Juno put the cutting tool on the table, looked at it, and returned it to the case.
Eli had not asked her to use it. That made the movement harder to watch. She knew where a controlled interruption might answer part of their question. She also knew the route they wanted to examine might help keep a district barrier standing.
“If it does nothing,” she said, “we learn very little. If it does something, somebody may learn it before we do.”
Beyond the visible housing, the defense branch disappeared into a wall. On the other side lay a sleeping hall the shelter council hoped to reopen. They had asked for an inspection after the report about persistent quest links reached them. The hall had beds, a water point, and enough room for people now packed into school corridors. It also stood close enough to the barrier that an assurance about the equipment would decide whether families spent another night upright against classroom walls.
Eli looked at the unbroken route on Juno’s drawing.
“Could we isolate just the new part?”
“Not from the records we have. That’s the question the change logs should answer.”
Sera had already requested those logs, the specifications, and the authority under which the completed-quest links had been added. Emergency command’s reply arrived while Juno was marking a place for passive monitoring. Access was denied on security grounds. The defense feed could be targeted by people who understood its design. The coalition’s public interest in unexplained connections…
