. "Basement. That's not unusual for night sessions, but the timing bothers me."
Elena's stomach tightened.
"Wake Kieran," she said.
"He never sleeps," Noor said. "But I'll call him anyway."
---
Mira's footsteps echoed in the stairwell.
Brant walked just ahead of her, one hand lightly on the rail.
"Change of environment is important," he said conversationally. "We learn different things in different spaces."
"Most people use parks for that," she said.
"Parks are messy," he said. "Too many variables."
He opened a door at the bottom of the stairs.
The room beyond was not on any brochure.
Concrete floor. Metal chairs. One-way glass. The comforting aesthetics of the upper floors stripped away.
Mira stopped in the doorway.
"No," she said.
Brant turned back, eyebrows lifting.
"No?" he repeated.
"I don't like this room," she said.
"You've never been here," he said.
"I know," she said. "I don't like it anyway."
He studied her.
"You're afraid," he said.
"Congratulations," she said. "You get a gold star."
He smiled.
"I won't hurt you, Mira," he said. "Not physically."
"That's not the kind of hurt I'm worried about," she said.
He gestured toward the chair.
"Sit," he said.
Her heart pounded.
Somewhere, upstairs, a camera blinked.
Somewhere else, Noor's dashboard flashed yellow.
Elena's phone buzzed on her desk.
Somewhere between, in a city that didn't yet know it was balancing on a fault line, Kieran checked his phone, read Noor's one-line message, and moved for the door before he'd fully processed the words.
> BRANT + TRAN – BASEMENT. AFTER HOURS. BAD FEELING.
The building was starting to shift.
Someone had kicked the load-bearing wall.
The cracks were finally ready to show.