Dawn hasn't fully arrived. The camp lights bleach everything the color of bone.
Two soldiers hook Noah under the arms and drag him toward the west side of the perimeter. Noah doesn't fight. His eyes are terrifyingly empty. His lips still move—softly reciting numbers—while his heels carve two long lines in the dirt.
No one speaks. The ones inventorying crates keep counting. The ones checking weapons keep checking. The diesel generator drones as if nothing has happened.
That normalcy is worse than screaming.
Brian stands outside the command tent, watches Noah get hauled away, then turns to the crowd that has gathered.
"You all saw it," Brian says, voice low, each word hitting the ground like a nail. "Unstable is a burden. Burdens get cleared."
He raises a black device wired into a larger metal case.
"Effective immediately, abnormality thresholds on all monitoring bands are reduced by twenty percent," Brian says. "Tachycardia, blood pressure variance, EEG spikes—cause doesn't matter. If your band shows red for more than three seconds, you report. Immediately."
Daniel sucks in a small breath.
"And after we report?" Marcus asks, voice packed tight.
"Isolation and observation." Brian looks at him. "Until stability is confirmed. Or uselessness is confirmed. From this point forward, Recovery Team priority is reclassified as consumable assets. Mission first. Personnel are replenishable. We have plenty."
Li stands among them and feels the thing on his wrist tighten.
Not physically—something subtler. The blink rhythm changes. It had been steady—one flash per second. Now it speeds up, slows down, and there's one blink that's too short, like a faulty connection.
He lowers his eyes.
In that exact second, the green lights—not just his—synchronize. In the corner of his vision he sees Daniel's band, and farther away a soldier's band: all of them flare green at the same instant, then go dark together.
Like a single switch owns them.
Cold spills down Li's spine.
Almost at once, the hum in his ears surges—whum—needle-sharp, punching at his temples. Blood threatens his nose again.
A hand slides into view holding a clipboard, blocking the line of sight between Li's wrist and Brian.
Erin.
She doesn't look at Li. She stares at the page and speaks as if reading inventory. "...Recovered item 7–4–D shows surface corrosion. Recommend quarantine handling…"
Her voice stays level—but he catches the phrase she threads through her teeth, barely audible: "Don't move. Breathe steady. You can break—but you can't be recorded breaking."
Li drags in a breath and forces the nausea and ringing down. The band's green light returns to its private, irregular blink.
Brian's lecture ends. People disperse. The air feels iced over.
Li drifts toward the tent where recovered items are stacked, just to breathe.
A woman in filthy work pants is counting metal parts there. She looks up once, expression neutral—like she sees any passerby.
But as Li comes close, she holds a wrench and taps it lightly on an iron drum three times.
Tok. Tok. Tok.
Li stops.
The woman—Rosanne—doesn't face him. She keeps sorting parts, voice so soft it almost sounds like she's talking to herself.
"Transfer relay point—next window isn't forty-eight hours. It's within forty-eight, and it may be advanced and moved."
Every muscle in Li's body tightens.
"Anything with a '7–4' prefix—escort code changes every four hours. Current fragment is 'Gray Raven—Echo.' You can verify that yourself." Rosanne's words come fast. "Price is—tell me the pattern of Thin Points you hear. Or…"
She finally lifts her eyes and looks at him. "Or you bring me anything you pulled that carries a 7–4 prefix. A tag. A restraint buckle. A seal strip. Anything."
Li's throat is dry. "Why should I trust you?"
"You don't have to." Rosanne's smile has no warmth in it. "But your daughter's window won't wait. Military info is always delayed. By the time they 'legally' confirm coordinates, the subject's already moved to the next test site." She shrugs. "I sell intel, and I sell it clean. Verify first. Then pay. No tricks."
She drops her gaze and goes back to work like the exchange never happened.
Li stands there, mind tangled. The hum keeps threading through his skull. The band keeps blinking.
"Li." Erin's voice comes from behind him.
He turns.
Erin studies him, eyes complicated. "Brian ordered a sweep. Camp perimeter, all non-registered personnel removed—leak prevention, contamination prevention." Her gaze sharpens. "Who were you just talking to?"
Li says nothing.
Erin steps closer, lowering her voice. "Two roads. One: stay with the military. Slow process, but at least 'legal.' Keep your band clean and I can keep digging—carefully. Two: black-market route. Fast, but if anything goes wrong, you're classified unstable on the spot. All leads freeze. Forever. You'll never find your daughter."
She locks eyes with him. "Choose."
"I—" Li opens his mouth—
A third voice cuts in.
"Choose my ass."
Marcus strides over, face storm-dark. "Brian's system burns people like batteries. Uses them up, tosses what's left. And black market? Black market has even less of a floor." He looks at Li. "But she said you can verify, right?"
