By the third day, the city stopped pretending nothing had changed.
It showed in small ways first.
More shields humming lower over market streets.
More patrols where Deviants liked to gather.
More faces looking up when a siren wailed, not with curiosity but calculation.
Kael felt it as a pressure behind his eyes.
The Network's feeds were a mess of shaky footage and half‑confirmed rumors.
A protest outside a civic hall, quickly corralled.
A patrol refusing a collar order on camera before the clip cut.
A teacher's union calling for "transparent oversight of all containment facilities."
Half of it could have been staged by the Board for all he knew.
The other half felt too raw to fake.
"It is working," Taro said.
He sat cross‑legged on the floor, cables spread around him like roots, screen light painting his face an unhealthy blue.
"This is not 'working'," Kael said. "This is everyone freaking out at once."
"That is what working looks like," Taro said. "Nothing moves until people are scared enough of staying still."
Rin sat near the door, hoodie up, eyes on the narrow slice of alley visible through the crack.
"Scared people also do stupid things," she said. "Like attack patrols alone because they saw a video and think they are invincible now."
"Or because they think they will die soon anyway," Kael said.
No one argued.
Aiden stepped into the center of the room and set a small portable projector on the crate they had been using as a table.
"Watch," he said.
Taro rolled his eyes.
"If this is another talking head saying the footage is 'deeply concerning but unverified' I am going to start biting screens," he said.
"It is not," Aiden said.
He touched the projector.
An image flickered up against the far wall.
Not the lab.
Not the pillar.
A meeting room.
Plain. Windowless.
Five people at a table.
Three he recognized from Board profiles.
One he knew only vaguely as a civic council rep.
The fifth was Mara.
The clip had no audio, just the silent dance of body language.
Mara leaned forward more than once.
The council rep gestured sharply.
One Board member shook her head.
"Where did you get this," Rin asked.
"Rian," Aiden said. "He is leaking what he can. This is from an internal oversight committee. No sound, but the file metadata says they are discussing 'containment policy review in light of Twelve‑North incident and subsequent leak.'"
"Very reassuring title," Taro muttered.
Kael watched Mara's face.
She looked angrier than he had ever seen her.
Not at a suspect.
At the table.
"Rian says she is pushing reforms," Aiden said. "Independent observers. Collars only under strict medical supervision. No more facilities without external audits."
"Words," Kael said.
"Yes," Aiden said. "And in that room, words are weapons."
He let the clip run.
At the end, the Board member at the head of the table stood and spoke.
Her expression was a mask of patience wearing thin.
The council rep withdrew, stiff.
Mara sat back, jaw tight.
"Vote logged," the metadata noted.
"Outcome," Taro said. "Come on, do not be shy."
Aiden tapped the corner.
A line of text expanded.
PROPOSAL: SUSPEND NEW HIGH‑RISK CONTAINMENT PROJECTS PENDING FULL REVIEW.
STATUS: DEFERRED.
ACTION: CONSOLIDATE EXISTING FACILITIES. INCREASE FIELD MONITORING.
"So they are not building new pillars this week," Taro said. "They are just going to squeeze everyone harder on the street. Wonderful."
"They blinked," Aiden said quietly.
Kael frowned.
"That looks like digging in," he said.
"It is," Aiden said. "But it is also not nothing. Someone in that room is worried enough to put 'suspend' on a document. Even deferred, it exists. That is a crack."
He looked up at the others.
"This is what Vale was talking about," he said.
They stared at him.
"Who," Rin asked.
"Lysa's new friend," Aiden said. "Orion liaison. The one trying to convince her to help the Board manage the fallout."
Kael's hands clenched.
"How do you know that," he asked.
"Because if I were them, I would do it," Aiden said. "And because Rian mentioned a new division working on 'nonphysical engagement' with high‑value detainees."
Taro grimaced.
"Nonphysical," he said. "Always a lie."
"Yes," Aiden said.
Kael stepped closer to the projected image until Mara's silent face filled his field of vision.
"If they have Lysa, they are using her to buy time," he said. "To keep people like Mara from jumping ship and people like us from hitting anything that looks like Twelve‑North."
"And if Lysa agrees," Rin asked. "If she tells us to stand down."
Silence.
The idea hung there like smoke.
"She would not," Kael said.
"You do not know that," Aiden said softly.
Kael turned on him.
"Yes, I do," he said. "She threw herself into a room full of boiling waste to give us an exit. She is not about to look at all this and say 'actually, let us trust the Board.'"
"Trust and strategy are not the same," Aiden said. "If Vale is even half as smart as he thinks he is, he will not ask her to endorse them. He will ask her to manage us."
The word sat wrong in Kael's mouth.
"Manage," he said.
"Imagine," Aiden said, "that you are in a room you cannot break. Your friends are alive but hunted. The city is on the edge of either change or crackdown. Someone offers you a choice. Help shape a controlled, partial reform, or keep fighting from the outside and risk the Board slamming everything shut. What do you do."
"Keep fighting," Kael said.
"Even if the backlash kills people you just freed," Aiden asked.
"Yes," Kael said.
The answer came too fast.
He heard it.
So did Rin.
"So you are fine being the reason more people end up in chairs," she said quietly. "As long as you were not the one tying them."
"That is not what I said," he snapped.
"That is what it sounds like," she replied.
Heat crept up Kael's neck.
He looked at Aiden.
"Whose side are you on," he asked.
"Yours," Aiden said. "Theirs. Hers. The city's. That is the problem."
