Rook arrived at the oversight meeting with an engineer, a vehicle manifest and a proposal for immediate access to the damaged chamber.
Eli arrived with Juno’s released images and a list of questions that did not fit on one page. The committee had invited witnesses, organizers, technical staff and representatives of the organizations offering assistance. It had not invited the public into the room, but it would publish the decisions and the reasons given for them.
A storm of conversation filled the corridor. A contestant wanted the trial suspended. A guild representative warned that the next gate cycle would not wait for the committee. A woman from the hospital network asked where injured participants could obtain copies of their treatment records. None of the questions was answered by the single image on the wall: the transparent display in the lower room, its casualty labels and streams of light frozen by the recorder.
Inside, the chair asked Rook to describe the assistance Aegis could provide.
“Structural stabilization equipment, two technicians familiar with gate-adjacent systems and armored transport for sensitive material,” Rook said. “The chamber has been damaged. If we wait until every organization has assembled its own equipment, another shift or power failure could destroy the evidence.”