Li nods.
"Then verify." Marcus bares his teeth. "Make her give you a lead we can check now. If it's real, we talk. If it's bait—I'll be the first one to break her."
Erin frowns, but she doesn't contradict him.
Li turns toward the recovery tent. Plenty of boxes sit there—freshly unloaded.
He walks in, closes his eyes halfway, and listens.
The hum thrums in his ears. But as he nears the stack, a specific sensation rises—thin resonance, like a needle lightly scratching the inner membrane.
He follows it and stops at a half-open wooden crate. Inside: salvage scraps—warped metal, charred circuit boards, and a pile of torn plastic restraints.
Li crouches and lets his fingers brush the restraints.
When he touches a strip of gray-white plastic—
His wristband goes berserk.
Not blinking—strobing, violent on-off-on-off, accompanied by a faint beep-beep. The hum in his ears spikes into a shriek. Blood drips straight down from his nose.
Erin steps in fast, placing her body between Li and the open yard. Her clipboard snaps down over his wrist with a hard clap.
"Patrol's coming!" Daniel hisses from farther off.
Rosanne is suddenly there too—like she's been standing in the wrong shadow the whole time. She flicks one glance at the restraint, then at Li's frantic band, and speaks in a rush.
"There's residual resonance compound in the plastic. It's keyed to Anchor-edge monitors—same frequency. These are used to bind Adaptive transport crates." Her eyes narrow. "Transfer isn't rescue. It's selection. A–47 is a batch; the real decision is based on stability curve and Resonance load capacity. If your daughter's curve doesn't qualify—"
She doesn't finish.
Li does it for her.
The unqualified don't even earn the right to be experimented on.
"Direction," Li rasps. The word comes out rough—sandpaper voice—blood tasting like rust on his tongue. "Give me a direction."
Rosanne digs in her pocket and produces a crumpled cigarette pack, shoves it into Li's hand. "I–90 west. Exit Seven. Abandoned freight transfer yard. Final batch of the window hits there before four a.m. tomorrow. That's all I can give."
Then she turns and melts into the departing supply convoy like she was never there.
Erin grabs Li by the arm and yanks him into the shadowed corner behind the tent wall. Her hand stays planted on his wrist under the clipboard. They're close enough to hear each other breathe.
"Are you insane?" Erin's voice shakes—not fear, restrained fury. "In front of everyone—"
"What choice do I have?" Li wipes his nose, stares at her.
Erin goes still. A few seconds pass. Then she releases him and pulls her own folded note from a pocket, pressing it into his hand.
"Anchor edge. I–90, Exit Seven. There's a patrol gap between three and four a.m." She looks at him, and there's something in her eyes Li can't name. "That's all I could dig out."
She holds his gaze a second longer. "Li—closer to the Anchorpoint, you become less like yourself. Don't forget that."
Footsteps approach.
Brian rounds the tent with two soldiers, face dark.
"We detected an abnormal signal over here," Brian says, eyes on Li. "Your band."
"Residual radiation on recovered items," Erin answers instantly, voice returning to professional calm. "Interference. Logged. I recommend quarantine processing for that batch."
Brian ignores her and stares at Li. "Starting next mission, your monitoring level increases. Embedded record switches to real-time transmission. And…" He pauses. "We're considering removing you from Recovery Team and reclassifying you as dedicated navigation asset."
"What?" Marcus steps in front of Li like a shield. "Say that again, Brian. He's a person, not your compass."
Brian's stare is ice. "Sergeant, watch your language. This is about mission efficiency."
"Efficiency? Calling a man a tool is efficiency?" Marcus's hand drops to his holster. "Touch him and see what happens."
The two soldiers raise their rifles in a single motion.
The air tightens to a wire.
Daniel shrinks backward. Sophia starts forward, then Marcus snaps her back with a look. She freezes a few meters away, eyes locked on Li—panic and helplessness all over her face. Li doesn't look at her.
Li looks at Brian. Then at Marcus's hand on the holster.
He feels suddenly tired—bone-deep. The shriek in his ears. The cold on his wrist. The iron taste of blood. The increasingly blurred image of his daughter's face in his mind.
And then—
In that exact second—
Every camp light dims together.
Not out. Just a hard dip, like a voltage sag, and then back to full.
At the same moment, every wristband in the camp flashes green in perfect synchronization.
Li's band. Marcus's band. Daniel's band. All of them.
One strong, unified blink.
Like something far away completed roll call.
In that blink of darkness and synchronized light, Li hears a new sound.
Not the hum.
Something harsher. Denser. Like a thousand signals crushing into the same channel—
geolocation noise.