Taro scrubbed his face with both hands.
"This is why movements split," he said. "Half wants to burn everything down. Half wants to negotiate from the rubble. Meanwhile the Board just keeps building new rooms."
Kael stepped away from the projector.
"Say Lysa does tell us to wait," he said. "You going to listen."
Aiden's jaw worked.
"I will listen," he said. "That does not mean I will obey."
"Good," Kael said.
Rin sighed.
"We cannot even agree on how we would hypothetically disagree with a message we have not actually received," she said. "This is going great."
The screen blinked.
A new notification slid into the corner of Taro's interface.
He frowned and tapped it.
"What is that," Aiden asked.
"Low‑band ping," Taro said. "Obsolete protocol. Like, pre‑Network days. Someone is trying very hard to look like a broken fridge."
"From where," Kael asked.
Taro's fingers danced.
"Hard to trace by design," he said. "But it is bouncing off an Orion relay. That narrows it down to any one of a thousand terrible options."
The ping came again.
Three short pulses.
Pause.
Three more.
Rin leaned in.
"That is a pattern," she said. "Old code. My parents used it when they did not trust the channels. Three‑three‑two for 'compromised but safe.' Three‑two‑three for 'do not respond.' This is three‑one‑three."
"What is that," Kael asked.
"'Listen only'," she said.
Taro whistled.
"Whoever this is," he said, "they know what they are doing."
He routed the signal through a sandbox and let it unfold.
Text appeared.
Not a voice.
Not a video.
Just a line.
WHITE ROOM. NEW TERMS. DO NOT HIT UNTIL YOU SEE THE CAGE.
Kael's heartbeat stumbled.
"That has to be her," he said.
"Maybe," Taro said. "Could be anyone who knows the code and wants us hesitant."
Rin shook her head.
"The phrase," she said. "White room. My mother used that in stories about soft cages. Places where you do not see bars, so you start building your own."
Kael stared at the words.
"'Do not hit until you see the cage'," he said. "What does that even mean."
"It means she is negotiating," Aiden said.
His voice was very quiet.
"She is not saying stand down," he went on. "She is saying wait until we know what they are building before we decide how to break it."
Kael bristled.
"Waiting is how they win," he said.
"Rushing is how we lose everyone," Aiden said.
Taro looked between them and the message.
"This is exactly the kind of thing Vale would want," he said. "Us paralyzed between caution and rage while the Board drafts policies."
"Lysa would not write what he wants," Kael said.
"She would write what she thinks gives us the best odds," Aiden said. "Even if it looks like what he wants."
Rin spoke before they could loop again.
"Maybe we treat it as what it says," she suggested. "We do not hit blind. We pick targets only when we know how they fit the new cage."
Aiden considered.
"That we can do," he said.
Kael dragged a hand through his hair.
"You are both assuming this is real," he said.
"Yes," Rin said. "Because the alternative is that it is fake and we still should not hit randomly when we do not know the terrain."
He hated that she was right.
"Fine," he said at last. "We slow down. We watch. We find the cage."
"And when we do," Taro said, "we decide whether to knock politely or bring a bigger hammer."
Kael's smile was humorless.
"No one in this city has ever listened when we knocked," he said. "But sure. We can practice our manners while we look."
***
In the white room, Vale watched Lysa from behind a pane of invisible glass that was not really glass.
She sat at the table, fingers interlaced, eyes closed.
If he did not know better, he would think she was meditating.
He did know better.
"She accepted the communication channel," an analyst said behind him. "Message went out on the old code, just like we designed."
"Did she alter it," Vale asked.
"No," the analyst said. "Text matched template with minor stylistic adjustments. She added the phrase 'see the cage'."
Vale smiled slightly.
"Of course she did," he said.
"Do you think they will listen," the analyst asked.
"Some," Vale said. "Enough to slow them. Not enough to stop them. That is what we want."
The analyst shifted.
"With respect, sir," they said, "if we give her too much room, she could coordinate them. Turn your channel against us."
"If we give her no room, she has nothing to lose," Vale said. "People with nothing to lose are inefficient negotiators."
He looked at Lysa again.
"Right now she is trying to calculate how to use us without becoming us," he said. "It is a narrow line. Most people fall off. She might not. That makes her valuable."
"And if she does fall," the analyst asked.
"Then she proves our point for us," Vale said. "Either way, the Board gets a narrative."
He turned away from the window.
"Prepare the next session," he said. "We will give her something real to chew on."
"Such as," the analyst asked.
"Draft oversight proposals," Vale said. "Half sincere, half poisoned. I want to see which parts she bites and which she spits out."
He paused.
"And flag everything Rian moves off Internal," he added. "He is not as subtle as he thinks."
The analyst nodded.
"Yes, sir," they said.
Vale walked down the corridor that was not quite there.
Behind him, in the room with no edges, Lysa opened her eyes.
She could not hear the exchange.
She did not need to.
The message she had sent had left her with a familiar, unpleasant taste.
Compromise.
It was the flavor of trenches, not victories.
"Come on then," she murmured.
The walls did not answer.
In the depot, Kael looked at the same seven words again and again.
White room. New terms. Do not hit until you see the cage.
He did not realize his hands were sparking until Rin reached over and closed her fingers around his.
"Careful," she said.
He swallowed.
"Right," he said. "Careful."
For the first time since Twelve‑North, he let himself admit the possibility that the next move might not belong to them.
It made the need to take it back burn even hotter.