Rook invited selected officials to a confidential briefing after the coastal core had already entered his facility.
The invitation described an urgent technical consultation. It asked participants to acknowledge restrictions on disclosure before seeing the operating model. It did not include a neutral movement authorization for the transfer that had brought the object there.
The summit chair refused to let attendance be listed as approval. The officials who went would hear the proposal and report what could be assessed under the stated limits. They would not retrospectively authorize the harbor removal or grant an experimental mandate simply by entering the room.
Juno participated as a technical adviser from an adjoining consultation space. Tessa had the district’s relief questions. Eli remained with the outside group under his care plan, inherited talents inactive and no further native exposure permitted. Bram and Sera supplied the observed route and facility approach information through the neutral record.
Rook began with the capabilities everyone now knew he possessed: redundant supply, rated restraint equipment and staff able to operate both. The harbor’s lost reference made those advantages real. He used the loss to argue that centralized authority had become necessary.
An official asked to see the lower-level power routing before discussing authorization. Rook showed a simplified diagram and withheld the detailed version. Its release, he said, could expose protected systems while they were unstable. Full technical access would follow a mandate accepting his responsibility for the work.
