The room fell into a respectful hush as Mute spoke, his voice carrying effortlessly across the space—smooth, measured, laced with quiet authority.
"What we're building here requires genuine collaboration," he said. "My role is to ensure the director's vision translates into field operations that actually deliver. You'll find I have high expectations. That's not a threat. It's a standard."
I stepped fully through the doorway.
The Mute I remembered from Hogsby had been a level-three teleporter grieving a stolen girlfriend—small, readable, painfully ordinary in the way of students who still hadn't stared into the abyss long enough to know what they were. That version had no right standing at the front of a government field department like he owned the air itself. Yet here he was, radiating the calm confidence of someone who had always known this exact moment was waiting for him.
